Ally's pov:

We ended up sitting there in the library for quite a while. I told him everything that went down with my friends back in my room. He told me about what went down in his driveway before coming here.

So all and all, I guess we both were having a pretty shitty day.

I had tried to get him to answer one of the calls from his roommates, but he insisted that he would just deal with it later tonight.

I told him he was going to give Dylan a heart attack by doing that, to which pretended to be relieved as he responds, "finally."

This guy I swear...

We must have talked for over two hours when suddenly I noticed I got a missed call from Zoe. At first, I thought it was just her telling me that Claire got back safe to our room, but I was shocked to see a following text that read, SOS.

"What's wrong?" Axel asks, see my reaction to the text.

I scratch the back of my neck and say, "Zoe sent an SOS to me. I'm going to call her back and make sure everything is alright."

Axel nods his head as I stand and walk a few steps away to get some privacy as I answer the call. When I do so, the sound of her rapid breaths on the other line concern me.

"Hey, Zoe? Hello?" I say when I don't hear a response the first time.

Her side stays silent, and after a few seconds, I go to ask for her again until I hear her whisper, "Ally?"

My heart skips a beat at the sound of her voice. She sounded as if she was scared, and was trying to keep quiet from something.

"Is everything alright?" I ask, unintentionally whispering back.

Axel, who was watching me from a distance, gives me a concerned expression. I shrug my shoulders and hold up my pointer finger, signaling him to wait a minute so that I could try to figure out what was happening.

I wait a few more seconds for Zoe to catch her breath before she says, "here's here."

"What? Who's here?" I repeat, not understanding what she was trying to say from those two words alone.

"Ben."

My brain freezes. And for a second, I can't comprehend what is happening as I hear the sound of footsteps approaching me.

Axel appears in front of me, trying to get me to look at him with a concerned expression. I put a hand on my head as I say, "What do you mean Ben is there-..."

The sound of banging on a door from the other side of the line stops me from continuing my sentence as I gasp.

"Zoe where are you?"

"I'm in your room. Sophia must have told him about the fight, because the next thing I know he is here. He started banging on the door a few minutes ago to be let in. Claire isn't back yet, and you left." My heart drops into my stomach hearing Zoe's panicked voice.

The banging on the other end gets louder, and I can just make out the sound of Ben yelling to be let in.

"Don't let him in! I'll be right there." I say, and next thing I know, I'm panickily racing out of the library with Axel hot on my heels.

Axel was only able to pick up about a quarter of the conversation, but what from he did hear, he was able to relatively piece together, which was the fact that someone was at my door trying to get in, and if I wasn't here with him, I would have been in that room with Zoe in this exact moment.

That is all it took to piss him off as he follows behind me.

We get there in only a few minutes, considering the fact that we ended up running most of the way back.

Skipping the elevator, we run up the stairs and by the time we make it to my floor, I'm out of breath, gasping for air.

Axel, on the other hand, seemed fine, which gave me the reality check I needed to start worrying about getting to shape.

I try to catch my breath as we round the corner, only to see the door to my room completely broken off, and the sound of a man yelling coming from my room.

I let out a panicked "oh my god" under my breath as I attempt to run into the room, but Axel's arm shoots out in front of me to stop.

"Stay behind me," He says in a gruff voice before pushing me behind him as we enter the room.

I take in the horrible sight once we are in. Sophia was standing off to the side, covering her mouth in shock as Ben stands there, screaming at Zoe as he corners her into the back corner of the room.

He throws his arms around as he shouts vulgar words at her. His face was beet red in anger, and his eyes looked wild.

It was a frightening sight to see, and with every step he takes he forces her further against the wall.

I catch a few of his words, demanding her to tell him where Claire and I are. He only was able to get these words in before Axel is taking angry steps towards him and grabbing him by the back of his collar. With only one half-ass yank, Axel was able to throw him to the wall.

Ben, blind with rage, instantly starts throwing punches. Axel blocks them easily, before throwing him to the ground to get him to stop moving.

Ben's eyes shoot wide open in shock as he's thrown to the ground like a sack of potatoes, clearly not aware of who entered the room when his back was turned.

His eyes proceed to widen when he takes in Axel, who was nearly double his size thanks to Axel being so tall and muscular from literally spending almost every day at the gym. Not only that, but the stellar fact that he is a reining boxing champ.

Ben is nearly shaking, probably realizing just who Axel is just as I am running over to Zoe and pulling her into a hug.

"Are you okay?" I ask after a few seconds, pulling away from her. Her face was as white as a ghost as she tries to nod her head, but I could tell the intensity of it all spooked her, to say the least.

I urge Zoe to take a seat in my desk chair as I turn back towards Axel and Ben. Axel was saying something to Ben, but he said it so lowly that I wasn't able to catch it from where I was.

As this is happening, I take note not to look at Sophia, because frankly, I was beyond pissed right now.

I don't care if she meant to unleash her sicko boyfriend on us or not, but the fact that it happened to Zoe all by herself upsets me to no end.

Clearly, all three of us were the target, which makes me feel a bit guilty that I wasn't here when it happened. I'm just glad we were able to get over here before anything else happened, and Axel was here to stop it.

"Ally, I-..." Sophia, who had picked up on me ignoring her, tries to say something, but I turn my head, clearly making a point that I wasn't interested in talking to her right now.

Axel doesn't let go of Ben until the campus police arrive. Ben pretty much turns himself into them with no restraint, clearly too intimidated by Axel to try and fight for himself.

After they take him away, one of them stays back to ask a few questions, and we answer as much as we could. Sophia only speaks when the questions are addressed towards her, otherwise she stands there awkwardly, too embarrassed about the situation to say much else.

I could sense Axel looking at me when she was answering, trying to see what I was thinking. It wasn't too hard to figure it out though.

I was mad.

I wanted to scream that her boyfriend was an abuser and could have possibly hurt Zoe as well if we didn't get here on time.

But I stayed quiet and let the rage eat me away until the policeman decided that he didn't have any more questions. He leaves after saying that he will get someone up here to replace the door, and not long after, Sophia leaves right after him.

I don't even mind the fact that my door is completely broken off its hinges and every curious person on my floor was peeking into my room as I take a seat on my floor, resting my head on my hands.

"It's okay. Everything will be alright now." Axel comes and sits beside me on the floor, getting only more concerned when I don't say anything back.

I sense Zoe stand up from in front of me, and I watch as she sits down on the floor beside me to get away from the open view that leads straight out into the hallway.

"Can't people just mind their own damn business." Axel curses as another person stops and stares into my room.

But I just close my eyes and force myself to finally breathe as Zoe puts a head on my shoulder and breathes out a sigh.

Everything is going to be alright.

"Want to draw straws to see who has to tell Claire what happened?" Zoe asks innocently, and it makes me feel a bit better that she's okay enough to joke after something like this.

I let out a small laugh as I say, "deal."