Anna could feel her legs hurt as she ran through the woods. She wasn't going to stop, she knew she couldn't. She could hear the voices, his voice, echoing and rattling the trees as their leaves fell like dew in the midnight. She could see the bright ray of torchlight pointed in her direction far far away.

She needed to get away. She didn't care where she was going. all she knew was she needed to get as far away from that house as she could.

She knew the only reason Bill was coming after her was because he had no story to tell the Atian social workers when they came the next week to know how Anna was fairing with the programme. He didn't care about her. Anna knew exactly what was going to happen if she went back with him.

Darn it

Anna was running too hard she had barely seen the large stone right in front of her. She kicked it, sending her straight to the ground with a thud.

She wanted to scream in pain. She wanted to cry so loud but she couldn't. She placed a hand over her mouth, clinging on to the large tree beside her for support as she glared at her twisted ankle. She couldn't believe it, she couldn't believe how dislocated it was, and such bad timing.

She could hear his breathing, he was getting really close, too close. She couldn't afford to let herself heel first.

"breathe Anna."

She told herself taking deep Breaths. Anna could feel the tears in her eyes that threatened to fall as she slowly started to reach for her feet at her feet. She had to do it, she had to fix herself quickly so she could walk again.

Darn it!

If only she didn't have that stupid bracelet on, healing would have been so easy, and she wouldn't have had to run for her life either. She'd have had enough strength to fight, and speed to leave.

One, two, snap!

She snapped her ankle back In position, holding her mouth so she didn't scream in pain as her bone cracked.

"You can't run from me Anna."

Anna hadn't even dealt with her leg completely and Bill was almost halfway to her. Anna grabbed the tree's Trusk, trying to rise to her feet before he got any closer. She limped a little, pulling her tiny bag from the ground. She hid behind the tree. There was no way she could keep walking in the condition she was in. She was already so tired. She panted as heavy beads of sweats rolled down her face.

Breathe Anna,

She took deep breaths as the footsteps and voices drew closer. They were probably not going to find her if they just kept moving forward. Anna knew she has to act invisible enough to get away with that part of the plan. But the pain, It was just too much for her to bear. She kept biting into the sleeves of her shirt as hard as she could, so no one would hear her cry.

"I just want to talk Anna, I know you're not far from home yet." Bill kept yelling. "I know you're here somewhere baby girl. Why don't you just come back home and we can sort this all out."

Anna knew she was only going to be a fool if she ever listened to him. A liar was all Bill ever was.

"Running away isn't going to solve anything Anna. It never does, Where would you go? You can't survive a day outside without me, without your family. Like it or not Anna, I'm the only chance you've got, your only chance to live like us, like the humans."

Anna held her breath. She could feel herself burning hot, she was having a fever. Her throat suddenly felt so sore and her vision was blurry.

Just wait it out Anna.

She tried to convince herself.

Wait it all out. You can do this.

The voices stopped and the footsteps too. Anna shut her eyes for a minute, the entire forest was dark. No torchlights, no more talking. She took deep breaths. They were gone weren't they? Her plan worked or so she thought.

Anna slowly opened her eyes.

"Peek a boo."

She screamed.

Anna opened her eyes quickly, jumping up from the bed as fast as she could. Nightmares like the one she had terrified her and it got even worse since She gave Angelo her blood. They were more like memories. Hurtful memories from her childhood.

Her heart was racing. She placed her hand on her heart just to know how much. She could feel the beads of sweats as they formed on her forehead even with the air conditioner on. It was hard to breathe, she was suffocating but she tried to calm herself , she tried to breathe. She looked around the room, trying to get her memory to start working again,

"Hey,"

Anna looked at the door. It was Angelo. He increased his pace forward the moment he noticed the look on her face, how terrified she was. It scared him too Angelo hurried over to the bed quickly, dropping the mugs on the tiny reading table.

"Are you okay?"

He sat down right beside her. Anna gulped hard, it was a dream, it was nothing more than a nightmare. There was no need for her to be scared anymore or cause an alarm. She tucked her hair behind her head, shutting her eyes for a second.

She nodded.

"I'm fine." she opened her eyes slowly, forcing a smile on her pale lips.

"I just had a nightmare, that's all."

Angelo stared at her for a minute. He was worried about her, he slowly leaned closer and placed his hand on her forehead. She was burning hot.

"Anna you have a fever."

"it's nothing." She really didn't want to make him worry. "I'd be fine. It's just, I just had a nightmare again."  She turned to the table and reached for a cup of coffee.

Angelo exhaled.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked her.

Anna turned to him.
Was he really asking her to tell him about her past? No one had ever been that interested in her before. She looked into his eyes and could tell his desperation to see her, to understand her, to help her.

"Does it have anything to do with the scars on your back? The whip marks?"

She scoffed. She didn't know what to say.

"Did your foster parents do that to you?" Angelo moved closer. Anna couldn't help it, she really didn't want to talk about it, she didn't want to remember. She was still shaking at the thought of it. It didn't matter how many years had passed her by, she couldn't stop herself from being so terrified. It was hard pushing back the tears in her eyes.

"Anna, what did they do to you?"

Anna sniffed. This was Angelo, for the first time in her life, someone actually wanted to know about her, someone cared to concern himself about who she was and what she went through in the hands of the humans. She didn't know what she was doing, he was one of them. How was she letting herself get so vulnerable with one of them? But Anna knew one thing for sure, she trusted him. She could trust him.

She cleaned the tears that were about to drop from her eyes hurriedly and sniffed.

"You said something about people forcing their way with you the other day, was it him? Your step father? Did he hurt you?"

Anna inhaled sharply. She was barely saying anything but it was like Angelo was reading through her.

Angelo frowned. Her silence was telling him all he needed to know and he just couldn't help himself from feeling all that anger build up inside of him. Anna sniffed looking away quickly.

"Did he-" Angelo stopped for a minute, he didn't know what to say, he had the words in his mouth but he couldn't bring his tongue to let to out. He exhaled and let himself sit helplessly in the bed.

Anna let out a loud sob. Angelo's words were breaking her heart all over again. Angelo sighed. He couldn't stand it, he couldn't stand watching her like that. He leaned closer to her and took her cup of coffee from her shaking hands. He dropped it on the table and turned back to her, so he could take her hands, he rubbed them.

"W-when I was five, I met them, for the first time in my life, your people, humans," she looked at him. "They had broken into our home in the Arc, with their guns and rifle to take me and my mother. Apparently," she breathed loudly. "My parents, they had broken the maternity law, two children per Atian house hold. My parents," she scratched her forehead. "They uh, they hid me, and tried to protect me from them but they caught on to us. I watched them kill my entire family, my parents, and my brother," her voice broke just as he squeezed her hands to give her strength. Anna needed a minute, it was hard, it was hard relieving that moment, the trauma she faced.

"When I was thirteen, I was enlisted for the integration program." Anna's words sent shivers down his spine, and hers too. She wanted to tell him, she was ready to tell him.

"I was given to this family, the Clinton family. Bill and Veronica were supposed to be my foster parents. I was so scared and anxious at first because I had never had a human family before, and all the stories I knew about them, all the stories that were told in the Arc, at first, they seemed really sweet, too sweet to believe, and It got better when the funds from the government started coming in. It got me thinking, maybe I was wrong, maybe we were wrong, maybe the humans, they weren't what we thought we were, they weren't all the same, not all of them just wanted to take and destroy. Bill and Veronica, they trying to have kids but couldn't. I thought that this was it, that maybe, they could be the family I had lost, that if they were just being nice to me, it wouldn't hurt to return the favor."

Anna scoffed glaring at her fingers.

" I felt like the luckiest Atian in the world and It went on and on for weeks until one day, right after school, I was home alone and Bill, he got fired from work. He got home drunk and went straight to find me. There was something different about the way he looked at me that day, or was it the same way he always looked at me but I was too ignorant to notice? He got on my bed and wanted to hold me. He kept telling me how beautiful I was and how he had always wanted me and he said if I let him, he was going to take good care of me and I'd never have to be treated l like rest of my people. He said Veronica didn't have to know that it'd just be our little secret. "

Anna sniffed turning to Angelo and waiting to catch the look of judgement in his eyes, but he wasn't looking at her that way, he wasn't judging her, he just wanted to listen, he was.

"I was scared and I refused him. Veronica had been so nice to me, I didn't want to ruin what we had, I couldn't ruin my one chance at being with a good human family. But Bill, he didn't force me, he just left that night and I let him, I thought of it as a mistake, a mistake that didn't have to happen again, I just thought that if I played forget, everything was going to be fine again, and so I tried to forget. The next day Bill came to pick me up from school, he saw me talking this guy from biology class, Adam Stewart, Adam was inviting me to this party at his mum's house later and Bill, he got so angry, so jealous. When we got home, he followed me up the stairs and into my room, Veronica wasn't home. I was terrified because he didn't stop and he locked the door behind him and then he grabbed me." Her voice broke. "He said all sorts of things and he he called me a whore, he said I refused him because I thought I was better than him while I was sleeping with all the boys in school, he said I was ungrateful and then he- he began to rip my clothes apart-"

Anna broke off for a second. She needed to breathe. Angelo gave her all the time she needed in the world, it was hard for her and he could see it. He was going to let her go at her pace.

"And after that day, it became a nightmare, Bill's favorite bad habit. And then he started to bring his friends too. He used me to win bets and lose them, to gain friends, and make peace with enemies. I became a trophy, his most prized possession, pretty expensive too. I wanted it to stop, I couldn't stand being alive in my own body, I wanted him to stop. I needed to tell someone but I wasn't sure who to tell, it was his word against mine, and the government, they didn't care, they were never going to take the side of an Alien over their own people,  and so I told Veronica. I thought maybe if she knew somehow, she was going to stop him, turns out that she already knew. She knew all along and did nothing about it. I got to find out that it was a win for her, I had become her ticket out of her miserable marriage. He had stopped hitting her so I became her way to freedom."

Anna sniffed.

"When I was fifteen. I had my first turn during a fight in school with some that always tried to get me to show them my Atian abilities during gym class. They threw me inside a big box and kept me in this old building and then they set the room on fire. I was terrified, I didn't want to die. I tried so hard to survive, to save myself and somehow, my will was stronger than this bracelet."

She stuck her hand out so Angelo could see it.

"The last thing I remember was me shapeshifting inside the box. It was so horrible but it happened and I was able to set myself free. When Billy and Veronica found out what I could do, even with my bracelet on, they kept it away from the government. They said they were going to tame me, they'd lock me up in a cage and starve me for a day or two and pock me with sharp metals laced with mercury, and then they made people watch for ten dollars every minute.  I had become their main play in their little circus. They made a lot of money off me and I thought they were just doing it for fun for the money but I had no idea they were doing it for some kind of insurance. They made videos, evidence in case I ever decided to tell the government what they did to me because they knew that if the government ever found out that I could turn without my bracelet, they were going to send me to the lab or put me down as a defector. They also made me pay them for their silence, four hundred every week. some weeks eight. I tried to run away so many times but they always found me, he always found me. When I was seventeen, I heard an Atian who had been living among the humans way longer than the integration program was in town, it was Shinkorv, he had found and helped me get away from the Clinton's . He gave me a fresh start, very far away from them, but it didn't matter where I went or what I did, I couldn't ever run from them. They found me, they keep coming to take and collect everything, up until the other day."

Anna exhaled and blinked hard until a tear fell from her eyes.

"And you know what's worse? these nightmares, memories from my past. I can't get away from them no matter how hard I try. I try so hard to forget, to move on but they just won't get away because I'm terrified that one day, they'd end up sending those tapes to the government and I could lose everything. I could end up getting killed."

Anna sniffed.

Angelo say still for a minute, he didn't know what to say. His heart was filled with so much sadness after hearing Anna's story, after hearing all she said.

" Hey. " He leaned closer to her, he placed a hand on her arm and she shook her head.

"I'm so sorry I made you listen to all that. I just- I must sound like a broken record."

"No-no of course not."

Anna snorted.

"Anna I can't begin to imagine what you went through and I wish there was something I could say or do to make this all go away but there's nothing in the world."

He stopped, he was ashamed, he was embarrassed at the thought of being human, too human that he could barely face her, he was lost of words too.

"But I promise you this," he pulled his hand to hers and squeezed them. "no one is ever going to hurt you ever again, not Bill or Veronica or anyone else. I won't ever let that happen."

He stretched his hands towards her face and cleaned the tears that hung in her eyes.

"I just want it to stop Angelo." Anna sobbed crying hard.

"I know."

Angelo had never seen her that helpless before. She wasn't the strong Anna he knew, this Anna in front of him was scared and helpless.

"I just want it to stop."  Angelo exhaled.

"Come here."

He pulled her close and then kissed her on her forehead, holding himself back from crying too. He hugged her tight and she held on even tighter to him.

"You're okay, you're going to be fine." He whispered into her ears.  "I promise."