rainfall | ashton irwin au | completed

seventeen

When I woke up, I felt like I was floating.

The sensation didn't last very long, though. As soon as I felt the rope burning my wrists and the pain shooting through my head, it was more like I was falling. The feeling only became intensified as I saw Calum with his hands on the steering wheel next to me and I remembered everything that had happened.

Infinite amounts of trees shot past me, but I couldn't distinguish where one ended and another began. We were going too fast for that.

"You know, knocking me out wasn't necessary. I was going to give myself over to Matt anyway," I croaked, pressing my head to the cold glass of the window in the hopes it would dull my aching head. All it did was send another jolt of fear through my body, awaking me from a numbness that I didn't know I had.

"I know." Calum glanced at me from the corner of his eye, a crooked smirk painted on his lips. And to think that those were the same lips that I had trusted when words had slipped through them so effortlessly before. "But it was fun."

I tried to scoff, but the noise got stuck in my throat and it sounded more like I was being strangled. "You're a better actor than Ashton. You would deserve an award if you weren't such a two-faced liar."

"Ashton and I aren't the same. He was naïve. I know exactly what I'm doing."

I wasn't particularly upset anymore, even after the almost friendship I had shared with Calum. I just wanted it to be over, and soon it would be. Even if I was about to die, at least the others would be safe.

"So why did you need Ashton to do your dirty work if you knew exactly what you was doing?" I could taste something metallic on the tip of my tongue, and I wondered if I had been biting my cheek subconsciously.

"He was just a distraction for you and the others. Plus, we knew he would tell you about us anyway, so we thought he'd distract you from the truth." He almost sounded proud of himself for outwitting us, and I found it sad. People like him were bound to end up alone, even more so than people like me. It was funny how similar I had thought I was to Calum. Now, it seemed laughable that the thought had ever crossed my mind.

"Very clever," I praised, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "You really do have it all figured out, don't you?"

"You haven't even heard the best part yet."

Something about the way his eyes glinted told me that I didn't want to. Still, I couldn't regret my decision to sneak out in the middle of the night. I wondered how Ashton would react once he realised I had gone, but picturing him running his hands through his floppy hair in panic sent my heart plummeting into my stomach, so I forced myself to focus on the green and brown colours fusing together as if they belonged to one another instead.

I was still staring out of the window when we arrived back in Heatherly.

*

I was back in the basement of the old warehouse, only this time I had no plans to escape. Still, the tight rope bound my wrists together and they had shoved me in the darkest corner of the concrete room.

Matt, Josh and Calum were discussing something in front of the fire, and I shuddered as I remembered the first time I had been here, replacing the image of Calum with Ashton. I could still remember the feeling of betrayal as his silhouette had faded and his green eyes had seared through me.

Josh's piercing blue eyes suddenly landed on me, and automatically his smirk grew.

"Tell me, Lilah. How is mother dearest?" He sounded as if he was mocking me, but beneath his dark humour I could hear something more: something that sounded an awful lot like a bitter kind of anger.