Gemma Styles
I felt like I was moving but at the same time I wasn't, my head was throbbing and I tried opening my eyes... it hurt too much to do anything at all.
It was dark... That's all I could tell. Nothing was covering my eyes, but my hands were tied behind my back and I was lying down somewhere soft, maybe a couch? That didn't make any sense because I was moving, so it had to be a car.
My brain was still too slow to process but this was the only rational option: I was in the backseat of a car, unable to open my eyes because of the pain, and it was dark.
The darkness always reminded me of the bunker. I wasn't afraid of the dark itself though, but I definitely felt uncomfortable. My heart was beating way too fast and I slowly became aware of my body, how every single muscle felt strained.
I couldn't remember what happened... it was a huge hazy mess, I just knew I was going to take the trash out before dinner, and then it was all black.
The human brain was the cruelest thing to ever exist, flashes of memories kept replying in my mind of when I was locked in the dark with Harry in that bunker. Of when we were kidnapped and trafficked... the trauma would always live inside me and there was no way to truly get over what happened.
It was a scar in my soul, maybe a wound that would never heal at all actually.
Little things could be a trigger, such as the dark sometimes, or being locked in a small room, maybe even the sound of water or children crying. I couldn't control it and the flashes would just invade my head and overpower me.
This was happening right now, distracting me from trying to remember what happened and where I was... better yet, where I was going.
Who was driving the car? Did this have anything to do with Harry?
As much as I tried, I couldn't stop thinking about my brother or the things I saw while I was staying at his penthouse... the lies he told me in order to keep me safe. I knew I'd be a hypocrite if I said I didn't forgive him because he never got angry at me for not reaching out and telling him that I was his sister.
But it was hard... I needed time to process and this felt humanly impossible. The worst part was that I could feel something was off ever since the beginning but I chose to overlook, and now here we were.
My brother was a killer.
I fought so hard to stay away from the bad guys after I managed to escape from them, getting adopted was my second chance at life and one of the reasons why I tried to become a nurse was because I wanted to help people... I wanted to be good.
After I moved to L.A. and started dating Ash, I pursued other things that truly interested me, but I always did my best to keep myself grounded.
I knew trauma could change people... it was that little monster inside our minds, somehow controlling us into doing things we didn't want to, but fear was dangerous. Fear was the main cause of impulsiveness, and trauma just added up to that.
The Harry I still had in mind was five years old and asking me where his toy ship was, not the man I saw standing in the living room with his body covered in blood... the man who had a whole room full of weapons and actual dead bodies in his freezer. The man who was rough and merciless... A man who could be considered the bad guy of the story.
It was a lot for me to process, and not only that. There were Cleo and Zayn, both also involved in this and just as bad as Harry.
But yet they seemed so normal sometimes... which terrified me because I saw the damage they did together though, the killing and gunshots and the blood.
