Sleepless✎

15

He lifted it and brought another one down in a different place, making Ilaria see black, then white and black again, her lungs were closed, her eyes were blurry, her heart was beating painfully against her chest.

Ilaria thought he was going to stop when he loosened his grip on her right leg, but he only moved on to the left one.

All while the sound of Kenna screaming still filled the air from his phone, Ilarias screaming eventually started mixing with Kenna's and bile rose up Ilaria's throat. He repeated the burning for what felt like forever, she wasn't sure how many times he brought the cigarette back down on her legs, the pain was consuming her.

Then he let go of her legs and pulled her jeans back over, only this time it made the pain worse.

He never said a single word as he let go of her legs completely. Ilaria couldn't tell if she was numb with pain or fear but she couldn't move. Couldn't get up to do something, anything, to atleast try and see his face.

Her vision was swimming in and out, her ears were blocked but she could hear him walking away, whistling a happy tune.

With a groan and much effort she pulled herself to the nearest tree and sat against it with her legs up, anywhere they touched it burned.

She fumbled for her phone and with shaky hands dialed Kais number, she shouldn't have been out in the woods alone in the first place.

He answered within the first three rings, Ilaria was still trying to breathe properly and Kai must've heard her heaving because he worriedly asked "what's going on?"

"can you come get me?" she shut her eyes against a headache forming "I'm in the woods oustide my house, I dont know where exactly."

"what happened? Are you okay" Kai sounded beyond stressed out "hold on I'm going to track your phone"

"hurry up please"

Her phone slipped out of her hands so she never heard his response, between the running, the pain shooting up both her legs and the adrenaline slowly leaving her body, she felt like she could sleep forever.

She fought to remain awake for what felt like hours but was infact only one hour when she heard footsteps approaching she coward back up to the tree, it could be anyone, it could be him again. Who knew what he would do come the second time he got her.

It wasn't him, it was just Kai, rushing towards her with a worried look. He kneeled down and pushed her hair out of her face "what happened?"

She could hear the panic in his voice but she was too weak to answer him, she only mumbled "you're here"

"I'm here" Kai reassured her "you're okay now, can you stand up?"

Ilaria shook her head "my legs" she said "they hurt"

"I'm going to pick you up but I need you to tell me where it hurts so I don't hurt you"

Ilaria nodded "just the side of my calves" she mumbled "and my ribs"

"what did he do?" Kai questioned again, Ilaria shook her head "can we just go?"

Kai nodded and picked her up "put your arms around my neck"

She did and he hoisted her up from under her knees, carefully avoiding the part of her leg where her burns were. She could feel how fast his heart was beating, he must've ran while looking for her. That explained how he got to her so fast.

"you're going to carry me all the way back?" she rested her head against his shoulder.

"Id probably carry you across the country if I had to"