❤ Stockholm Syndrome 🔫 | ✔

🖤 Chapter 25 🖤

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The sheet that I'm wrapped in falls away from my body and I clutch my abdomen as the blood runs down. I tremble in fear as my feet begin to wobble and I eventually fall to the floor, gasping for air.

"No!" James shouts out, punching Cedric in the face, hard enough to knock a few teeth out of his mouth. After a kick to the stomach and another punch (to the nose) Cedric falls to his knees, and in a flash, James grabs the gun that the butler dropped and aims it in the middle of his forehead. "Any last words?"

"Yeah," he wheezes out. "I hope you rot in hell--" His voice is cut off by the powerful sound of the gun going off. The bullet travels through Cedric's head and comes out the back, some of his brain exiting with it as well. His body falls to the floor and he is no more.

James is still standing with the gun aimed at nothing, his face as cold as the temperature below zero. After I let out a choked groan, he snaps out of his daze and runs over to me, throwing the gun to the floor and cradling me in his arms. "You're gonna be okay," he tells me, brushing a few strands of hair off to the side of my face. "You're gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay." His voice begins to fade as my vision gets blurry, and then everything goes black.

❂

There's a beeping sound that's just constantly going off, and a few grumbling voices from around me.

"The doctor said she's going to be okay," says a female voice to my left.

"How much longer will she have to stay in here, Mom?" says the voice of a young male. "I can't stand to see her like this."

"Benny," a deeper male voice says. "Your sister will be okay. Why don't you go and wait outside with Elisa? I'm sure she needs someone to hug right now."

"Okay, Dad," Benny answers, then a door opens and closes, signalling that he's gone.

This is my family. They're all here...to see me. But wait; how come James let them come to see me all of a sudden. I feel a pain in my stomach and I flinch and groan slightly.

"Norman, I think she's waking up," the woman who spoke earlier says. "Honey? Erica, are you okay?" My eyes flutter open and I see my mother, Jessica's face hanging over mine from my left, my father looming over her.

"Mom? Dad?" I say in confusion, looking around at the room I am in. There's a monitor at the right side of the bed head, a table on my left with a few flowers, balloons and 'get well' cards, and a coat rack near the door.

"Norman, she's awake!" my mother rejoices, turning around and hugging my dad, and he hugs her and smiles at me, tears welling in his eyes.