Me in a gang? No, I'm in a family

Chapter 33: The demons inside

Dahlia pov
I'm happy at the moment, with the Hunters I mean, there isn't much I can do otherwise, apart from run away again, but some other rival gang will run me off the road or kidnap me by drugging my drink. I'm not going to pretend like I don't miss Eddie, but i would much rather be with Jasper, at least he didn't pretend to die in the army.
After some small talk with the Hunters, Nathan finally gets up from his seat and decides its the right time to help out, "Can you walk upstairs on your own Dahlia?" I turn to face him and laugh nervously, "I can, but not without it hurting like a bitch" I practically see everyone's concerned faces light up, and then Nathan comes to my rescue, "I'm sure I can help you with that" he walks gracefully over to me and in that moment i can definitely tell that he was in Med school, he places an arm delicately around my waist and then lifts me up, so he is carrying my weight.
"I have to warn you, this will hurt more than walking does" i nod at him as he sits me down in one of his red velvet chairs, and I shake my head, "Go for it, it hurt a lot more when it happened" that's when he starts to wipe my face first, the antiseptic stings like a swarm of hornets just came after me and attacked me, which is close to what actually happened.
After he is done tending to my face, neck and arm wounds, he leads me carefully over to his bed, where he says he is going to see if anything is bad, and trust me when I say, it is. The second he presses down on my stomach, it feels like a burning hot iron is being forced inside of my organs, he stops the second I scream out in agony, but says, "you definitely have a broken rib that's for sure, your abdomen is swollen up probably from another wound" He pauses and then looks me in the eye, "did anything happen 2 days ago?" I stiffen at his words and I can tell I put him on alert because of this.
"Can you tell me or are you sworn to secrecy?" he asks me, so I shake my head again, "I was attacked, in my cell one night" I explain to him, and his face slowly fades into what looks like unresolved anger, "It was him again, wasn't it? He did this to you"
Nathan POV
i wanted to know if what Armstrong was saying was true, and its unfortunate to say the least, that it s true and she is in a lot of pain, because of Armstrong's stupid Walmart gang, that's when i realise these injuries that she had obtained weren't done accidently, and they were extremely forceful.
But once I get to her ribs, she cries out and I immediately stop and try to reassure her, but the more i do, the more it looks fresh to me, if Armstrong had done this to her when he had held her captive then Dahlias ribs would be in the process of healing, instead they're black blue and purple with hints of yellow in, suggesting that somebody else had hurt her as well.
After Dahlia admits what has happened to her, i reassure her again and hope that she can also trust me enough to tell me anything else that has happened, "it will be alright, he won't hurt you again, trust me, he wont come near you"
later on
I made the mistake of talking about what had happened when I had been in the cell that Jaxon had put me in, but I mention 'him' and why I was even there any way. But then Ashley interrupts me and asks a very valid question, "Okay I've had enough of this crap, who's him?" And the second she does, i look over to Ajax who gives me a shrug in response, "He is the person who legally adopts children and then turns them into assassins, illegally" then Ajax replies to me and adds, "he is a literal prick, he did and probably still does horrible things to the kids who are in his care"
"He put his anger into everything, the kids mostly" i pause and take a deep breath, "sometimes they weren't lucky enough to see the next day" i turn my attention to my hands and fidget with them to stop my anxiety. I cant help but feel extremely mentally unstable in the moment that my brain floods with memories of attacks he had done to me, over and over, like flashes of burning silver into my flesh, but it doesn't stop and only gets worse, my mind feels fuzzy and cloudy, like I'm at breaking point.
"Dahlia, you feelin' ok?" Alec asks me quietly, not bringing any sudden attention onto his question or me, i nod in response to him, but his face gives away the fact that he doesn't believe me, and too damn right Dahlia, you've always been absolute shite at lying to people. "Thats crazy man what the fuck?!" Jaspers sudden outburst makes my heart leap into my stomach, making me want to puke, and making my anxiety and flashbacks a million times worse.
Times when 'he' had decided to yell at all of us because we didn't clean one small corner in the hallway, times when he decided to take his bundled up anger out on me when he had got me alone because he thought that he could do anything he wanted to and he would get away with it. Times when he held me at gunpoint right to my head and said if I didn't do a sexual move to him, he would shoo my brains out across the walls and then make everybody see.
"Love, what's wrong?" Alec whispers, coming gradually closer towards me, I shake my head violently and place my head in my hands, and by this time, I have attracted the eyes of everybody else in the room, all eyes on you Dahlia.
"what did he do to you?" Alec asks me again, this time he covers my cold hands with his warm and soft ones, and I lift up my head at the sudden change in temperature in the room, "Nathan" i look at him with sad eyes and add, "You know before when you told me to tell you if i was in any other pain-" he nods and quickly runs up to me from his chair, kneeling at my side he asks, "Dahlia, are you in pain?" I nod, "Mentally, quite a lot" I pause, "from all the things he did to me"
That's when more of the questions arrive.