cherry (h.s)

thirty nine

Charlotte Thompson

My eyes flutter open as I felt major discomfort in both of my arms.

I look around, it's a room I barely recognize. A big one.

And I'm on a bed. But it's not my own.

I tried to push myself off, but that's when I realized that my arms are immobilized. I look up through blurred vision, shocked to see that my wrists are handcuffed above me to a headboard.

That's when panic ensued. My heart started beating really fast and my chest started moving up and down quickly.

I moved my wrists around, the metal clanking against the wood of the headboard with no escape in sight.

"Morning." a voice says from the doorway.

My vision snaps toward it, and my heart sinks.

"You were passed out all night."

The man who kidnapped me from a back alley behind my house stood in front of me. Harry.

This feels too familiar. I've been here before. I've lived through this exact moment before.

"Let me go." I hear my own voice speak...but I don't remember talking.

Harry scoffs at me.

I felt my eyes get teary.

Suddenly, a second figure emerges through the doorway.

My father.

"Dad!" I shout in desperation, struggling against the cuffs. "Help me!"

"He's not going to." Harry says.

"Dad, please!" I ignore Harry and continue trying to communicate with my father, who was simply staring at me with a solemn face.

"Cherry, baby." Harry chuckles under his breath. "He won't get you out of this."

"Why not!"

"Because." Harry says, before raising a gun up to my father's head. My dad didn't move. He didn't even make a sound.

But I screamed.

"Stop! Please don't!" I yell as tears start falling from my eyes.

Harry looks at me with a sinister smirk, pressing the gun against my dad's skull.

"Harry, please don't do this!" I cry. "I'll do anything!"

He pulls the trigger. 

My dad's lifeless body falls straight onto the ground.

"No!" I scream at the top of my lungs, pain coating my voice as hot tears flushed down my face.

Harry tucks his gun into his jeans, just like nothing had happened.

I jolted against the handcuffs as hard as I possibly could, but there was no way I was getting out of them without Harry unlocking me.

When Harry started approaching my hysterical body, I tried my best to back away as much as possible, obviously not being able to go too far.

I was still sobbing over my father's death, my breathing uncontrollably quick. Harry sits next to me, on the edge of the bed.

He lifts his hand to my cheek, and I flinch, still crying.