We walk into a nice hotel and Collin brings us all to the elevator.
He presses the button for the 10th floor and the glass elevator starts slowly going up.
We have the whole floor to ourselves since Collin's, well, Collin.
"Liza." I look over to Theo as we start walking to the rooms.
"Is your lip still bleeding?" He asks me and I cover my mouth.
Yesterday when Collin tripped me, I hit my lip on the corner of a table and I figured it'd stop bleeding.
Apparently it hasn't.
"No." I say from behind my hand.
I don't know exactly why I'm lying but apparently I am.
Revel gives me a deadpan look but I just keep hiding my lip.
Collin stalks over so fast I can barely even process it because he moves my hand away and grabs my chin.
He inspects the cut and let's go of my chin before looking to the rest of them.
"Alright everyone, it's late. Go to bed and we'll talk in the morning."
I go to walk away but he grabs my wrist. "Not you, sweetheart."
"What, why?" I ask, confused and frustrated.
"Because you literally just tried running away. There's no way I'm leaving you alone when this whole floor is empty and you could just leave."
Theo, Revel, and Natalie go into separate rooms but Collin leads us into a room.
There's two beds along with a couch and a tv with a bathroom and balcony.
He brings me over to the sink and tells me to sit. I sit on the sink and he comes over with a little box.
"What's that?" I ask.
He glances up at me before looking back to the box, looking for something.
"It's a first aid kit. Not the kind that holds bandaids and ibuprofen. This one is more fitting for my line of work."
He takes out a needle and wire. He also pulls out a lighter and starts heating up the sowing needle.
"What are you doing?" I ask, starting feeling uneasy.
"You need stitches. That should've stopped bleeding 10 minutes after it started bleeding."
He puts the wire through the hole in the needle and turns to me.
I move away quickly, trying to get away from him.
I'm terrified of needles. Plus, stitches hurt, and there's no numbing cream.
He puts his hand just above my kneecap and I pause. His hands are warm and somehow comforting.
"Stop." He says gently. My breathing is slightly heavy but I stop moving away from him.
"I'm afraid of needles. Like deeply afraid. Like literally 3 nurses had to hold me down as a child so I could get vaccinated." I sputter out.
He can't help but chuckle lightly at that with a small smirk.
"Well, this is gonna be worse than a vaccine." He says, not sugarcoating it.
I give him a look and he laughs. "I'm not gonna lie to you." He says as an excuse.
"Relax." I don't know why but I listen to him. I relax slightly against the mirror and he brings the needle to my lip.
I glare at him, remembering I have this because he tripped me.
Probably my fault but that's not the point.
I squeeze my eyes shut as I feel the needle pierce my lip and tightly pulling the open skin closed.
It hurts like hell.
After doing it a few times I can't help the water leaking from my eyes and slowly going down my cheek.
He finally finishes the stitches and I take a deep breath, my lip throbbing.
He takes my hand in his and squeezes my hand comfortingly.
"You're a dick." I whisper and he nods. "Yeah, I am."
At least he's aware.
We go back into the main part of the room and I lay on one of the beds.
Something clamps on my ankle and I sit up quickly and look at it. There's a cuff on my ankle and the other one is attached to the bed.
I look at Collin, confused. "I'm sorry, Eliza. This is just to make sure you can't leave, okay? The second I wake up tomorrow I'll undo it."
Here's the thing: I'm claustrophobic and suddenly the room starts shrinking.
Collin takes my hand, bringing me back to reality.
"Hey, you'll be okay. I wake up really early and I swear to take it off. It's only to make sure you can't leave. Try and see if you can get some sleep."
Instead of fighting it I just nod and lay down.
I'm shaking my leg as fast as I can but the rope only burns my skin.
"Daddy!" I'm crying. "Please let me out! I'm sorry!" There's no answer.
I can't breathe in here and I can't leave. "Daddy!" I scream at the top of my lungs but he just keeps ignoring me.
The tiny space starts getting even tinier and I start panicking more.
"Please, I'm sorry! Daddy!" My drunk father opens the door and throws the bottle of vodka at me.
It smashes against my chest and a piece of glass embeds itself into my shoulder, just by my neck.
"What the hell?!" I hear Degan yell and dad turns to slap him.
He brushes it off and screams "leave her alone! She's only six!"
"Blah blah blah! 'She's only six' or 'she's only 8' guess what? I don't care!
Your sisters are pissing me off and you come in here thinking your 9 year old self can stop me?
Guess what? You can't!" He grabs me roughly but forgets my ankle is tied to something in there and it ends up dislocating my ankle.
I scream in pain and he gets annoyed and leaves us alone, storming out of the house.
"Liza." Degan breathes and rushes to me. He gently unties the rope and looks at me.
"I'm so sorry. Take a deep breath on 3." I nod. "1 2 3." He pops my ankle back into place and I cry.
He rushes over to me and holds me until I exhaust myself.
"Stop!" I jump awake, covered in sweat, and my eyes watering.
"Eliza?" Collin turns on a lamp and comes over to me.
"What happened? Nightmare?" He questions.
I shake my head. "Nightmare implies it's not real. It was very real. It was a memory."
Without thinking, I look over to the scar just above my shoulder.
Collin follows my gaze and stares at it confused.
That's when I try to bring my knees to myself and realize I can't.
I start having trouble breathing.
"Eliza?" His voice is almost muffled.
"C-Colin, get this off me right now. Collin, get it off! Now!"
He grabs the keys from his pocket and quickly unlocks them.
I bring my knees to my chest and cry.
He wraps his arms around me. I wrap my arms around him and bury my head in his chest.
"You're okay." He whispers, rubbing my back. "You're okay."
"Don't let him get me, Collin. Please. Please don't let him get me." I cry into his shirt.
"I won't ever let anything bad happen to you, Liza. Never." He reassured me.
"No, Collin-" I'm heaving for air. "I-I know you get a-angry at me for trying to escape. Please just don't let him get me. I'll do whatever you want. Just please don't let him get me. Please-"
He gently grabs my face, and makes me look at him, his eyes bright with concern.
"I don't care what you do or how angry I get. I will never, ever, let anything bad happen to you. Okay? Never."
He pulls me back against him and lays down, me next to him but my arm and head on his chest.
"You're safe with me, Liza. You're safe."