a. evans
My eyes squinted open and I groggily sat up, only to realize I was in the backseat of a moving vehicle. In a panic I immediately reached to the door closest to me and pulled, trying to open it and jump out.
The drivers head swung around to meet mine and a sense of relief came over me when I realized I was in Xanthe's car.
"Are you crazy?! We're on a highway!" He yells in shock. I shrink back into my seat, reaching for a seatbelt. Although I was very confused and in quite a bit of pain, safety always came first.
"Don't bother with the belt. We're already here." He says, just as we pull into a a long driveway. We approach a gate and Xanthe rolls down his window, typing in a pin code on the touchpad of the gate. It opens slowly and we ascend down the road, suddenly being met with a ginormous mansion the size of Russia.
My mouth gapes open as I watch the fountain spray water in intricate patterns and turn different colours.
My door is yanked open and I flinch back before realizing Xanthe had opened it for me. Suddenly remembering that I have no idea where I am or why I'm here in the first place I push myself further into the car, wincing in pain when my battered body hits the other door.
"Why am-am I here?" I ask him. The last thing I remembered was being cornered by Sage and his friends as they teased and tortured me. My eyes teared up as I thought back to how scared I felt in that moment before I quickly reached up and brushed the tears away with my arm.
"Come on Ainsley you need help." He says, reaching in to grab me. I pull my arms away from him as my heartbeat accelerates. It's not that I was scared of Xanthe, no, I was scared of the situation I had found myself in.
"Where are we?" I asked him, tucking my knees to my chest.
"We're at my house. I didn't know what to do when I found you in the halls so I brought you here. My brother is a doctor ... kind of." He explains.
Remembering Emerald from the hospital I slowly nodded my head and exited the vehicle, taking Xanthe's hand for help.
Before walking with him to house I take a moment to look at my surroundings. There are at least 10 cars in the driveway and from what I can see, a huge backyard.
"Are you coming?" Xanthe calls, now several feet in front of me. Snapping my head up I quickly nod and run to him, wincing slightly at the movement.
He opens the door and grunts as he kicks off his shoes, telling me to leave mine at the door.
Looking down at my yellow converse I see that they now have blood splatters on them which makes me frown, their happy colour now being tainted by an ugly memory.
The sound of feet pounding against the floor snapped me out of my haze and I looked up to see 6 pairs of eyes staring back at me.
I squeaked in fear and grabbed onto the closest thing I could find out of instinct.
Xanthe's arm.
The eyes belonged to all boys ranging from ages that I would estimate to be 16-30. I was used to being around many people at a time because I live in an orphanage, and I attend school. What I wasn't used to, was having all eyes on me.
Xanthe looked down at me and then looked back at all the people and rolled his eyes.
"Could you all give us some space? She's clearly terrified and injured." He barked out. The boys remained still for a second, still staring in curiosity. Xanthe then took a threatening step forward and they quickly scurried off in fear for their lives. He smirked triumphantly and then called out.
"Emerald, meet us in the living room."
𒊹︎ꕥ꧁꧂ꕥ𒊹︎
I sat anxiously on the comfortable sofa in Xanthe's living room as I bounced my legs and fiddled with my thumbs, all of my nervous habits on display.
I could tell my fidgeting was aggravating Xanthe but he said nothing and kept his face glued to his phone.
Finally, after about 10 minutes of awkward silence, Emerald walked into the room with a first aid kit in hand.
"What happened here? I thought I told you that I didn't want to see you again?" He said, seating himself across from me on the ottoman.
"Well actually you said you didn't want to see me in the hospital. Technically I haven't done anything wrong." I say, shrugging my shoulders with a small smile on my face.
Emerald looks at me for a second and sighs.
"Well you got me there. Care to tell me what happened this time?" He asks, pulling out bandages, medicated ointment, and medical tape. He starts to work on my cuts, cleaning them and patching them up with the gauze.
I gulp before explaining what I remember.
"I was walking down the hallway at my school," I start, picking at my nails as I talk. "A-and then Sag- these boys came up and corned me at the lockers. They held m-me back and one of the boys punched and h-hit me. Repeatedly!" I revealed. I then felt a hand touch mine and I looked down to see Emerald taking my hand away from my nails, examining the damage I had done.
"How many boys were there?" Emerald asked, his face hard and his voice cold.
I pulled my hand away from his in fear and shock at his mood change. I watched his eyes soften as he sighed.
"Sorry. I was upset at what happened to you." He apologized, flashing me a comforting smile.
I smiled back slightly and whispered, "There were 3 boys."
"Shit, Cutie. 3 against 1?" Emerald scoffed, dabbing the cut on my lip with ointment. It stung and I instinctively flinched and winced.
"Sorry, sorry! I should've warned you." He said apologetically.
"It's fine. I'm usually a target of theirs anyway." I say, mumbling the last part. I thought he hadn't heard what I said but when I looked up away from my hands I saw that that wasn't the case.
"This isn't the first time?" He asked in disbelief. His eyes were wide and crazed, searching for answers and holding a genuine look of concern.
"No." I shamefully squeak out. I was ashamed at the fact that I had been bullied by Sage and his friends for so long and haven't been able to defend myself.
"Ainsley, that's not okay. You know that, right?" He asked me, looking hopeful and reaching to place my hand in his.
I nodded and a single tear slipped down my face. Nobody has ever cared to assure me.
The sound of a door slamming snapped me out of my dazed sadness and my head shot over to the source of the noise.
With the chandelier swaying above the front door and. Xanthe no longer being in his spot on the couch, I gathered that it had been him who had burst out the door so suddenly.
"Don't mind him. I'm sure you're accustomed to his aggression by now." Emerald said in a playful tone, brought bring the mood slightly.
"Yeah, I guess." I said, smiling slightly as I remembered the day we met.
"Alright, I'm finished patching you up. It's a bit late to be taking you home but it's up to you. We have a spare room for you to sleep in if you want, or I can drive you home?" He says, giving my indecisive self a choice. For once in my life though, it was an easy decision to make.
"I-I'll stay here if that's okay?" I said, trying to make myself look smaller and less burden-like.
He smiled at me and nodded.
"I'll show you to your room for the night. Have you eaten?" He asked. I shook my head, knowing I hadn't eaten in over a day.
He brought me to the kitchen instead and started pulling out ingredients. I felt awful for making him patch me up, let me sleep over, and feed me, but when I tried to refuse, he shushed me and glared at me.
Just as Emerald placed a sandwich down in front of me, 3 people walked into the room. The first I recognized as Lachlan but the other 2 I had never seen before, and the only thing I was able to identify about them was they they were probably twins.
I didn't remember seeing them when we first walked in so I assumed that they just got here.
"Who is she?" One of the younger boys asked.
"This is Ainsley, she is Xanthe's little sister." Emerald replied.
"Xanthe doesn't have a sister. We would know, because she would be our sister too." The other boy said.
"Idiot. He meant for that program Lach made him sign up for." The first boy said.
"Ooh. Jeez, I'd hate to be her." The second one said.
"Guys, she's right here. Do you care to introduce yourselves?" Lachlan said, giving them both a smack on the backs of their heads.
"Oh right. I'm Sutton, the older twin." Says the second boy.
"I'm Saffron, the younger, smarter twin." Says the first boy.
Sutton scoffed and elbowed his brother.
I giggled at them and then put my hand over my mouth, hiding my amusement.
"What happened to you anyway?" Sutton says, presumably just now noticing the bandages and black eye that accompanied my punching bag of a body.
"I-," I started, now embarrassed that all the attention was on my battered form.
"Why don't you boys go find one of your other brothers to annoy." Lachlan said, dragging them out of the room by the collars of their shirts.
When both twins were gone Lachlan's eyes locked on me.
Oh boy.
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Hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Sorry it's been a year... that's embarrassing.
I've been super busy and struggling with really bad writers block. I'm on summer break now (and I graduated high school!) so I have a bit more time for writing.
This chapter may suck but I just wanted to put it out there so that I could move on from it and refresh my creative ideas. I've been stuck on how to write this chapter for ages.
Thanks for reading!