Trigger Warning (SA)
"Promise me something?" He says as he loosens his grip on me, we had been hugging for a good thirty minutes neither one of us wanting to let the other go, scared that we would go back to the people that were too scared to take what was right in front of them.
"What is it?" I say a little weary of where this was going.
"Promise me that if something ever happens to me, you'll thrive." He says as he tucks my unruly hair, which was a knotted mess from his grip on it only moments ago, behind my ear.
He was so close I could feel his breath running across my face. "What do you mean exactly?" It was off-putting that he was talking about something happening to him, just even the idea of him not being here scared the daylights out of me, and no it wasn't because without him I was fair game for The Forefathers, it was because I didn't even feel like a separate person from Harley anymore.
We were together so often that I could never return to the girl I was before he was around.
"Promise me that you'll publish that book you keep all to yourself, that you'll sing for a crowd and that you'll be in the front of this bakery watching people try the goods you bake." He grows more passionate with each thing he mentions. I tear up again because he shows me once again that he had been just as obsessed with me as I have been with him these past couple of months.
"I promise." I don't know if my social anxiety would even let me do these things but hopefully, nothing would ever happen to Harley.
He leans down and kisses me briefly, right before his phone rings. He answers it and the look of devastation takes his features and I'm suddenly panicking, what happened?
He storms out of the bakery leaving me behind, I chase after him.
"What's going on, Harley?" I yell as he runs to his truck.
"They have Dixon. Ride home with Jared and don't leave his side, understood?" He shoots me a look of determination, the man that he tries so hard to push down coming to the surface and I know all he is seeing right now, is red. The Forefathers were going to die tonight, even if Harley had to kill every single one of them by himself.
My whole body is shaking thinking about them having their filthy hands-on Dixon. If anyone knew what they were capable of it was me and I just had to have hope that Harley would get to her in time.
I made it to Jared's blacked-out car and open the passenger door, about to slide in when I see someone that's not Jared. I try to hop out before the strange man can get his hands on me but I'm not strong or fast enough to get away. He places a cloth over my mouth and nose, laced with something that makes me start to fade away.
Just when everything was lining up right in my life, it all tumbles apart once again.
~.~.~.~.~
"Remember me?" Vickers's voice echoes throughout my brain.
"Try so hard to forget me, but ..." His laugh echoes are twice as loud as the rest of his words. "Remember me?"
I jump awake, feeling the chains digging into my wrist holding me up in a standing position, the weight of my body pulling on them, causing them to ache. My boot has been taken off and my ankle throbs, I try to look down at it, but I can't see more than I few inches in front of my face.
"M-Maddie?" I voice meek and weak mutters from the opposite end of the room. It's Dixon. I yank at my chains hard, trying with all of my willpower to break them. I had to get her out of here, had to save her from their cruelty. They had already marked me for the rest of my life, I wouldn't let them do the same to her. "What's going on? Who took us?"
My pants come out quickly as I try even harder to yank the chains down, causing my already sore wrist to wet with sticky blood.
"Your ..." Pant. "Brother ..." Yank. "Took a brand to protect me from some very bad people, Dixon."
I explain the best way I can, she needed to know that all of this was my fault, that she was being held against her will because of me and my problems.
"Actually..." A voice comes from the doorway of the basement. "It's not about you at all, this time ... bitch." I hear Dixon gasp and I shrunk into the wall. It was Vickers's voice that had my bones rattling. "Now don't get me wrong." His steps grew closer and closer to me and the only thing I could think about was that at least he was coming my way instead of Dixons. if I could keep his interest enough, he would leave her alone. "It's going to be sweet, so sweet ..." His face comes into view and instantly sobs wrack through my body, but I refuse to let them escape me. "Taking my time with my revenge. Those were a long three years, you made me do. I haven't forgotten even a minute behind those walls. I'm going to make them worth it, doing everything under the moon for you."
His hand comes out and wraps it around my throat squeezing it until it made me wheeze. It wasn't the lack of air that made me panic though, it was just his skin, touching mine when I had given myself all of those false words to get myself through many panic attacks. I had lied to myself many many times, telling myself that he would never lay his hands on me again, but the panic stemmed because I knew the day was coming, that he would once again have his way with me. No one could stop it. Finnic postponed it for three years and Harley fought it for months now but look where I ended up. Right back in his grasp for him to do whatever he sees fit with me.
Maybe he would just kill me this time because I don't know if I could come back from this again. I had fought tooth and nail last time to even return partially, and still, it has its toll on me. the nightmares and random panic attacks being a sure sign of that.
"But this time, I've taken you and her because your bitch of a boyfriend has cut off all of our money connections. We are going to flee the country, some of the boys have got us into trouble, but you have to have money to get there ..." He lets me go roughly. "Ransom, you two are ransom. Maybe they won't mind you two coming back spoiled goods."
That familiar laugh invading my ears after I have chased it away many of many nights before. Giving new light to the sound making it a vivid imprint on my brain. There would be no way to forget it, even if Harley does get us back. "D-do whatever you want to me, j-just don't touch her," I say, my voice coming out scratchy. It was a weak demand that sounded more like a request, but I had to try. I knew I was in no way to be making demands, but it was all I could do to try to spare Dixon's innocents. the girl had already been through enough, she was only fifteen. She didn't need the weight of this on her shoulders when she had already seen her fair share of demands. Plus, I was the one that got her out of the system, maybe I should have left her where she was, it would be better than letting Vickers get his dirty hands on her.
"You see these?" He tugs on the chains attached to my wrist. "These mean I can do whatever the fuck I want to do. To you." He turns his gaze to Dixon. "To her."
"I don't have much of a taste for kids, though. Might leave her for one of the others." He says seeming to think it through fully, acting like he was talking about what was his favorite ice cream not his preferences I'm an unwilling woman.
He was sick in the head, way beyond saving, the man needed a shot in the head.
There has never been a vicious bone in my body, but I could feel it coming to life when his eyes lingered on Dixon a little too long.
"Ha, I can't even get it up looking at her." His cackle caused bile to rise to the back of my throat.
Maybe some of my hopes were worth it. Maybe this sick excuse of a human being, wouldn't do anything to Dixon.
She would be shaken up from the kidnapping, but she could come back from this, I didn't have high hopes for her coming back from this if he raped her. I feel like it would be the last straw for her, after everything she's been through.
His gaze turns back to me his eyes holding humor, that I couldn't even fathom how he had in a moment like this.
"Good thing I decided to take both of you." He returns to his stance in front of me, I was breathing the same air as him even though my head was turned off to the side.
He started unbuckling his pants and I closed my eyes, trying to distance myself from the moment, maybe I could think of something else strong enough and block it all out.
"What are you doing?" Dixon pleaded. "Stop! Don't touch her!"
Block it out! Block it out!
I squeezed my eyes as tight as I could get them and started singing in my head.
-.-.-.-.-
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