*Willow's POV*
I wake up to the sun peeking through my windows, and I sit up slightly. This room is huge, and has so many windows that it already looks like midday in here. The sun makes me miss home. It felt safer there, and knowing he's here makes this entire place feel scary, and I'm on edge every time I round a corner.
A knock on my door stables me, and my heart races slightly. I watch as it opens, and I take a deep breath once I see my mother's dark hair. She walks in, and I notice her under eyes are dark.
"Willow," she says while closing the door behind herself. "I have to talk to you."
"About what?" I ask, and she sits down on the bed beside me.
"We have to give the speech now, and then we're leaving immediately after." She says, and her face shows emotions I can't describe. Her eyes are puffy and red, so I know she's been crying.
"Why?" I ask, sitting up fully. She pushes my blonde hair out of my face, and it reminds me of Flynn.
"There's just been a—" she starts, but her voice breaks. I watch as her eyes fill with tears but she looks away and regains her composure. "Just a change in plans." She says with a smile that fools no one.
"Mom." I start, but she cuts me off by standing up and beginning to walk away.
"Get ready, please." She remarks looking at me. "And if you need help covering your neck, I'll be in my room."
I watch as she leaves and I look out the window. There's already a crowd of people forming outside of the gates, and I watch as they let a few people in at a time. I stand up and walk towards the bathroom in the room, and I begin to wash my face. I become flooded with fear as I close my eyes, and I get a feeling someone's behind me. I quickly wash my face, and when I open my eyes I realize nobody is there.
I try to shake it off, but it's no use. This place creeps me out, and my mom creeps me out even more. She was acting weird, right? She doesn't just let her wall barricading her feelings break, and she doesn't like to show emotions like that. Something happened, I know it. But I don't have the time to figure it out.
I brush my teeth and comb my hair in the mirror. I dig through my bag to find my mascara and blush, and apply those to my face. Finally, I get to my neck. Clearly I need to apply more makeup to them, because last night I got the talk with my dad.
Let's just say he wasn't too pleased.
I haven't seen Flynn since dinner, and I sort of miss him. I know I shouldn't, because I know this will all change once he sees Odette or Eloise again, but for right now I miss him. And it makes me hate myself.
As I'm finishing getting ready, I'm pulled from my thoughts by the sound of my mom walking back into my room. She opens the bathroom door and I turn my body so she can see my neck. She smiles at the sight and chuckles.
"Much better than last night." She says, pulling my hair forward from behind my ears and placing it on my shoulders. "You look beautiful in this dress, darling."
"Thank you, Mom." I say. "Have you seen Flynn?" I ask, and her face changes from a smile to a frown. Her eyes dart away, but she quickly brings them right back to my face.
"No, I haven't." She says quickly. She turns around and leaves without another word, but I follow after her.
"Mom." I say, and she reluctantly turns around to face me. I watch a tear begin to stream down her face before she quickly wipes it. "What's going on?"
"Nothing, Willow." She says, with a tone. "I have to go get Rye."
I stand there, in shock, and I watch as she almost runs to Rye's room. She slams the door behind her, and I can't help but let my eyes fill with tears of anger. Why am I always the last person to know anything? I just want to know what's happening, and yet I'm always in the dark.
I begin to storm off towards my dad's room, when a security officer stops me.
"Ms. Mellark, we need you to report to the main balcony for the speech." A large man states to me.
I look back once more at the hallway where my dad is, and then I turn towards the man. I nod my head in agreement and then begin my walk to the balcony. I pass by Flynn's room on the way, and I notice that the door is open. I peer in to see his room disheveled, and things thrown everywhere. I stop my walk for a moment, but the officer guides me back on track and I continue on.
Where is he?
I arrive at the doors of the balcony and I find everyone there, except Flynn. I look around and notice a guard on every entrance to the room I'm standing in, and a guard on every entry way leading to the balcony.
I look over towards my mom and dad, and I watch as they argue with each other, and then my mom crosses her arms. I watch as my dad reaches up towards her cheek to which I assume he's wiping her tears, and then he pulls her into a hug. She wraps her arms around the back of him and they stand that way for a while, until the guards tell them it's time for the speech. My mom pulls away first, and my dad leads the way to the podium.
I follow behind them with Rye next to me, and he leans over to me.
"Willow, something's wrong." Rye says to me, and I nod my head in agreement. "Whatever it is, I'll still have you, right?"
"Of course, Rye." I say. "You'll always have me."
He nods his head with a short smile, but I watch as it fades as we stand in front of the large crowd. We stand on the markers, which is a few steps behind my mom and dad's. I watch as my dad fumbles with the written cards in front of him, and then flips them over so he can't see them.
"We're hoping to make this announcement as brief as possible," he starts into the microphone. "We've had a change of plans and now we're dealing with a situation—" he pauses and looks at my mom, who is on the verge of tears. He then turns back towards the microphone and continues.
"We came here to raise awareness," he says. "My wife and daughter, are both victims of sexual assault, and as we arrived here we had not known where the man who did this to them was."
I listen as the crowd gasps and points at me and my mother, and my mom stares at the ground. I place my arm around Rye to bring him closer to me, yet all I can think about is how I wish Flynn was here and pulling me into his arms.
"Currently, the man has been located and taken into custody, but that does not mean the damage has been fixed. They are always going to have to live with the memories of what happened, and the feelings of him on them." His voice slightly breaks, but he manages to pull it together.
"I feel ashamed to say that this happens to so many men and women out there, and I feel even more ashamed to say that there are not nearly enough men and women speaking out about this violence. I feel it is our duty, as a community and society, to let these people know that it is not shameful to have this happen to you. This happening to someone does not make them any less worthy of being loved and appreciated. You are not ruined, by someone else's mistakes."
I watch as he steps away from the microphone, and he gives my mom a nod. She gently walks up to the podium and stands there, looking out into the crowd.
"I was assaulted by my friend." She says quietly. "Someone I had used to trust and know, turned out to be a monster."
The crowd watches as she lets a tear fall down her face, and then speak again.
"When this had first happened, I thought that my life would never be good again." She remarks. "I had thought that I was ruined, and that I would never be able to be myself again. When I looked into a mirror, all I saw was someone who had been hurt. I saw someone that had been betrayed, and someone who didn't know how they were going to make it through the day."
There's a moment of silence, and she takes it in.
"I felt alone, thinking that nobody would ever be able to understand the pain I was going through. Feeling alone might be one of the worst things I felt during the situation, because even though I was always surrounded by love and support, I felt alone. And when I felt the most alone, the only thing that I could think about was how sorry I felt for myself. How sorry I felt, knowing that this was going to ruin mine and the people I cared about's lives."
"To my surprise, it didn't ruin my life. It actually gave me a sense of clarity on life, giving me a sense of what mattered and what didn't. I remembered back to nights where I used to cry over things that seem so useless now, and I felt stronger. I felt stronger knowing that I could pretty much conquer anything that the world was going to throw me next."
"The thing I want you to know is that you aren't alone." She concludes. "I know it may seem like you are, and I know you might feel like there's no way out of the hole you are in, but I promise you there's light at the end of the tunnel. And all you have to do is get to the end; whether that takes you days, months, or years. Healing is not a race, and neither is it linear. You're going to have ups and downs throughout the process, and all you have to do is try. Try for your family, try for your friends, try for yourself. Just try."
She steps away from the podium and joins my dad. The silence that once occupied the air, erupts into a thunderstorm of applause and cheering. I stare in awe as I watch all of the people in the crowd below us praise my parents. I watch as they look out into the pools of people before turning towards Rye and I, and urging us to leave the balcony. We stumble back towards the doors before turning around and walking through them.
"Your bags have already been packed." My dad says to us. "We have to leave."
"Leave where?" I ask, searching his face. "Dad, please tell me." I beg, and my eyes fill with water.
"Willow," he starts, but I cut him off with my cries. Tears begin to flood down my face, and he pulls me into his warm arms quickly. "You're okay, darling."
"What's happening?" I manage to blurt out, and he shushes me. He holds my head to his chest while comforting me.
"I'm so sorry, sunshine." He whispers to me. He pulls back and looks at me. His eyes move towards my mom, who is also crying. "He's been hurt, Willow."
"Hurt?" I ask, tears clouding my vision.
"He's in the hospital." He says quietly. Rye starts crying behind me, and I pull away from my dad to look at him. I watch as he walks towards my mom, who's also a nervous wreck, and she holds him as tightly as she can. I look back towards my dad, and I watch as he stares at the ground.
Suddenly, Haymitch stumbles into the room and begins to talk to us. I don't listen to many of his slurred words, but the ones that I do listen to burn into my head.
"You all need to go to the hospital now," he says. "Flynn's taking a turn for the worse."
_
I rush towards the elevator in the hospital lobby, and quickly press on the button with an arrow pointing upwards on it. A tear falls down my cheek as the elevator finally slows to the ground level, and I push my way through as people are leaving. I click the level 4 button, the ICU, and I wait for the doors to close. Slowly, the elevator rises, and more tears fall with every second I'm stuck in here.
I need to see him. I need to make sure he's still breathing, I—I need to see his face. I need to find a doctor or something to tell me what happened—tell me what's wrong.
I slip through the doors immediately after they open, and I run to the desk in front of me. The lady looks up at me and then back to her computer, without a care in the world.
"Excuse me?" I start, leaning on the edge of the counter. She looks up at me and nods for me to continue. "I—I need to find someone."
"Last name?" She asks, typing into her computer.
"Odair." I say quickly, and she looks up at me.
She stands up and walks around the desk towards me. She grabs my arm and begins walking me down a hallway. She leads me to a room at the end of the hallway, and I notice the blinds on both the door and window are shut tightly. I see a faint light through the door's crack, but other than that there's no signs of life.
"He's not doing well, dear." She says softly. "I would advise you to use this time wisely."
"He—he's not going to die, right?" I ask frantically, but she just gives me a look and doesn't say anything. "I don't understand what happened, he was completely fine yesterday—"
"He was attacked last night, and he has blunt force trauma to the head, severe ecchymosis and fractures, and internal bleeding. He also has a pulmonary contusion and rib fractures."
She looks away at the door and then back to me, before her eyes widen. "Are you alright?"
I notice my chest is rising and falling quickly, and I know I'm about to have a panic attack. I clutch my heart slightly, and I close my eyes. I hold my breath for 10 seconds before opening my eyes again to the nurse staring at me. I plaster a smile to my face and I wave her off, looking away.
"I'm fine." I grit in between my smile. "May I go in?"
"I guess so." She remarks, hesitantly opening the door. She flips on the switch next to the door, and I see him.
He's lying in the bed, with hundreds of wires connected to him. I'm frozen to the ground, unable to move as I see his face.
His face is covered in bruises, and there's a huge gash running along his cheekbone. His head is covered in bandages, and I can barely see his golden brown hair sticking out. His body is engulfed in bandages and casts too, and my eyes follow one of his arms being held up by a machine.
"Flynn." I manage to gasp out, and suddenly my feet are unfrozen from the ground.
I quickly walk over to him, and I gently sit down on the edge of the hospital bed. His body is still, and the only sounds from the room are his machines. My tears fall down my cheeks, and the only thing I want is for him to be able to wipe them.
"Flynn, wake up." I demand, letting out a cry with it. "Wake up."
"He's not going to wake up, dear—" she starts but I cut her off.
"Leave me alone." I say, letting my head rest on his chest. "Leave me alone."
"Why don't you go—" she starts to say, but this makes me cry harder.
"I need him—I can't leave." I say in between tears. "He has to be okay, he has to."
The nurse leaves the room, and I wait for the door to close to start sobbing. My tears ricochet onto his hospital gown, and I breakdown. The sight of him like this, being so still, makes me sick. He isn't supposed to be like this, he's supposed to be the one that's always going to be here—he can't do this, he can't leave me. I need him.
Suddenly, I feel a hand on my back, rubbing circles in a familiar pattern. I sit up gently, and I look at Flynn, although he's cloudy from my tears.
"You didn't think I'd leave you that easily, did you?"