Danielle's P.O.V.
Slowly, the ringing in my ears turns into steady beeps. The sound is so close but so far away. What is it? As it starts to beep louder and more clear, I begin to grow irritated with the annoying noise.
A bright light suddenly appears and then disappears just as quick as it had come. It happens again. My heart speeds up as I fear the obvious truth. Is this what everyone talks about? The bright light showing you the way to your next place? To heaven?
The beeping grows even louder and faster. I want to scream for it to stop or at least quiet down, but the words will not leave my mouth. I try to move but I can't. This only scares me more and intensifies the increasing speed of the beeping.
Then I hear muffled words. I can't make out the incoherent phrases, but somehow, I know they are talking to me directly. As they continue to speak, the beeping slows and I become relaxed. Without the annoyingly loud beeps, I can actually hear what the man is saying.
"She's going to be fine," he announces, relief clear in his voice. "Danielle, can you hear me? Raise your finger if you can."
I raise my finger.
"Danielle, if you can hear me, raise your finger up," he repeats. I try to. I put all my energy into trying to show this stranger I can hear him, but I can't. It's impossible. "We can try again in a few minutes, Mr. Athens."
Dad? He's here? Where is here?
"Are you sure? Please, just one more time," Dad begs. His voice is rough and full of worry. "Sammie, tell him to try it one more time."
"Dad --" Sammie starts, exhausted.
I raise my finger. I know I do this time because my whole body starts to ache. I fill the pain and the memories of the past week flood back. I let out a whimper as the man argues with my family, and it all stops.
"Danielle?" Sammie calls out, taking my hand in hers.
Even though I would rather feel like I did a few seconds ago, I open my eyes, searching the room for her. The first thing I see is a bunch of machines with random readings and numbers on it. I look over to my right side and see her blonde hair.
Her blue eyes are almost like her normal bright blue except now they are bloodshot and have dark circles under them. My heart skips a beat as I think about all she has gone through while I was gone.
"Where's Alan?" is the first thing that comes out of my lips. I didn't care about Sam or Dad, Tyler or the other guys, or even the agonizing pain increasing as I become more aware of everything.
"It's okay, sweetie," Sam assures, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear. "You don't have to worry about him anymore."
What? No, no, no. They have it all wrong!
"No, Sammie!" I yell. Sitting up, I throw the blankets off me even though I don't think I've ever been in more pain in my life (including the time those disgusting guys pulled out my fingernails). I look down and see bandages covering three of the tips of my fingers.
"Danielle, calm down," the man in the white lab coat demands, carefully pushing me back into the hospital bed. His messy hair gives the evidence of his exhausted day at work. He must be my doctor. "You can talk about it when you have rested."
I push his arms away roughly. My voice is intimidating and yet I am terrified. "Sammie, he didn't do it! He had to. He had to."
She knitted her eyebrows together in confusion as I rambled on.
"The only reason he was there was to protect me the best he could and you!"
"He was lying," she forces through her mouth as she clenches her jaw.
"No, he wasn't!" I scream. With that, Tyler rushes in, and a smile over takes his worried face. "Tyler. Where's Alan? Is he okay?"
He looks between the doctor, Dad, and Sammie. Anger grows inside me as no one answers my questions. I ball my fists as I try to calm down but it doesn't work.
"Answer me!"
They all jump, but still, none of them reply. I reach for my IVs and pull them out, biting the inside of my cheeks. The doctor gasps, but I ignore him as I give the rest of them one last chance to answer at least one of my questions.
"Fine. You can all go to hell," I spit. As I try to walk pass Samantha, she puts her arm out, stopping me. "If you're not going to tell me, I'm going to find out myself. So unless you have an update on Alan, move your arm."
"He's in surgery right now, but he's going to prison whenever he wakes," she finally answers, disgust laced with her voice. "Now get back in bed."
"He's not going to prison. He did nothing wrong," I inform her, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. She shakes her head. "Sammie, believe me!"
"Dr. Falenson, you may want to bring in the pychriacrt in here as soon as possible. She may show signs of Stockholm Syndrome," Samantha informs the handsome doctor, standing and walking away. She's out of the room before I can even wrap my head around what she was saying.
Stockholm Syndrome? She thinks I've fallen in love with Alan. I do love him but in a totally different way. He saved my life, several times, and he's one of my best friends, but that's not the reason I don't want him in jail.
Two arms snake around my waist just as I reach the door. They drag me back to the bed as I kick and scream for him to let me go. My father leaves the room as Dr. Falenson orders for assistance. Tyler stares at me with his jaw open -- basically on the floor.
"Ty, don't let them hurt him! He didn't hurt me! He only wanted to save me! He did! He did! I'm alive and safe!" I keep saying things to try and get anyone to understand, but no one seems to be listening.
"Sedate her," Dr. Falenson orders, holding me down to the bed.
The fear of waking up in that basement all over again makes the tears fall even more than they already are. As the medicine floods into my veins, my eyelids become too heavy to hold open. My mouth seems to not be working, and the words I am trying to say won't leave my tongue. The next thing I know, I am surrounded by the dreams of my life just two weeks ago.
I have woken, but my eyes have not been opened yet. The fear of opening them and seeing that disgusting basement made it to where I forced myself to promise to never open them again until I heard someone I knew.
I don't understand. Why don't they believe me? Why can't they? I told them the truth. I told them everything and they won't believe me.
The shrink told me I had to see her everyday until I'm out of the hospital and then every week until I am approved to be on my own. It's bull. I don't want someone telling me I only think Alan deserves to be out of jail because I'm in love with him. I am not in love with Alan -- he's my brother.
"El?" I hear someone call out. By the sound of her delicate voice, I know it's Sammie.
"Don't call me that," I reply, opening my eyes slowly to make sure I won't see the scratches on the wall left by the others.
She gasps, but recovers by scooting her chair closer to the bed and taking my hand in hers. I pull away.
"What is wrong with you, Dani? You are okay. You are safe. You don't have to worry about anything," she lies.
I sit up straight in bed and narrow my eyes. She jumps at my sudden movements, but I don't care if I scared her.
"I do have something to worry about. Alan saved my life and now he's going to jail. He is going to jail because of me, Sam. How can I know worry about that?" I spit out like venom. She seems to be offended, but still takes my hand in hers and rubs the back of it with her thumb.
"Dani, listen to me. He is a monster. He has done sick things, and just because he saved your life once, doesn't mean he's innocent."
"He saved it more than once! He saved me from being raped by Carson, twice. He saved me from starving to death. He saved me from losing myself! Do you really think with all the time you two spent together, he would be off doing those things that Carson did before me? You know what, no, never mind. No matter what I say will change your decision anyway."
After my spiel, I lay back down, facing away from her. She thinks for awhile before saying anything, but what she says infuriates me more than anything else.
"He is still going to jail for being an accomplice."
"What about you, then? Hm? You were going to destroy evidence and you tried tracking a call when you were suspended. Yeah I heard all about that while I was crying myself to sleep with bloody fingers and they were mocking me. You committed your own crime, Sam. Are you going to jail?"
She opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. She closes it and reopens it but is interrupted by a doctor I haven't seen before. "Miss Athens? May I speak with you?"
Sammie nods quickly before hurrying away, probably glad to be out of my question.
Tyler is next to take her spot as she discusses whatever he wanted with the doctor. He is extremely happy to see me. I can tell by the way his eyes light up when I speak.
"Hey," I say, still annoyed with Sammie.
"I missed you so much, Dani! You don't even realize how sorry I am for letting this happen to you," he rambles, wiping away tears. He is so sensitive and I honestly love him for it.
"It wasn't your fault, Ty. Trust me," I assure him as I try to make out what the doctor is saying. I can't tell if he's sad, happy, or anything. Like he has trained himself to keep a straight face when giving people news. Of course Sammie's back of her head is facing me, so I can't see how she's reacting. What if it's about Al?
Tyler calls out my name three times before I realize he was speaking to me about something. He repeats himself and I just nod along, still not listening.
Reflexively, I flinch as he tucks my hair behind my ear. I will admit, I thought it was Carson going to hit me, but once I realize it was Tyler, I start to freak out more than I would if it happened to be Carson.
Hurt is written all over his face as he realizes what just happened. I try to tell him that his hands were just cold, but no words would leave my mouth. Just like that, he starts to sob into my blankets as he lays his head down beside my leg.
"Tyler, listen," I command and grow irritated when he doesn't. "Tyler!"
He snaps his head up and searches for something deep inside my eyes.
"I am sorry, but it's a reflex. It wasn't because I thought you were going to hit me."
Tyler has this fear that he will turn into his own father, but I know he won't.
"I know, I know. Well, I mean, yeah it was partly because of that, but I think it just hit me what they did to you. They obviously hit you, pulled your... f-fingers out."
Not wanting to hear more, I pull him into an embrace and promise myself to never let him go. He makes everything feel better, almost like nothing has happened.
"I love you," I blurt out.
"I love you more," he replies with relief.
"Impossible."
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ONE MORE CHAPTER!! I'm going to try and get it done before I go to bed tonight!
What do you think they will do about Alan? Send him to jail? If they do, do you think Danielle will do anything to save him?
Shout-outs: cheesefists, unicorn_ways, MaddyS3115, harrenstyles, allmyloveforoned, ohschist, and Diksha_and_borkalita