"Have we given you what you need?" I ask Harry as he walks back into the room.
He's been gone all day and I feel slight insanity dancing on my mind as I stare at 3 walls everyday - I can't even see the 4th because I'm leant against it and the bed is next to me. I would love to look at the 4th grey wall.
"No. But it better happen soon" he snaps.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because then there's no need for you to welcome death, because you'll become it" he scowls.
I feel a slight pang in my chest at his words, but I don't care enough. I would have held on for Daryl, but they took him.
"Why can't you tell me what you need?" I almost plead.
He just shakes his head as he looks through his drawer.
"How many did you kill on the anniversary?" I wonder. I didn't even ask Steve when I escaped. I still wonder about the little boy.
"I'm not sure, we sent about 4000 into the camp" he shrugs.
"What?! We only have a population of about 6000!" I scream.
Could they all be dead? I wasn't even outside the infirmary when I was there, I didn't see the devastation caused that I normally help to fix.
"How many came back?" I shout through gritted teeth.
He doesn't answer, and I feel anger mount in my stomach. My instinct is to jump for him, but my chest aches like hell. I look down to see I am now wearing some sort of white cloth you might find on a fucking monk. I try to look through the neck line to my wounds but it is flat against my chest.
"I need the bathroom" I say.
Have I been in the past week? Maybe, I've been concussed for about 60% of it.
"Use your bucket." he scrunches his nose.
"Okay, but I have splash back so enjoy cleaning it from your carpet" I taunt.
"For fuck sake" he groans.
He unlocks the chains from the pole behind me and holds onto them as they are still locked onto my wrists. He opens a door I hadn't seen before - 4th wall - and chains me to the pole behind the toilet.
"Do you just have spare poles lying about?" I say and he grunts.
At least I don't have cuffs and I can move my arms around.
I flush the toilet and strain my hands to reach the sink. As I look into the mirror I don't even recognise myself. My face is swollen, a large purple tinting on my cheek where Zayn Malik punched me. Asshole. There are bags under my eyes and several cuts all over my face. My hair is tied up and has been for the last week. I don't care much, really, I've never cared for my looks. I'm not pretty so I don't have much to lose.
"Are you doing a shit or something?" Harry bangs on the door, and I slightly smile.
I hate him. He keeps making me laugh and smile and shit. I would love nothing more than to drag a knife across his throat though he has quite a good sense of humour - I'll give him that.
"Open the door" I snap, and the door flings open, Harry walking in with the key and unlocking me.
He leads me back to the side of the bed by my chains and pushes me to sit down. I focus on my breathing again as he chains me, the sudden bending making my stomach clench with pain.
Suddenly the door flies open, an angry Paul Higgins walks in with its nostrils flaring.
"Get it up and through to the office. We are aborting Mission Eripe and starting up Mission Proditione" it commands before slamming the door shut behind it.
Harry once again unlocks my chains, pulling me to my feet with haste causing me to feel slightly dizzy with the pain across my torso. He pulls me by my chains through the door, and I squint my eyes slightly at the sudden light. He pulls me through some sort of foyer, with nothing but a small couch with a plant next to it in the middle, a skylight beaming the sun through. It's some sort of octagonal forum with a door on each wall.
I'm pushed through a door that leads to a stairwell but I don't think I will be able to climb it, though I will try of course.
Harry climbs with a quicker pace than I can muster and I use as much strength as I can to hold him back.
"Move" he growls.
I decide to test him, I don't think he told me the truth last night so I'm not that bothered, but now is my chance.
"Pull me. Use your strength; the strength that is ten times more powerful than mine" I taunt.
"No. When I tell you to move you move!" he snarls, his teeth on show as he clenches them tightly.
"Or what?" I say, my face a mere centimetre from his.
"Or I won't have only taken your family," he smirks, "I'll also take your virginity" he whispers, reaching his hand down and gripping me.
"Get the fuck off!" I scream, squeezing my legs in a desperate attempt to get his hand away.
"Or what?" he mocks, and pulls me up the stairs with just enough force to move me.
"You'll have to fight me for it" I say, but mostly to myself.
No one will take that from me while I'm conscious or not. It's mine. How does he even know?
We climb 5 sets of stairs, every injury that had almost healed returning and I gag with the pain. He pushes me through another door, grabs my shoulders and slams me to the ground.
It takes me a minute to understand what's happening after being blinded with pain, and I lift my head, my blurred vision showing 7 figures. It is probably Paul Higgins and what I have now named, 'the Disciples', but there's an extra that I can't see through the blur, and I blink rampantly, crushing my eyes into their sockets in a frantic attempt to clear my vision.
Slowly I regain it and I look around slowly. It seems to be some sort of control room. Paul is sitting in a desk chair facing a wall of computers and televisions. I've never seen such high technology in my life. Even the carpet they sit me on is a red, silk to the touch material and I don't mind too much being slammed down onto it. The disciples are gathered around Paul, resting their hands on the desk under the computers. The rest of the room is rather basic, 2 red couches forming an L shape with each other, and a small table with rings of coffee stained onto it in the middle. I wonder why they don't use the fucking mountain of coasters that sits at the corner of the table.
I see the extra thing that I didn't recognise before and still don't. It sits on a chair next to Paul Higgins. I probably do know him, but we don't have photographs of them, just information; and apparently not enough on Harry.
"Annabelle, I'm giving you rules to follow and if you don't follow them there will be consequences. Don't ask what they are, the only way you will know is by disobeying. We want the locket, Annabelle."
"Why?" I interrupt.
"Only your mother and father knew that, and only they will ever know."
I suddenly notice there is no pole in here that my chains are bound to. I faintly hear Paul Higgins rambling on about his wants, and I stare at him as I think of a plan. Should I run? Will it from now on be an endless cycle of me escaping and them capturing me, a war of its own? I'm not sure whether he's mid sentence or not, regardless, I decide to stop him there.
"Why have you taken me all of a sudden? Why not before when I was younger and more vulnerable?"
He lets out a frustrated sigh and I wonder why they hasn't killed me yet.
"We didn't know it was in the locket then"
"What is in the locket?" the curiosity is evident in my voice as I lean closer to understand more, suddenly interested for once in what it has to say.
"I've already told you it's none of your damn business. Shut up and listen to the rules, and that's rule number one" he squints his eyes 'intimidatingly'.
"Sure thing" I roll my eyes.
"You and one of my men," I scoff at the word choice of 'men', they're aliens. "most likely Harry, will be sent to a secret location to live. By 'secret' I mean everyone but you and your scum know where you are. We have accepted you will not tell us and don't react to pain, so we will target those who care about you most"
"You already took them. Remember when you killed my brother just a week or so ago?" disgust is evident in my voice as I think of my brother, and anger fuels my blood.
"Yes. Your own fault, should have told us. Steven Harding cares for you, I believe. He, your father and Daryl were thick as thieves" he laughs, my heart aching slightly at the thought of Daryl.
I wonder if they buried him. Probably, and had a huge gathering in the square. I wish I could have been there, to watch him be put to rest, and lay a button up shirt on the grave, and confetti it with popcorn.
I remember when I was younger, before I had to deal with this shit, me, Daryl and my brother were sat on the couch, and the electricity had come on for some reason: it normally is only on between 2 and 5, as the generator can only work for 3 hours a day, and it was then 7pm. We didn't know how long it would last, so Daryl rushed to the storage building where everything that no longer worked in the camp was put, and came back with a television. I had only watched one twice or so, and hysterical was an understatement for how I felt. He plugged it in, and turned on an old video. It was in German or something, a German Intrinsecus must have brought it. To this day I have no idea what they were saying, we just threw popcorn at one another, not a care for what lay outside the window. Popcorn wasn't popular either, and we were lucky to have it, but I can say I didn't eat a single piece of it.
Daryl told me when he died he wanted to die in a field of popcorn, because it was his favourite thing in the world. He wanted to be dressed classy, in a button up t-shirt, because all he wore nowadays was a leathery skin suit that was '90% sweat'.
I wonder why he gave up so quickly, it isn't like him to be so hasty - it wasn't.
"He didn't, however, react to the video of you being beaten. Therefore, I've come up with a plan that might trigger him. What if he thinks you betrayed him? Switched sides? Saw life as the Terrebit do?" he smiles the whole time, his voice completely calm, almost inviting, but it's really just manipulative and patronising.
"Steve knows I would never do that" I grit my teeth.
"Does he? I mean with you being so lenient to live with Harry and all" he trails off.
"Who the fuck said I was lenient?" I spit.
"Niall, would you?" Paul Higgins nods his head towards me, and Niall Horan nears, fists tight and jaw clenched as he swings into my face, my head jerking to the side with the impact.
He continues to knee me in the stomach and I feel the wound tear slightly as I scream out.
I take it to my advantage that I am not chained to a pole for once, and stand quickly, taking his throat in my hands, kneeing him in the crotch as he bends downward.
Immediately the disciples stand and 6 guns are pointed at my head. I turn Niall Horan around and hold him by the throat with my arm, my other hand taking the gun from his pocket and aiming it at his head.
"You fire, I fire" I warn.
Paul Higgins raises his hands in the air, dropping the gun to the floor. Niall struggles under my grip as I hold him tighter, kneeing him from behind yet again in the crotch to weaken him.
"Come on guys, drop them" Paul Higgins commands, and the clatter of metal against the ground sounds in my ears.
"I'm leaving this premises, and I'm leaving unharmed" I state.
"No, you're not Annabelle." Paul Higgins speaks, his hands still in the air.
"To hell am I living with that" I nod my head towards Harry.
I have to admit, if I had to live with one of the things I would rather live with Harry.
"Then to hell you'll go" his demeanour changes, and the calm, innocent man with his hands in the air picks 2 guns from the floor and aims them at me, his face swollen with anger.
"Shoot me, I dare you" I threaten, pulling the trigger back on the gun held to Niall Horan's head.
His breathing is heavy and unsteady and the slightest bit of sweat shines off his forehead and he lowers the guns slightly.
"The only reason I won't kill you is because you're the key to getting me what I need, Annabelle. Don't fucking push me, because I won't hesitate to hurt you, though" he drops the guns again but steps forward.
"Tell me why I shouldn't shoot you then" I tease.
"Because it's all about the chase, Annabelle" his voice is calm.
He's right. I wouldn't get the satisfaction in killing him with a single bullet wound.
"Just because I won't kill you doesn't mean I won't kill him" I point the gun downward and fire at Niall Horan's feet, he screams out, bending down to hold it instinctively but I keep him up.
"That's a good point, but killing one of my men won't get you out of this room" here he goes with the 'men' thing again.
"Who says I'll kill one?" I say. I hear him squealing under me, hissing with pain in his foot.
"Youre going to the house, Annabelle" Paul Higgins says.
Should I back out? No. I don't know the next time I won't be chained up.
"You'll have to drag me" I growl.
He shrugs his shoulders, "fine by me" he walks toward me and I fire the gun, but it's out of bullets and he's grabbed me before I can wrap the chain around his throat.
They all swarm around me as they jag a needle into me again, and I'm unconscious for the 4th time this hour. I always am.