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"Ellie?" Noah's leaning over to reach for my hand as my eyes flutter open. It's so bright that I have to squeeze them shut again.
"El, are you awake?" Noah whispers, brushing my hair away from my face.
"Y-yes," I croak, my tongue dry, my throat parched. "What's happened?"
"Do you remember?" Noah questions.
Saying goodbye. Laughing. Walking. Flinching. Turning. Andy. Gun. Shot. Blood. Blurry. Gone.
Everything comes back at once, like a tsunami suddenly crushing an entire city. Piece by piece, every second, I remember something else.
I suddenly sit up, my head foggy. I wince in pain, my hands shaking as I feel the bandage wrapped around my stomach. "I was...I was...Andy...he...I was—"
"Hey," Noah says, sternly, trying to make me lie back down. But I can't. I can't relax either.
"Hey, take it easy, okay? You were shot, it's going to take some time to get better."
"No," I moan, "no, no, no. It wasn't supposed to happen like this."
"El, it's okay, everything is—"
"Where is everyone else? Dad? Ridge? H-Hunter? Where are they?" I say, frantically looking around the room as if they will appear out of thin air.
"Noah, where are they? Where is everyone?!" I ask, feeling a sob rise from my throat. A shooting pain spreads through my stomach and it makes me sob harder. Something's happened. Something's wrong.
"El, you need to stay calm," Noah says reassuringly, "you've lost a lot of blood. You're still recovering."
"Tell me, Noah," I plead. "Just tell me."
"El, I'll explain everything, I promise. But please, please for my sake, just lie back down, okay? Please," he says, and I suddenly hear the anguish laced in his voice.
He's hurting too. He's been affected just as badly by this as me. I need to stop being so selfish and think of my brother too. The person who happened to witness me getting shot.
My sobs start to stop and I wipe away the few tears that remain. I lay back down, watching as Noah's shoulder deflate in relief.
"Are you okay?" I whisper, suddenly noticing his tired appearance. His blonde hair is stuck to his forehead, oily and sweaty. The bags under his hazel eyes are big enough that they must have resulted from days of sleep deprivation.
"God," he laughs, rubbing a hand over his face. "You're lying here in the hospital and you're asking me if I'm okay?"
"Well, yes," I whisper, taking his hand again. "You were there too. We went through the same thing."
He shakes his head, laughing sadly, until his voice breaks. "You always do look after everyone but yourself, don't you?"
I smile at him, wiping away the single tear that escapes down his cheek. My thumb wipes it away at his chin, cupping his jaw.
"I just want to protect the ones I love," I say, hearing the heart monitor go up next to my bed. "I just want to make sure nothing happens to anyone I care about."
"You've always been like that, El. And that's why people love you. That's why..." he stops and I close my eyes, realising what he's going to say. "That's why Hunter will always love you."
I suck in a breath, scared to ask my next question. "Where is he, Noah? Where is everyone?"
"I'm going to start at the beginning," he says, leaning back in his chair, lacing his hands through his hair. "You've been here for a week now and so much has happened. A lot of it you aren't going to like, so just prepare yourself, alright?"
I gulp, my hands shaking once again. "Okay," I whisper. "Just—just get this over with."
Noah breathes out slowly, looking anywhere around the room except at me. Until eventually, his gaze finds mine and I know that I'm going to be heartbroken.
"Andy got bail," he stammers, bringing his hands into fists, "and he's awaiting his trial which has been pushed forward to next month. The prosecution has a very strong case against him and it's highly unlikely that he will get anything less than 25 years."
"Ridge...well, because he's still seventeen his trial will be at the children's court. Honestly, the people I've been speaking to don't think he'll even go to a juvenile detention centre. They think he's most likely looking at a 12-month community corrections order, especially seeing as he had no direct involvement with your kidnapping. Although, he was aware of you being there and he often helped his dad out with drug runs. We'll have to wait and see what happens."
Ridge. I never even thought that he would be affected by this. I never even thought that he might end up in trouble for his father's mess. It isn't even really his fault. His dad is manipulative and he is the only parent that he has left. How can you blame a kid for doing something wrong when everything he does begins with the man who is supposed to look after him?
Noah drops his gaze and I realise that now he's about to tell me the worst part of it. That everything he's just explained isn't even half as bad.
"Dad, he...dad covered for me," he whispers, lacing his fingers together in his lap. "He lied to the police when they raided our house and found the drugs. He said I never knew anything about it. I was going to confess, but he—he made me promise that I would be there for you, that I wouldn't leave you alone, not now, when you need all the family support you can get."
I close my eyes, scared about what he's going to say next. I love Noah, and I know that family is one of the most important things to him. It would have been hard to let our father get the fall for all of it when Noah used to willingly help with the drug runs.
"The Razors were arrested and—and so were The Skulls. They're all awaiting their trials." He stays quiet, too quiet for too long.
"Noah," I whisper, "where's dad?"
When he glances back at me, I almost begin to cry. The look of absolute pain written across his face makes me want to crawl into a ball, burying myself from the rest of this terrible world.
"He got bail. But he was arrested for drug possession and dealing. He's been charged, and the lawyers think that he'll get..." Noah trails off and I clench my fists, preparing for my heart to shatter.
"How long, Noah? How long will he be gone?"
"They think—they think that he'll get... around fifteen years."
Fifteen years? Fifteen years? I'll be in my thirties. I might be married and have children. I might have a completely new life that my dad will have missed out on. He will be locked away while my life changes.
"It's possible he could get less, but...it's unlikely," Noah says, hanging his head.
I look up at the white-washed ceiling, feeling my life crumbling to pieces in a matter of seconds. A tear falls across my cheek, rushing past my ear.
"What about...Hunter?" I whisper, feeling my eyes gather with tears.
"He got bail," he whispers, clearing his throat.
"Can I see him?" I ask, as a tiny flicker of hope runs through my body.
"No," Noah says, so quietly that I almost miss it. "No, you can't."
"W—"
"It isn't up to me, Ellie. You're a witness to the crimes that were committed. You can't see any Razor member right now, or any Skull member for that matter."
My gut twists and I feel the bile coming up my throat. The need to vomit is intense and I gag, suddenly feeling like I can't suck in any air.
"Why?" I sob.
"It was court-appointed, El. It's just how it works."
"No," I suck in a breath, gritting my teeth.
"El, please," he says, his voice wavering with sadness. "This has been hard enough, alright? Just this morning Hunter came by and—"
I sit up, without even thinking about the pain. "He came here? He was in the hospital?"
"Yes, and I had to stop him. I had to stop him because if someone found out that he had seen you, he'd go to jail for breaking the order."
Of course, I want to see him. I almost need to, really. My heart feels empty with all these new revelations. It would be nice to get some reassurance from him, but of course, I don't want him to get into trouble just because he decides to visit me now.
"Hunter is...he's facing at least a year in prison, El."
Then my heart shatters again. And again and again. It goes on and on and now I really can't breathe. I'm clawing at my throat, I'm sobbing until I feel like my lungs will burst.
"Hunter's a good person. He's a good person, Noah," I sob. "It isn't his fault that his father raised him. It isn't his fault."
"El," Noah whispers, holding my hand, "I hate to say this, but Hunter's eighteen. It was his decision to stay and live on that farm."
"No!" I scream, my eyes are completely blind from the tears. "You know that's bullshit! You must have seen how controlling Andy was! He couldn't escape! He had nowhere to go!"
"El, I'm sorry," he croaks, "it isn't up to me. I can't do anything to stop this."
"This isn't fair," I whisper to no one and everyone all at once. "This isn't fair."
"I know I sound like a hypocrite," Noah says, his voice void of any emotion. "I know I'm eighteen and did some stupid things for The Skulls but I wanted to turn myself in, I really did."
I nod, squeezing my eyes shut. Our lives are a complete mess. We need to help each other through this. I'll need to rely on my brother more than ever now. But we will pull through eventually, despite how hard it will be.
"Hey," Noah says, squeezing my hand gently. "I have something else to tell you."
I'm not sure I can handle any more pain, but I kept quiet, preparing for the worst.
"You know Marcos? Well, he's actually a Skull member. He was trying to look out for you all along."
My tongue seems to be glued to the roof of my mouth. "Why?" I finally croak, "why did he take me?"
"Andy was already very suspicious of him, and Marcos had been a double agent for years, helping dad gather information from the inside. It takes people years to become trusted by Andy, so it was too risky of a situation to not kidnap you. It would have broken his cover to disobey orders. I know it's still fucked up, but that was his explanation."
I close my eyes. I don't know how I'll ever feel about Marcos, just like I don't know if I will ever be able to fully forgive my father for letting me get kidnapped for his own gain. I'm grateful that Marcos was there to watch over me and he save Hunter's life, but I don't think I'll ever be able to get along with the guy for being the cause of a very painful summer.
"He also got bail and he's looking at about five years," Noah mumbles.
"When do I get to go home?"
"Soon," he whispers, brushing my hair out of my eyes, just like he used to do when I got sick as a child.
I close my eyes, focusing on the steady beat of my own heart. My breathing is starting to feel normal again. My hands aren't shaking anymore.
If there is anything positive that I can get out of this situation, it's that I'm still alive and that I have my brother by my side.
"Everything will be alright, you know that, don't you?" Noah whispers.
I sigh."Yeah, I know."
One day, everything will be alright. Everything would eventually go back to normal. But right now, it doesn't feel like that. Right now, I have a gigantic hole in my chest where my heart used to be.