Chapter 25
We ran for what seemed like hours. My legs were beginning to hurt from the non-stop distance that we had somehow managed to run. After a while, I had to stop Zach in order for me to be able to catch my breath again.
I didn’t quite understand how Zach had managed to keep running for so long yet I was already out of breath. Maybe it was all the fighting that he done that somehow managed to keep him so fit.
“Stop!” I demanded, throwing my arm in front of Zach’s body to stop him from moving. I bent over, placing my hands on my knees, taking deep breaths in an attempt to regain my breath.
“Are you ok?” Zach asked, stopping from running and standing beside me.
I nodded, too tired to try and talk to him. Allowing myself to fall to the floor, I put my head on my knees. A position I’d grown all too familiar with. My head was still aching however trying to catch my breath allowed me to take my mind off the pain in my head and focus on something else.
“Can we stop running?” I asked after a moment of silence. I’d managed to breathe normal again, no longer was I gasping for breath. My breathing was still heavy but now, it was a lot more even than previously.
Zach nodded whilst chuckling as he sat down on the floor beside me. There was snow on the floor which meant that my butt was now wet. I didn’t mind though. I was safe and I was with Zach. That’s all that mattered in that moment.
We didn’t sit there for long. Snow began falling, slowly gaining speed and becoming more rapid as we sat on the cold ground. Without even realising it, I began to shiver. The cold seemed to hit me all at once; one minute I was warm and the next… freezing.
“Want to go back to my house?” Zach suddenly asked, breaking the silence between the pair of us.
I nodded, watching as he stood up and held his hand out to help me up. A mall smile etched its way onto my face as I gratefully grasped his hand and allowed him to pull me up from my position on the ground.
As we began walking, he didn’t let go of my hand. I didn’t mind at all. It felt natural to hold his hand… again. It made me feel safe and I liked it. It didn’t matter at that moment that we were only a pair of teenagers, running away from two men that had managed to hold me hostage. (If you could say that). It didn’t matter that we weren’t together anymore yet being around him still felt so natural and normal. It didn’t matter that I loved him and he didn’t know.
All that mattered was we were together and we were both alive. Zach had found me and he’d gotten me out of the house without being hurt too much.
It didn’t really take that long to arrive at Zach’s which only made me think that he was heading in that direction anyway. It didn’t bother me that we were here. I was just glad to be somewhere that wasn’t that small cottage.
Entering the house, we both pulled off our shoes that were soaked off running back in the snow. Walking in the snow drenched your shoes as it was but running somehow managed to make it ten times worse.
As we entered Zach’s bedroom, he sat down on the bed pulling me down beside him. “Are you ok? Do you need anything?”
My parents suddenly entered my mind as I realised how late it was. They were probably wondering where I was, they were probably worried. “Actually, yeah. Can I borrow your phone? To call my parents?”
Zach smiled and nodded whilst standing up and taking his mobile phone from his pocket and handed it over to me. “I’ll be downstairs, take all the time you need.”
With that, he smiled once more before turning around and leaving the room making sure to close the door behind him. I stared at the door for a while after he left before I finally snapped myself out of my gaze and looked down at the phone in my hand.
After typing in the only number, besides my own, that I knew off by heart, I held the phone up to my ear waiting for an answer.
The phone only rang a few times before my frantic voice answered. “Hello?”
“Mum,” I sighed. “It’s me, Maisie.”
My mum gasped from the other side of the phone. “Maisie! Where on god’s earth have you been?”
“I at Zach’s house, I forgot my phone so I couldn’t phone you then I realise how late it was so I borrowed his phone to call you.” I rushed out.
I could hear the sigh of relief that mum let out after I told her where I was. Not wanting to tell her about the whole Max and Paul fiasco, I just told her I was here. She didn’t have to know. She didn’t have to have the extra worry.
“You scared me so much. Are you staying at Zach’s tonight?” She asked.
“You’re allowing me to stay here?” I questioned, shocked at her own question. Was she seriously going to allow me to stay at my ex’s house?
Mum laughed down the phone. “You sound so shocked. I trust you, Maisie. I know you wouldn’t do anything stupid. I raised you, you know.”
“I know, mum,” I laughed. “But yeah, I ask if I can then I just come home tomorrow morning.”
“Ok sweetie. Have a nice time, I love you.”
“Thank you, I love you too.” I answered before hanging up the phone.
I grinned down at the phone before letting it drop onto the bed. Jumping up, I made my way downstairs in search of Zach. I found him in the kitchen, leaning against the bench eating from a pack of cookies.
“Want one?” He grinned, holding out the pack for me to take some. I took a few before leaning on the bench beside him.
“Is your mum asleep or is she out?” I asked, nibbling on one of the cookies that I’d taken.
“She’s in bed; do you want to stay over?” Zach asked.
I smiled gratefully at him. “Do you not mind?”
Zach chuckled, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me into his side. “Of course I don’t.”
“Will your mum mind?”
“She liked you, she won’t mind at all.” He reassured.
“Then I’ll stay.” I smiled, wrapping my arm around his waist and hugging him.
I turned around in his grasp so that I was facing him. There were so many questions from what happened before that were running through my mind. So I just decided to go for it and just ask him the first one that sprung to my mind.
“How did you know where I was?” I asked. I lifted my hand up to his face, hovering slightly before just going for it. I gently moved some of his hair from his forehead whilst I waited for a reply.
“Max and Paul called me up saying how they had you. They were basically using you to get to me. They wanted me to fight for them, like you heard. And I did that, I broke up with you so that you wouldn’t get hurt. He threatened to hurt everyone I cared for. Everyone I loved. I never meant to hurt you; by the way, I just wanted to make sure that you were safe. As you can see, that plan didn’t really work but anyway.
“I did fight for him for a while, he purposely chose people who were bigger than me, physically stronger. He did so that I got hurt. I put up with it for a while before I finally had enough. I told him that I wasn’t going to fight for him and so he let me go. Surprisingly without a fight. But obviously he had a plan. He called me threatening to hurt you if I didn’t fight for him again.
“The whole reason why I began fighting in the first place was to mainly protect you. I knew that if he knew I was in a relationship, he’d automatically go for that special someone. That was the main way he could hurt me. And that is when I came to get you. I couldn’t let you get hurt.” Zach finished, letting out a deep breath of relief.
“So you fought for him just so the people you loved wouldn’t get hurt?” I asked, wanting clarification before I asked my next question.
“Pretty much, yeah. I didn’t want the people closest to me getting hurt. I couldn’t watch someone I love in pain.”
“So you loved me?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. Oh my God. I wanted to at least ask other questions before I asked him that. It was like my mind had no filter, I asked the question before I could stop myself.
Zach seemed to have frozen at my question. His eyes went wide as he stared at me. He probably had no idea how to react to my sudden question and I didn’t really blame him. The question had come out of nowhere, it even surprised me. And I was the one asking the question.
“I…” He paused. “I guess I did.”
“Did?”
“Do,” Zach corrected himself. “I guess I did love you and I guess I still love you now.”
I couldn’t stop the grin that appeared on my face as he said those words. Those three words sounded so much better than I ever could have imagined. The happiness that bubbled up in my stomach was amazing. I felt so happy.
“Isn’t this the part where you say it back?” Zach grinned, wrapping both arms around my waist instead of just the one.
“I guess that I love you too.” I smiled, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him closer to me. I face press up against his neck as I took in his smell. Even his smell made me feel safe.
Zach let out a sigh as he pulled me tight. “Does this mean that we’re back together?”
“I… Erm…” I started. I didn’t want us to go back to how we were before. “Can we take it slow this time? I feel like last time we moved way too fast. Like the whole relationship started fast, the falling in love with you happened so fast. I not want to rush the time that I have with you. I have all the time in the world and I want to make the most of it.”
“That’s perfectly fine with me.” Zach grinned, leaning down and placing a kiss to my lips regardless of the brief conversation that we just had.
“Do you have any pain killers?” I asked, breaking away from the kiss. The pain in my head was coming back, only this time less bearable as before. Nothing was able to take my mind off the pain that was rapidly growing back.
Zach nodded, walking over to the cupboard and pulling out a box of pain killers. He took two out before moving over to the sink and filling up a glass with some water. “Here you go.” He smiled, sliding the two items over to me.
Quickly, I took the two tablets along with a gulp of water. The sooner this headache began to decrease the better.
I took another cookie, quickly eating it. I had to admit it, these cookies were delicious. Zach took my hand and began leading me towards the door of the kitchen.
“Let’s get you to bed, you must be shattered.” He said looking over his shoulder. We left the cookies on the bench and headed towards the stairs.
A yawn that escaped my mouth made me realise how tired I actually was. Considering the previous events that had happened, sleep hadn’t really occurred to me. Neither did the fact that I was tired.
“You sleep in the bed; I’ll grab a separate set of blankets. Oh and help yourself to my clothes.” Zach smiled. He pulled the cover back for me before leaving the room.
Moving over to his dresser, I opened the first draw which was luckily filled with his t-shirts. The first thing that I did was take off my pants that were still slightly wet on the butt of sitting on the cold snow before.
I pulled off my shirt, quickly pulling on the first one of his that I saw. The shirt was quite long- it went down to my mid-thigh. Deciding against wearing a pair of Zach’s pyjama bottoms, I just left my underwear on and folded my clothes, leaving them on the floor at the bottom of the bed.
I automatically jumped into the bed, pulling the sheets up to my nose. Zach’s scent automatically hit me as I snuggled further into the blankets. The smell caused me to smile as I closed my eyes.
The door opened returned shortly after making me open my eyes to reveal Zach, he dropped two pillows on the floor as well as a blanket. Smiling, he made his way over to me, placing a kiss on my forehead before he crouched down on the ground beside the bed.
“Sweet dreams, baby.” He smiled softly. After running a hand through my hair, he moved away and began making his ‘bed’ on the floor. The light was then turned off and we both settled down to sleep.
It was silent. Literally, there was no noise as we lay there trying to get to sleep. Sleep, however, never came to me. I just couldn’t fall asleep no matter how hard I tried.
I rolled over in bed, moving closer towards the edge of the bed where Zach was lying on the floor. “Psst, Zach!”
A groan escaped his lips before he rolled over, his eyes still closed. It was hard to make out his features in the dark but because I was so close I was able to make out his face faintly. Faintly enough to see that his eyes were still closed.
How had he managed to fall asleep so quickly?
Maybe it was because the whole cottage and ‘kidnap’ fiasco was still wildly running through my mind, unwillingly allowing me to forget it.
It was like I was being haunted by it. And I hated every second of it.
“Zach!” I groaned, pulling my arm out from under the covers and prodding Zach on his forehead repeatedly.
If there was one thing that was annoying and had to wake him up, it had to be prodding him. That was the main thing that annoyed me so there had to be a chance that it would annoy him too.
There was still no reply as I waited for him some kind of movement from him. I continued to prod him, moving my movements around his face from his cheeks to his forehead. How the hell was he such a deep sleeper?
“Dammit.” I whispered, shuffling even closer to the edge of the bed. Making a fist with my hand, I proceeded to land a rather forceful hit to his chest. That done the job. Zach automatically jumped up, lifting his hand up to his chest to rub where the hit had landed.
“What the hell?” He groaned sleepily, looking over to the bed where I was lying. “What’s wrong, Maisie?”
“I can’t sleep.” I whispered. I lifted my hand back up and tucked it under the covers to try and keep warm. Not only was I not able to sleep but I was also freezing. The cold nights were probably the only downside to winter.
Zach rubbed his eyes before trying to focus his gaze back on me. “Do you want to watch TV or something? I could put on a movie, if you’d like that is?”
I shook my head. “I want to sleep but I can’t. Will you get into the bed?” I asked whilst already shuffling further back into the bed.
“Do you not mind?” He asked already standing up from the floor regardless of his previous question.
I rolled my eyes at him before pulling back the cover to the bed. “Just get in before I drag you in.”
“Demanding, I like it.” He smirked, getting into the bed and pulling the covers back over him.
He moved closer to me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me closer towards him before turning over to lie on his back. “Maisie, your legs are freezing.”
“It is winter.” I teased. I moved around trying to get more comfortable before deciding to just rest my head on his chest. I wrapped my own arm around his waist, a yawn escaping my lips.
“Now go to sleep.” Zach laughed, leaning down to lay a soft kiss on the top of my hand. His hand moved from around my waist to my back where he proceeded to rub my back up and down.
“Night, Zach.” I sighed happily. Hopefully this new position would allow me to finally get some sleep.
“Goodnight, Maisie.”
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Thinking of wrapping this up soon.
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