song: pray for me by The Weeknd ft. Kendrick Lamar
VICTORIA'S POV:
Holy shit my head hurt.
Like, really hurt.
It truly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and the second I tried to lift it off the pillow below me, I was instantly lightheaded.
"What the hell?" I muttered, moving my hands up to my eyes to clear the sleep away and that's when I realized that the bed I was currently sitting in, wasn't my bed at all.
And then it all came flooding back to me.
Leaving the chief's office, the alarms, and attack, looking for Sam, all of it.
Sam.
Shit, where was Sam?
In moments, I was scrambling off the bed and bounding towards the door.
I had absolutely no idea where I was but I knew that if Sam was still in trouble, the first thing I needed to do was get out of this room.
Feeling panicked, I hurriedly grabbed the door handle and tried to open the door but was met with no success.
What the fuck?
I tried the knob again.
No luck.
Holy shit I'm locked inside.
I started to throw my weight against the door, hoping by some miracle I had made a mistake before and now it would just happen to pop open.
But that didn't work either.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
A million thoughts were currently coursing through my head and while my entire body ached in a way I had never felt before, I knew that wherever I was, I couldn't be safe if they felt the need to lock me inside somewhere. All a huge part of me wanted to do was just sit down and scream out the hundreds of questions I had but my survival instincts were pulling me in a completely different direction.
Ok, Tori. I told myself. Think.
Whoever put me here had to eventually come back. And when they did, I needed to be prepared. Which meant I needed a weapon.
My eyes instantly began to scan the room I was in and that's when I began to realize how big of a space I was actually in.
The room was massive. The neatly made, king-sized bed I had woken up in moments before was sandwiched between two bedside tables and floor-to-ceiling bookcases covered the walls it was adjacent to. Half walls and a short, three-step staircase sectioned it off from a separate room that had even more bookcases, a huge TV, and a grey sectional with matching chairs.
This bedroom looked nothing like anything we had on the camp. Not even the Chief's quarters were as nice as this. Which means I was definitely not on base anymore.
I continued to look around the space, searching for another possible exit, until I realized that behind me was a door leading to what I assumed was a bathroom.
In moments I was inside the bathroom, trying to find a window I could maybe attempt to crawl out of but instead I was met with a bathroom that perfectly matched the rest of the room.
It too was massive but the thing my eyes were drawn to first was the completely clear-glass, matching shower and tub. Absolutely everything in the bathroom seemed to be glinting in the overhead light. It was literally sparkling clean and not a single thing littered the double vanity sinks.
My mind wandered back to the showers at the camp and how all they are is random shower heads found on supply raids with flimsy bedsheets hung on old coat hangers drilled into the bare, wooden walls. Forget drainage, the used water simply gathered underneath the bathhouse where it was later filtered for re-use.
Yeah, definitely not as nice as this place.
I hadn't seen a luxury like this in a long time.
And although my aching body was begging me to just forget about escaping and instead go and curl up inside the lavish tub where I would take the longest bath of my entire life, I had bigger problems at hand.
Like getting the hell out of this room.
I quickly glanced around the bathroom, deciding that nothing in the space deemed suitable enough to serve as a weapon against whoever had locked me in here.
Curtains. My mind suddenly thought. I saw curtains in the living room. Which means curtain rods.
In moments I was racing back into the main room and there they were.
Just like I thought, floor-to-ceiling curtains lining the wall opposite of the door I assumed was the exit.
If I could manage to rip the curtains off the wall with their rods, I could perch myself on the half-wall near the door and use the rods to attack whoever walked in the door.
Quickly, I go to work yanking down the large sheets which, after a couple of tugs, came flying off the wall pretty easily.
Except, I wasn't even a little bit prepared for what lay behind them.
Staring back at me was a large glass door and accompanying balcony, overlooking the biggest expanse of a city landscape I had seen in years.
And I was high above it.
Like at least fifty floors high above it.
Well, now I'm glad I didn't try and find a window to blindly climb out of.
And just like the bathroom tub, I wanted to stand there and take in the view I was seeing for hours on end instead of dealing with the problem at hand. But I desperately knew that I had to rip my eyes away right now since I had no idea how much time I had left.
After I managed to slip the curtains off of the rods, I snapped the long pole into two and gripped both ends in my hands as I hurried to the over to the door and hopped on top of the half-wall, which positioned me just a little bit above the door.
I had the perfect shot against my attacker.
And it only took a few minutes before I actually got the chance to take that shot.
Moments later, I began to hear multiple, muffled sets of voices getting closer and I made a mental note that they were coming from the left side of whatever hall was outside the door, so this was probably the direction I should run towards. Once I knew they were right outside the door, I watched as the doorknob began to slightly jiggle.
This was my chance.
And the second the door cracked open, I raised the rods high above my head and brought them down onto my captives with all the force I could muster.
The sound sliced through the otherwise silent room.
After I felt the satisfying smack against their heads, I used that temporarily stunning moment to take off running.
"What the FUCK?!" I heard one of them shout as I ducked and pushed my way past them as fast as I possibly could.
Obviously, the weight of the poles wasn't enough to knock them out but I was hoping it would stun them enough to give me a decent head start.
And now that I was aware of the fact that I was high up in some kind of skyscraper, I knew that once I managed to get out of whatever apartment I was in, I needed to quickly find stairs or an elevator to really succeed in escaping.
I took off down the hall, passing multiple other doors until the hall dumped out into what I assumed was a common space with a kitchen and a living room.
But unlike the bedroom and bathroom from before, there was no time to dawdle and take the time to look around.
Instantly, I noticed another person in the room who was sitting on another huge couch and when he looked up and saw me, pure shock covered his face.
"LOUIS!" I heard a voice roar from down the hall. "FUCKING GET HER."
Now that sounded like it was getting closer.
I had to move NOW.
My eyes locked with a door across the room that looked like it was probably the exit to this place and the second I took off in the direction of it, the guy on the couch was also frantically running towards it.
But I was much closer than he was and after I got there first, my hands flew to the knob, yanking it open.
I'm free. I thought to myself. You stupid, lucky bitch. You actually managed to find a way to get out of here.
But actually, I was the exact opposite of free.
Because the second I took one step outside of the door, my body collided with someone else's, and their arms instantly wrapped around me, paralyzing me.
And when I managed to look up in defeat to see who had caught me when I was moments from freedom, I saw the exact same pair of green eyes I saw yesterday, moments before I had collapsed.
~~~~~
"PUT ME THE FUCK DOWN!" I was screaming as I banged my fists repeatedly against the man's back. "WHAT THE FUCK?!"
After I had run into them, it took only seconds for whoever this person was, to restrain me against him and throw me over his shoulder, dragging me away from my near escape.
"PUT ME DOWN!" I screamed again but the only response I got came from the guy who I had just previously seen sitting on the couch before he too tried to stop me.
"Oh she's a yeller, isn't she, Harry?" He snickered.
So this guy's name must be Harry then.
"Shut up Lou." He grunted as he continued to carry me down the same hallway I had just run down seconds ago.
From my current position, I was not only smushed against this 'Harry's' back, but I was also hanging practically upside down, making not very much in the apartment visible. However, I could assume that he was taking me back to the room I had woken up in, but this was proven wrong when he passed the only familiar door and led me further down into the hall, opening the door at the very last door instead.
The second we stepped inside, I knew I was in deep shit.
For starters, the room was nothing like the bedroom I had previously been in, or even any bedroom at all. The only furniture in the place was a couple of chairs that had been scattered around the room with one positioned directly in the center.
And then there was the smell.
The smell was horrible.
And from the moment we stepped inside, I wanted to gag. Not only was the room stuffy and hot since the walls were this furry soft material, but the stench reeked of something like rotting flesh.
And that's when I realized why they were taking me into this room.
They were going to kill me.
That's probably the whole purpose of this prison cell of a room. To kidnap helpless people and take them back to this fucking skyscraper of whatever it is, to torture them to death for their own pleasure.
These guys were probably some kind of sick, sadistic serial killers.
And while it was the most inappropriate reaction I could have possibly had, I felt a giggle escape my lips.
Because out of all the things in this world that could have killed me before this moment, it wasn't going to be the zombies that infested the earth, or starvation due to lack of resources, or the dozens of rogue human gangs, it was going to be some fucking amateur-ass, teenage serial killers.
Go figure.
"Oh fuck no she did not just laugh again." I hear Louis comment as the man I just learned is named Harry grabs me off of his shoulder and slams me into the chair in the middle of the room.
I try to resist him and at one point I get a solid grip on his forearms and try to kick him, but two more people suddenly appear into the room and I automatically recognize them as the ones I hit with the curtain rods earlier.
"Zayn, Niall, get her wrists," Harry says as he pushes his palms against my shoulder blades, pinning me in the chair as the other two boys cuff me into the bonds.
I squirm the entire time, trying everything in my power to get a good knock against any one of them.
I'm not going to die without at least trying to fight back.
"Oooh, she's a feisty one." The guy with blonde hair says as he leans in close to me so his face is just inches away from mine. "Probably good in bed too."
And that's when I finally decide to use the saliva I've been gathering in my mouth for the past minute on this stupid, smug blonde boy, sending spit flying directly into his face.
The minute it hits his face, he's in shock.
"Holy fucking shit." The other guy who just pinned me down says, his jaw practically on the floor.
Niall reaches his hands up to his face, attempting to wipe the spit away from his eyes and I expect him to reach out and at least strike me in the face or something, but he only laughs.
"Guess I was right." He snickers and I want so badly to spit at him again but he makes the wise choice to take a few steps back from me.
I hear the guy who carried me in on his back, Harry, snort from where he's standing to the left of me and for a second, I'm almost proud of myself until I watch him pull a black handgun out of the waistband of his pants and raising it to my eye level as he begins to walk towards me.
So this is it. I think to myself. Well, at least I tried to fight them.
And slowly, I begin to shut my eyes and brace myself for the sound of the gun going off and whatever is going to follow it as I feel the barrel of the gun press itself deep into my forehead.
I'm ready. I tell myself. I'm so ready.
But nothing happens.
"Open your eyes," Harry says, the gun still against my forehead. "You don't get to go that easy."
I pry my eyes back open, meeting my gaze with his. "What do you want from me?" I whisper to him, expecting a response that goes along the lines of 'nothing' and then him actually shooting me but instead, Louis speaks up.
"We need to know what Edward's is planning." He says sharply. "And before you try and deny anything, we know you're his assistant so no bullshit."
What is he talking about? How does Daniel's dad have anything to do with this?
"Chief Edwards?" I question, feeling truly baffled. "What about him?"
"What the fuck has he been planning?" He repeats and I shake my head.
"How should I know?" I ask as Harry pushes the gun he's holding deeper into my skull.
"Oh, you should fucking know," Harry says, speaking only for the second time. His voice is cold. Emotionless. And if I wasn't more worried about the gun against my head, his voice would be enough to send a chill down my spine. "You know all about his little plans to attack us."
"Who is 'us'?" I shoot back, feeling genuinely baffled.
I watch as he grits his teeth and his mouth starts to grow tighter, stretching into a straight, angry line. "I think you fucking know." He swears.
A balloon of panic is starting to form in my stomach and the mix of the drugs still in my system and the gun against my head is starting to make me feel a different type of sick than just being scared.
"Listen," I try to explain to them. "I don't know who you think I am but I have no idea what you're talking about. And if you're going to kill me simply because you think I work for Chief Edward's then go ahead, do it because you're right but the only reason I got that stupid job was because my boyfriend is the chief's son. All I do for him is file stuff and transcribe meetings!"
I watch as all four of the faces in the room start to fall.
"Mother FUCKER!" The blonde one shouts as he continues to wipe away at the remnants of spit on his face.
"That son of a bitch set us up." The couch guy mutters, shaking his head back and forth, the realization hitting him that I am not at all important to whatever Chief Edward's does on a day-to-day basis.
"You're telling me she's a fucking decoy?" Harry demands as he turns, his chest heaving, and looks around at the other guys, searching their faces for an answer they don't have.
I watch one of them shrug out of the corner of my eye and in one swift movement, Harry swings the gun away from my head and fires a single shot against the back wall, causing me to scream.
"You fucking dick!" The blonde one shouts at him as the sound of the bullet reverberates against the walls. "Don't just go shooting that fucking thing around every goddamn time you get mad!"
Jesus these guys swear a lot.
For a second, I watch nothing but pure anger wash over Harry's face and he looks so pissed that I think he might just shoot the gun again just to smite the other guys but instead, he manages to regain his composure and position the gun back on me as a look of calm settles back on his face. In only seconds, his emotions have done a complete 180 and I have no idea what he's going to do next. For all I know, he could start crying.
But that theory is quickly proved wrong as he extends his arm outwards so he's holding the gun at arm's length now, still aiming it between my eyes.
I guess now it's actually time to die.
"Well." He simply states, his face a blank canvas. "Guess that's it for her then."
And I watch as his finger starts to slightly press against the trigger and I think yes, this is really it and I wait for the pain and I wait to start screaming or something or a white light and I wait, but instead, the guy from the living room pushes Harry's arm away from me and utters a simple, "Wait."
"What the fuck?" Harry demands, looking filled with rage for what feels like the millionth time in only a few minutes.
Will they just fucking shoot me already?
"We need her," Louis says quietly as he makes eye contact with me for the first time since we've been in this horrible room. "She may not realize it, but she probably knows something. Hell, she's probably heard something. But at the very least, she could be useful to use against Edward's or the camp."
The room is silent for a few seconds until the other boy who tied my wrists to the chair finally speaks. "Lou's right, Harry. She's probably a fucking pain in the ass but she could eventually be useful."
Wow, eventually.
How kind of him.
I watch as Harry contemplates the idea in his mind, taking his time to go over the possible scenarios that I could be used for in whatever sick plan they probably have.
I'm confused.
Are they not about to kill me?
"And," I hear Louis start again. "You have been saying how we've been needing some extra help around this place while we prep for shit. You know, an assistant of sorts."
I would like nothing less than to be these horrible boy's personal fucking assistant but if this is the idea that is what is going to keep me alive, maybe I can try and play into it.
My mind goes to how easy it was to almost escape from them just minutes ago and I think about how, in time, if I get them to trust me enough to do things on my own, I could actually maybe manage to make it out of here alive.
"I'll do it." I hurriedly say as I try to nod my head as enthusiastically as I can muster. "Whatever you want I'll do it."
Harry still has the gun he's holding aimed somewhat in my direction and while I can hardly tear my eyes away from it, the second I do look up to meet his eyes, he breaks his personal silence.
"Fine." He says as he quickly averts his eyes from mine and draws the gun away from me, tucking it back into his pants.
At that moment, I breathe what is probably the biggest sigh of relief ever conceived in human history.
And while I really just want to break down crying right here from the emotional whirlwind I just lived through in a matter of minutes, every muscle in my body is screaming against it.
Don't give them any more satisfaction than you already have, Tori.
"Fucking fine." I hear him repeat again as he turns his back to me and moves to walk out the room. "Lets just fucking get her back to my room. Wish I could leave her in here instead but the whole goddamn place reeks and I don't want her stinking up the house like a wet dog."
Oh, how kind Mr. Harry. I think to myself. Not making me stay locked in the literal torture chamber.
In only a few moments, the same boys who tied me down before are undoing my constraints and helping me back on my feet to lead me back to the same room from before, which I guess I know now is Harry's room.
Throughout the whole ordeal, they're silent, not saying a word to me and once we arrive at Harry's door, the only interaction I get from them is a light shove into the doorway. Then, they're quickly shutting the exit and I hear the resounding click of a lock from the other side.
What the fuck is even happening right now. I think to myself, trying to process the last hour in my mind.
Once inside the massive room again, I slowly make my way up the three small steps to the bed where I perch myself on the edge of the mattress, my body still feeling groggy from the drugs.
Deep breaths. I try to tell myself. Just breathe and maybe you'll feel better.
But as I start to rest my elbows on my knees in front of me and bury my hands in my palms, I start to feel a different kind of sickness creep in.
Like, an actual 'sick to your stomach' kind of feeling.
And that's when I actually start to feel the bile rising up into my throat.
In a matter of seconds, I'm darting across the bed and sprinting into the bathroom where I just barely manage to jerk open the toilet lid in enough time to empty the entire contents of my stomach.
I heave over the bowl for a couple of minutes, my mouth feeling hot and I start to feel sweat bead against my lower back.
Who knows if I'm throwing up because I'm actually sick or simply because of the stress of having a handgun pressed into your forehead for several minutes.
After I feel like I've finally emptied everything in my stomach, I try to push the hair I attempted to hold out of my face while I was vomiting, into a ponytail with the spare elastic on my wrist as I reach up to flush the toilet. I'm still hunched over the lid and while my skin also still feels relatively hot, I try to regain composure of my staggered breathing as I close my eyes.
Except, the brief moment of peace I think I'm about to get is suddenly interrupted.
"Jesus Christ that's disgusting." The voice says as I quickly re-open my eyes, shooting my gaze to the doorway Harry has just appeared in. I watch as his face grimaces at the sight of me and he quickly averts his gaze away from the spot I'm sitting in on the floor. "Thanks for fucking throwing up all over my goddamn bathroom."
What the fuck is his problem.
"Why do I feel like this?" I manage to croak out, my voice feeling raw.
For half a second, I almost think I'm going to get a shred of human decency from his but he only snorts. "Probably the drugs we pumped you full of. Those things can do some real nasty shit to your stomach."
And as if on cue, I feel a sharp pain shoot its way through my stomach and I stifle the urge to shout out loud.
"Fuck." I mutter instead, bringing my hands up to my face in frustration.
I hear the dull pang of something porcelain hit the nearby bathroom counter and through my fingers, I see he's brought me a plate of some kind of food with a glass of water.
"Eat this shit so you don't ruin my bathroom even more." He explains before turning to leave me again.
And while all the air feels like it's currently being knocked out of my lungs and I'm simultaneously starving and also sick to my stomach, I somehow manage to stammer out a simple "Why?" before he's out of the room.
"Why?" He says, echoing my question as he pauses in the doorway, his back still turned away from me. "Did you just ask me why?"
His tone is truly terrifying but I think if I stay silent and don't answer his question, something worse could happen. "Yes." I say quietly, swallowing the lump now growing in my throat.
Slowly, I watch him turn back around to look at me again, his face still wearing the same stone-cold look from earlier when he almost put a bullet through my head. I watch as the muscles in his upper arms and shoulders twitch slightly against the fabric of his black T-shirt and for the first time, I realize how much taller than me he really is. Especially since now I'm sitting on the floor.
In seconds, he's crossed the bathroom floor in three long strides, closing the already small distance between us so that now he's towering over me in his full height. He bends down so his face rests only inches from mine and I feel the terror shoot through my body, paralyzing me below him.
"Let's make something clear." He spits out at me as he continues to keep the strongest eye contact I've ever seen. "Eat. Or don't eat. I couldn't give less of a shit if you live or die. But," He starts to say as he reaches his right hand down towards my face before lightly cupping my jaw into his hands and tipping it up more upwards towards him.
Don't breathe, don't breathe, don't breathe is all that's racing through my head.
"If you do decide to kill yourself, make sure you do me a favor and just take a dive off the balcony. It's so much less messy that way." In one swift movement, he's gone from gently holding my face, to using his middle and thumb finger to swiftly jerk it away from him and send my head flying to the side.
I feel a sharp pain course its way down the back of my neck instantly and the crack I hear between my ears is anything but pleasant. I try to stifle the gasp dangerously close from falling from my lips and instead opt to show him I'm not as scared of him as he probably thinks I am.
Keep in mind you psycho, I've seen some sick shit too.
"I'm not going to fucking kill myself." I stammer out as the pads of his fingers push harder into my skin.
"Oh baby," He starts to say, his eyes almost looking a blackish color now. "By the end of this, you're going to wish you killed yourself when you had the chance."
And then, he lets go. And in seconds, he's gone. Out of the bathroom and the bedroom and out the front door, locking it behind him as if he was never even here in the first place.
~~~~~
a/n: just fyi i created a spotify playlist for this book and here's the link!!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7pW6H69w5LuPeopLlBokXv?si=ojAoFd8QSDmjSti10pb5xg