A/N: Sorry, but this chapter is kinda short. Actually both this story and Cats and Mouse are going to have some short chapters. Not for the fact that I can't write, but because they came from the same idea, so I'm trying to make sure they don't clash, but I also want you guys to stay intrigued, so it works in all of our favor.
Chapter 2: Wake Up for Me
Waking up wasn't the hard part for her. Waking up meant she could escape the nightmares, even if only for the short amount of time during sleep times. Now though, the fact that she had no idea where she was or even how she got there was exceedingly unsettling.
The room was white and had a clinical smell to it. There were two doors in the room, though both were closed, she assumed one led to the rest of the establishment. There was also a small window next to her bed; the blinds were closed, but judging by the lack of light shining through, it was night time.
Besides her barely audible breathing, the only other sounds in the room were those of a machine beeping next to her bed and another giving a low hum; it wasn't until she looked over that she even noticed the machines around her.
There were many different cords and tubes in her arms, some with patches connecting to her bare skin and others with what looked like needles. The parts of her skin that weren't covered in tubes and clothing were covered in white bandages. There were a few red spots on the ones covering her arms, but they were mostly clean otherwise.
The girl sat up on the bed, a small whimper breaking past her lips as she moved. She moved the blanket covering her legs out of the way and was met with a thick gauze wrapped around her ankle going down to cover entire foot, only leaving the first knuckle to the tips of her toes.
The more she truly evaluated herself, the more white gauze she saw. The ones on her foot and wrists were the most visible, though she had a few small bandages there as well.
She wasn't ignorant, she knew she was in a hospital, but that didn't make her any less curious, and moreover, nervous about how she got there.
Almost as if on cue, the door on the wall directly across from the window on her right opened and the girl was met with a man with brown hair, similar to her own, that curled down towards his ears. He wore a set of bright white shoes with his seafoam green scrubs; a tired look adoring his face.
He walked in with his head down, staring at a clipboard in his hand. The sound of the pen scribbling something on the paper was audible from her place on the bed, the new sound causing her right ear to twitch.
When the man looked over at the bed, he seemed genuinely surprised to see her awake. Though when their eyes met, his bright green ones grew warmer and a smile spread across his lips. Something about the color of his eyes reminded her of someone, though they were a bit off, and this caused something in her to relax slightly.
"Looks like someone is finally awake," he said as he made his way towards the end on the bed.
She flinched away from him when he attempted to grab the arm with the gauze wrapped heavily around it. The action was so abrupt and violent that it caused her to pull the needle in her previously uninjured arm slightly under her skin, causing the sharp object to rip a long, paper thin line down her arm; a light sheen of blood seeping through the opening.
Along with the new opening going down the side of her previously uninjured arm, the stitches on her other arm were ripped, causing the gauze wrapped around that arm to become soiled in crimson liquid to the point where it began to drip off onto the white linen of the bed.
"Hey, hey, hey," The man attempted to grab her before she fell off the bed, the action causing everything to fall down with her, but she let out a loud whimper and recoiled further into the side of the bed, her blood continuing to stain everything she touched.
It was then that he finally got the message.
"Alright, okay," The man put his hands up, palms outward as he took a few steps away from the bed and the scared, injured girl.
She didn't move any closer or further away from the man once he was a safe enough distance away for her to relax her muscles on the slightest bit; the uncertainty on whether or not he was going to make another move to touch her kept them more so than not. The fact that she didn't know where she was or how she got there was bothering her to the point of anxiety; the fact that she was alone, to the point of fear.
The girl's breathing began to speed up, as well as the beeping of the heart monitor next to the bed. At this, the man spoke again, though this time calm and soft.
"Hey sugar cube," his voice was as calming and comforting as he could make it as though he were talking to a frightened animal or small child, and in a way he was. This girl couldn't be any older than 15 or 16. "My name is Gabriel, but you can call me Gabe if you like." He tried a light smile at her as to not scare her further. "Can you tell me yours?"
She didn't even look up at him when he spoke. She actually didn't realize he had spoken. Her breathing seemed to come out faster the longer she sat there, and lost more and more blood at the same time.
Gabriel opened his mouth to say something else, but closed it upon a thought and turned and walked back out the door, leaving the girl alone once more.
Now that she was alone again, with the man in scrubs gone, she actually felt more nervous than before. Having a potential threat gone should have made her feel better –safer. But the longer she was alone, the more scared she became, to the point where tears spilled from her eyes and she couldn't breathe.
After a few more moments of lonely silence, the door opened again and two men walked. One of them from before and the other foreign.
The new man wore a black suit and blue that matched perfectly underneath his white lab coat. His hair was jet black and slightly tousled almost as if he were recently lying his head down. His ocean blue eyes showed nothing short of concern and were focused solely on her.
Much like the other man–Gabriel had he said?–this new man had eyes that seemed familiar, even more comforting than Gabriel's.
A woman with long blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes that matched the man's exactly flashed before her eyes. She had a dazzling smile; her arms were warm and comforting as they wrapped themselves around the girl's small body. She was held close to her chest and if the girl listened hard enough, she could hear the woman's heartbeat, and it was the most soothing sound she had ever heard.
"My beautiful baby girl," the woman said and that voice definitely took the girl's number one spot on the most soothing sounds. She could listen to that voice forever.
"Miss! Miss!"
The girl blinked her eyes a few times, and she was back in the white room with the two men, who were looking very worried now, but she couldn't, for life of her, figure out why.
She felt dizzy all of a sudden and the world began to tilt. The last thing she saw before she passed out once more was the rushing forms of the men and the beautiful woman smiling behind them.
When she awoke for the second time, she wasn't as keen to as the first time. She had been experiencing a rare, dreamless sleep. One without nightmares of men with angry expressions, hurtful words, or wielding heavy, punishing objects.
She didn't want to open her eyes, but it appeared sleep was done with her for the time being.
One of the first things she noticed about her surroundings when she woke up was that the room she was in was no longer shrouded in darkness, with a single light source to illuminate the space. It was light now, though it was dim.
She knew it was cloudy, and not only that, but raining as well. She didn't really know why, but it gave her the urge to run through the water like a child would at a beach. She wanted to splash in the puddles created in the sidewalk and grass.
The sounds of the rain hitting the window and roof were seemingly familiar and comforting to her; made her feel safe, as though no one could harm her. Though that didn't stop certain evils from getting through her safe guard.
She took a deep breath, not wanting to think about that or let those negative emotions overwhelm her. As she did so, she noticed someone else in the room with her, sitting in a recliner in the corner next to the bed she was in; she hadn't even noticed it until now.
The person in the chair was a woman with dirty blonde hair, wearing a red jacket and black jeans; she looked slightly older than the girl in the bed. She was asleep, though the dark circles underneath her eyes proved she hadn't been for long, caused more than likely by a lack of sleep, but the rest of her body language was very lax.
The girl wanted to wake her up to see if she knew who she was, but before she could, the door opened.
A woman with hair that was slightly darker than the girl's in the chair came through, her eyes a warm shade of green. When she looked up at the bed and found the girl to be awake, any and all of the previous stress on her face vanished.
"Well goof morning, sweet pea," her voice was just as soft as her eyes, and oddly familiar, though the girl couldn't place where she had heard it.
Almost as if she knew what the girl was thinking, the woman answered. "My name is Ellen. My husband and I found you out in the middle of the street a few nights ago and brought you to the hospital."
Upon hearing this, the girl stared to remember.
She had been running away from those men–brothers right? She didn't remember how she got with them, let alone why. All she knew was that she woke up with her arms tied above her head to a wooden headboard of some motel.
She was alone at the time and couldn't think straight, she felt really tired, but something told her she needed to get out. NOW.
She had look up at her hands and saw chaffing around her wrists from all her squirming. The knots were tired too tight for her to be able to simply wiggle her way out of them. The brothers must have known what they were doing when they tied them.
"I'm gonna go get the doctor and tell him your awake," Ellen's voice snapped her back into the present. She blinked a couple times before nodding when she realized Ellen was waiting for a response of some kind; she hadn't even realized she had been subconsciously rubbing her wrists over the white bandages, were the dark marks were still very much so visible around the edges.
As the door clicked shut behind Ellen, the girl in the chair began to stir.
"You're awake," she seemed just as surprised as the doctor from a couple nights ago when she spoke through her sleepy haze. She figured no one thought she was going to wake up anytime soon and didn't know how to feel about that. "How do you feel?" She asked after clearing her throat, sliding up so she could sit properly in the chair.
The girl blinked at her before shrugging her shoulders, the action causing a slight pain to run through her back. She tried to play off her wince with a sigh, but the other girl could see the pain in her eyes.
"Don't move too much," she cautioned. "You haven't seen yourself in a mirror yet, but you're pretty beat up."
She felt beat up. Like she had been hit by an eighteen-wheeler actually.
She looked up at the girl in the chair again with question in her eyes. The other girl must have understood because she answered. "My name is Joanna, but I go by Jo. I got here after you freaked out. The doctors told my parents that it would be best for you to wake up with someone at least close to your age in the hopes that you wouldn't have another panic attack."
Having Jo there was a bit more calming than waking up alone, but she was still a bit uneasy. She felt like something was missing. Something that could make her feel completely calm. Something she was used to having around all the time, but she just couldn't figure out what that was.
"What's your name?" Jo asked after a small pause.
She looked up at Jo with sort of resigned looked on her face. One might almost say she looked…guilty. Jo on the other hand, simply didn't think she wanted to speak quite yet.
"You don't have to say anything yet if it makes you uncomfortable. Nobody will push you." Jo said, her voice calm and reassuring. At first, she lifted her arm in an attempt to give the brunette on the bed some comfort, but thought better of it upon remembering what her parents said the doctors told them about what happened a few nights ago.
"It's not that she doesn't want to answer your question Joanna," the doctor said as he walked back through the door, Ellen, Gabriel, and another man with brownish grey facial hair and a ball cap, that must have been Ellen's husband and Jo's father, following suit.
"She can't,"
A/N: R&R please.