The sound of my own screams continued to ring in my ears as I ran through the woods, my breath coming in short gasps. I tried to push branches out of my face as I ran, but I almost couldn't keep up. My arms, legs and face were getting scraped, but I barely felt it. The pain was nothing compared to the pain in the rest of my body, especially my back. I also had no idea how I was able to walk, much less run right now. Pure adrenaline, I figured.
I would have Apparated, but I was afraid in my current state. I was scared, unfocused and not to mention injured.
I only ran for another five minutes before stopping, collapsing to my knees as I gasped for breath. I fell on all fours, shaking as I tried to calm myself down so that I could Apparate. Breathe, breathe, breathe, I thought. Over and over. Breathe, breathe breathe. I unsteadily pushed myself to my feet as the skin on my back stung wildly. Breathe, breathe, breathe.
I stumbled forward as the wind whistled through the trees, almost sounding like whispers. I whimpered and looked over my shoulder, one after the other as I jumped slightly. He had come after me. He was gaining on me. I could have sworn I heard the leaves crunching behind me. Twigs snapping.
I began to run, stumbling every few feet and trying not to twist my ankle. Twigs and branches continued to scrape at my arms and snag my already torn clothes. I was bleeding from multiple scrapes, scratches and gashes on my body. My breath was coming in gasps and the sound of the blood in my veins was crashing in my ears like ocean waves.
The faster I ran, the more the branches seemed to scrape at me, the more they seemed to reach for me like skinny, dead arms. The faster I ran, the more I thought I heard whispering. The faster I ran, the more I thought I heard footsteps. The faster I ran, the more I thought I saw shadows through the trees.
And then I tripped and pitched forward, crashing down onto my stomach and getting the wind knocked out of me. I grunted in pain and rolled onto my back as the footsteps grew louder, pounding in my head along with my rushing blood. I saw shadows, heard movement and saw the glint of a silver knife. I screamed.
And then I sat bolt upright in bed, free from my nightmare, but still screaming.
"Breathe, darling, breathe." Martha's face swam in front of me as I squinted in the sudden light filling my room. I felt the edge of the bed sink a bit as she sat down. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. Slowly." I continued to gasp for air for a second before following her instructions and taking in one slow breath after another.
Martha had been doing this for me almost every time I'd had a nightmare. In the seven weeks I'd been here, I'd had a fair few. The first week, I'd had one a night. And now I'd gone down to maybe about two or three a week. It was horrible and embarrassing, still as much now as it had been seven weeks ago. Tom and Martha had been horrified at first, running into my room in extreme alarm. They'd probably thought someone had broken in or something. But no, it was just me and my dumb, unshakeable nightmares.
"You're okay, you're safe," Martha told me gently as she shifted my hair off of my forehead. "You can't be touched here."
I looked at her and nodded, but my eyes were still filled with terror. I knew they had charms up around the building to protect against break-ins and theft. What with so many people in and out, Tom and Martha wanted not only their lives and things to be protected, but also those of their guests staying on the floors below. And, I suppose mine too.
And yet, that didn't stop a part of me from being terrified.
Tom came in just then with a mug of hot tea. That had quickly become his thing when I had a nightmare. The first night he'd been so shaken and on edge that he had to do something to calm down when he realized nobody was in immediate danger. And since he had no idea where to begin on comforting me-at least to my face, he had gone to make me some tea, his own way of helping and occupying himself. And it had become his go-to duty ever since.
"Thanks," I said with a tired sigh as I took the mug and cradled it in my hands.
"Was your nightmare the same as the others?" Martha asked gently.
I nodded as I took a sip of my tea, letting it warm my insides. "Yeah, it was the night I ran away from where I used to live, but my mind always makes it ten times worse in the dream. It was bad enough to live through and it's bad enough that I relive that moment in my dreams, but to have it be worse...And in the dream, I always get caught up to. I'm always found. I don't escape."
"The good news is that in reality you did escape," Martha assured me. "And that part of your life is over. You're here now and we want you to stay as long as you want. Forever, if you'd like."
"I can't," I whispered, shaking my head. "I can't be in one place for too long. For my safety and yours."
"You said you didn't think you'd be followed," Tom said.
"I didn't-don't-think so," I told him. "Or at least I'd really hoped not. I'd moved around so much before I came here and it's so far away. I didn't think anyone would have a chance."
I closed my eyes and sighed as my mind flashed to the diary. Someone had followed me here-or at the very least found me. Even if it wasn't my old family.
"Then why do you think you have to keep moving?" Tom asked. What's the hurry?"
"I just can't be too careful," I replied, looking up at him. "I know you worry about the business and yourselves, and so do I. I never wanted to put you in any kind of danger."
"We know that," Martha said reassuringly.
There was a long silence as Martha gingerly reached for my arm and when I didn't pull away, she gently began rubbing her hand up and down my skin. I watched her, almost hypnotized by the back and forth motion. I thought back to the first nightmare I'd had. After Martha had gotten over her initial shock and realized I was having a bad dream, she'd immediately rushed over to comfort me. But the second she reached out for me, I had yelped and twisted away before cowering at the head of my bed, shaking like a leaf and crying.
"I think you like it here," Martha said now, her eyes searching my face. "It seems as if you're at least starting to trust us a lot more." She gently tapped a finger against my arm twice as she rubbed it and I looked up to see her smiling slightly. It was as if she had been reading my mind and remembering that first nightmare as well.
Tom suddenly cleared his throat. "If that bastard of a foster father does track you down," he said, "I'm going to wring his neck."
I smiled slightly. Tom had never exactly been the warm and fuzzy type and he didn't always seem to know how to express how much he cared about someone, so him saying what he had said was almost his way of saying he cared for me.
"I appreciate that, Tom. Really," I said.
"Do you think you need anything else?" Martha asked.
I shook my head. "No, the tea was enough. Thank you. I'll be fine."
Martha gave me one last comforting smile before she stood up and headed for the door. Tom let her pass first before he turned back to me. "If you need anything..." He cleared his throat.
"I know. Thanks," I said.
He nodded once before shutting the door with a click. I finished my tea before making myself comfortable in my bed again, lying on my side and pulling the blankets up to my chin. I lay there facing the closet and practically staring a hole through the door in the spot where I knew the diary lay. Through the wood and beneath a few pairs of shoes so that it would be hidden just in case someone looked inside.
Reading the stupid thing had made me curious, sure, but it was also a reminder that some bit of my past had followed me here. I didn't know how or why or if I was in any danger or not. Which was why I partly wanted to get out. But the savings I'd put away in the past month wouldn't get me far. I'd be back where I'd started seven weeks ago in no time. And, I realized, as my eyes began to feel heavy with sleep again, I had a real, live home for the first time in a long time and I was getting very, very used to it very, very fast.
"I've got this table, don't worry about it."
I stared at Noah quizzically as he cut me off, sliding into the booth on his knees and smiling at me before waving his wand and magically sending the dirty dishware floating into his bin. And then he started wiping down the table.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yeah, it's one table," he chuckled. "No big deal. Besides, you're always cleaning tables like some sort of maniac. I've got to keep up somehow."
I bit my lip as I stared at him. "Well...thanks."
It was Wednesday night, only five days after my talk with Fred out in the alley. I'd been thinking about our talk ever since it had happened. How he'd finally come out and said everything he was going through himself-despite me already knowing it all. He hadn't gone into detail but he'd said it. And I kept thinking about how he had been able to tell that I'd been hiding a difficult past just from looking at me-the same as I'd been able to do with him.
Was I really that obvious? I figured maybe I was. I was reserved and extremely private. I didn't talk much to anyone and always kept my nose down, focusing myself on work. I didn't even laugh or smile all that much. In fact, nearly all the times I had since I'd been here had been with Fred. I'd thought keeping to myself would make me invisible and prevent me from being noticed, but it actually seemed to be doing the opposite.
"Earth to Sophie!"
I snapped out of my trance and blinked to see Noah standing in front of me. He'd finished cleaning the table while I'd ben standing there lost in thought the whole time. Great. I really was a basket case.
"Sorry...spaced out for a minute," I said.
"You okay?" he asked, his eyebrows coming together in concern as he balanced his bin of dirty dishes against his side.
I nodded. "Just tired."
"You work a lot," he said, nodding. "And you work hard. I'd be tired too."
I nodded my head in agreement. Sure, there was that, but there was also the fact that I frequently had my sleep interrupted by nightmares. But I wasn't about to tell Noah that.
"I think Kyle's probably waiting to close down the kitchen," I finally said. "We should get the dirty dishes back there."
Noah nodded in agreement. "Hey, wait," he said, catching up to me as I turned and started to walk towards the kitchen.
"Yes?" I asked, my heart rate suddenly spiking. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been purposely avoiding being alone with Noah since the night at the Three Broomsticks when he'd tried to ask me out. I hated the thought of having to formulate a rejection, but I also hated having to reject him at all.
Noah cleared his throat. "Would you like to...maybe go get a drink sometime?"
I stopped and turned towards him, biting my lip slightly as I thought about what to say.
"I know we don't know much about each other-but that's why I'm asking you. Even though we work together, I don't think we get a lot of time to talk-next to none actually. So I just thought we could get to know each other a bit more."
I blinked at him before raising an eyebrow. "So to clarify...this is not a date, is it? You're asking me as, well, co-workers, yes? In the hopes of becoming friends?"
He hesitated a bit. "Sure," he said. "Why, did you want it to be a date?"
I shook my head. "No. Sorry but I cannot handle dating right now." I paused. "Look...I really don't like sharing a lot about my life. Especially since I'm not sure how long I'll be here for."
"You're thinking of leaving?" Noah asked in surprise.
"That was always the plan. I'm trying to get my life in order."
"And there's no room to take a break? Get drinks with a guy from work? That night at the Three Broomsticks was that traumatizing for you, huh? I didn't realize the group of us were that terrifying." He smiled.
I rolled my eyes, but the corner of my mouth did turn up slightly. "I don't drink," I told him. "Not much anyway."
"I noticed, actually," he said. "Bad experience with alcohol?"
I stared at him for a second. "A few," I finally admitted.
"Understood," Noah said. "And I respect that." He started walking back towards the kitchen again.
"You do," I stated, almost skeptically, my eyebrows raised as I started to follow him.
"Sure," he answered. We reached the kitchen and unloaded our bins into the sink. Noah charmed the dishes to wash themselves and we stood there and waited, stacking our bins underneath the sink as we did so.
"Okay," I said slowly, not sure what else to say. It was his move, I figured.
Noah straightened up and smiled at me. "Okay, so not a date," he said. "How about you and I just hang out? I have the perfect idea of where we can go that doesn't involve any alcohol."
"Really," I said, raising my eyebrows. "Where?"
"Do you have an opinion on surprises?" Noah asked with a tilt of his head and an even wider grin.
"I've had enough of them to last a lifetime," I told him.
"Huh," Noah said thoughtfully. "So...no to drinks, no to a date and no to surprises. You're tough."
I shrugged and looked away, fiddling with my apron string. I wondered where Kyle had gone off to. I wished he come back and save me from having to talk to Noah anymore. It wasn't that I didn't like him-he was very sweet-but this conversation wasn't one I really wanted to have. Or even felt prepared to have.
"Well, my idea was," Noah said, mock impatiently, "that we could go get ice cream. At Florean Fortescue's, down the alley. You do eat ice cream, don't you?"
"Mhm," I nodded, peering up at him. "I love ice cream."
"Oh, thank Merlin," Noah sighed, clutching his chest.
I smiled slightly and let out a soft giggle as I looked back down at a loose string dangling from my apron. I reached out to quickly tug it off before starting to wrap it loosely around my finger.
"Florean Fortescue has the best banana split in London," Noah went on. "Have you tried it?"
I shook my head. "Haven't even visited the place."
"You're kidding!" Noah exclaimed. "You're missing out. Now you have to say yes. I can't allow you to go much longer without trying at least something from Florean Fortescue's. I'd say we go now, but it's half past midnight. The shop is closed."
"Yeah, I'd expect so," I said, raising an eyebrow.
"Ah, so you've got some sarcasm in you!" Noah grinned, his eyes brightening.
"I suppose," I shrugged.
Noah stared at me and slowly shook his head in amusement. I, on the other hand, cleared my throat and looked away awkwardly.
"We should...um...clean these up and find Kyle so we can close," I finally said, gesturing to the dishes.
"Yeah, I'll get it," Noah said, fishing his wand out of his apron pocket and waving it towards the sink. "So...what do you say? Ice cream? Sometime soon?"
I sighed and looked away as I chewed my lip. "I'll consider it."
Noah smiled widely and shook his head. "I suppose that's better than a flat out no."
I glanced back over at him for a second before looking away again. "I'll go find Kyle," I finally offered, untying my apron and crossing the room to the basket of dirty ones. I tossed it in before picking up the basket to bring upstairs. "I'll bring these up and see if he went upstairs to wait."
Noah nodded. "Hey, hold on a second." He quickly untied his own apron, crumpled it into a ball and tossed it across the room. It landed directly into my basket.
"Nice shot," I commented with a small smile before turning and hurrying up the stairs, leaving Noah no time to respond.
I opened the door at the top of the stairs and entered the kitchen to see Kyle there, sitting at the table, talking to Tom, who was leaning up against the counter.
"There you are," he said when he saw me. "Finally. Took you and Noah long enough to clear those tables. Even looked like you were doing more talking than cleaning at the end."
I felt my cheeks heat up immediately. "No, we weren't. We were cleaning."
"Sure," Kyle said with a smile. "Dishes done?"
"Noah's finishing them up. I have laundry."
Martha hurried into the kitchen just then, as if on cue. She took the laundry basket from me and balanced it against her hip. "All the tables are cleared and washed? The floor was swept? Front doors were locked?"
I nodded. "Yes to all three. All that's left are the dishes and locking the back doors once Kyle and Noah leave."
Martha nodded. "You go on and get cleaned up. Kyle and Noah can handle the rest."
Kyle stood up with an exaggerated stretch. "Yeah, and it'll go by a lot faster, too. Unless Noah wants to hit on me as well." He winked and clapped me on the shoulder as I scowled. That was the last thing I wanted him to say. Especially in front of Tom and Martha.
"He was not hitting on me," I insisted, my voice low. "We were talking."
"Yeah? What about?" Kyle asked, pausing in the kitchen doorway and turning back to look at me as he crossed his arms. He smiled in amusement.
"He-he was asking me...to get ice cream," I stuttered out, unable to look Kyle in the eye. I knew how that was going to sound to everyone. It was going to prove Kyle's point exactly.
"Really," Tom said from behind me with a laugh as Kyle laughed as well.
"I knew it," Kyle said through his laughter.
"If I were to go, it would be as friends. I made that very clear," I insisted, crossing my arms.
"What do you mean, if you were to go?" Kyle demanded.
"She said no," Tom said with a shrug. "Is that surprising?"
"Actually, I said I'd consider it," I said.
"Now that is surprising," Tom said. "When you first got here, you kept to yourself so much, you were practically invisible. And the two times you have gone out, you had to practically be backed into a corner to be convinced to go."
"It's called character development and Sophie is moving along swimmingly," Kyle said, pretending to wipe tears from his eyes.
"Oh, go finish locking up before poor Noah has to do it all by himself," Martha said, bustling into the room again. "Honestly, he's probably down there waiting." She shooed Kyle from the room and he went only after he'd snuck a wink over his shoulder at me.
"I'd go out with him if I were you, Mouse. If anything, go for the ice cream."
I let out a groan and dug the heels of my hands into my eyes as Martha shut the door.
"You don't have to go if you don't want to," she said gently, coming to stand beside me. "Noah is a very nice boy, though. He's sweet. I think you'd like him if you got to know him."
"It's not that I don't like him," I said. "He does seem nice. I just...I don't know what I'm doing. And I don't want to get too attached."
"Maybe it won't be such a bad thing," Tom said, stretching his arms above his head as he headed out of the kitchen. "If you're afraid of someone finding you, maybe building your own little army of sorts would be a good thing. People who would fight for you."
"I don't want anyone fighting for me," I said. "I can't ask that of anyone. And I can handle myself."
"Yeah, you were doing so well with that before Martha and I took you in," Tom snorted as he paused in the doorway. "You were skinny as a rail, practically blue from the cold, wearing tattered clothes, and were covered in scrapes, blood and bruises. You looked like you had nothing handled."
I blushed furiously and clenched my jaw as I refused to meet his eyes. He was right, of course. I had been a wreck. And it was actually pretty hard to believe that had only been seven weeks ago. In the time since I'd been here, I'd been eating three full meals a day-home cooked and not scraps from the trash-which meant that I'd put on some weight and was starting to look healthy. I had shelter, food and clothes. Any injuries I'd had were healed the best they could be-most were even gone completely. I was being taken care of here. People were nice to me. And I had to admit that it was pretty great. It was hard to think of giving all of this up. In fact, it was getting harder and harder each day.
"Don't you think you deserve to relax?" Martha asked gently, reaching out to run a loving hand through my hair. "Don't you think you deserve a proper family? One that loves you?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I guess."
"You guess?" Martha clucked her tongue before letting out a huff. "That foster family you were in has messed with you something terrible," she said. "They best hope I don't meet them face to face."
"It was mostly just...him," I whispered. "The dad. My foster mother and I were just victims."
Martha and Tom were both silent. I hadn't spoken about my foster family since the night I'd arrived here and I'd been given Veritaserum. This was the first time I'd talked about it all on my own. It wasn't much, but it was something.
When I didn't say anything else on the subject, Martha simply let out a sigh and reached out as if to put a hand on my arm. She hesitated, but when I didn't move away, she gave my shoulder a slight squeeze before telling me to get some sleep.
And then she and Tom left me alone in the kitchen. I stood there and wrapped my arms around myself as I squeezed my eyes shut and took in a deep breath through my nose. I was exhausted, my feet ached, and I was sweaty and smelled of food. Whenever I finished a shift, I couldn't bear to do anything else until I had bathed. Being able to even do something as simple as bathe was something I had taken for granted before I'd run away.
I made my way to the bathroom and started a bath. While the water was running, I grabbed my pajamas from my room and went back to the bathroom, where I sat down on the edge of the tub, reaching down to swirl my fingers lightly through the water, testing it to make sure it wasn't too hot. I waited a moment, staring aimlessly at the water as I continued to swirl my hand through it, almost hypnotized by the ripples.
Finally, I stood up and began slipping out of my clothes. When I was done, I tried to avoid my reflection in the mirror, as usual. It was almost habit by now, avoiding looking at the two remaining injuries out of the ones I'd arrived here with. The two that had been so deep and severe that they'd left two scars.
I had gotten extremely adept at not looking at those scars. Not that I needed to look, anyway. The image of them was forever burned into my mind as well as the pain from the day I had gotten them-the day I'd run away from my foster home.
Today, however, as I stood facing the tub, I found myself turning my head and resting my chin on my shoulder to gaze behind me into the mirror. And there they were: the two long, red scars situated between my shoulder blades. The skin was red, slightly raised and just looked, well, mangled, to be perfectly honest. The scar on the right was an inch or two longer than the one on the left, but other than that, they were essentially the same. Two horrific, ugly red lines, about eight or ten inches long.
My throat constricted suddenly and I turned away from the mirror, stepping into the tub and sitting down. I sighed and closed my eyes as I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin on my knees. I sat there, still as could be, surrounded by warm water, the only sound the occasional dripping from the faucet.
I tried to control my sudden surge of emotions, but I couldn't make the lump in my throat go away and I couldn't stop the few tears that leaked out of my eyes. Why had I let myself look in that mirror? All it did was cause pain and stir up memories I was still working hard to forget.
The night Martha and Tom had taken me in, I'd ended up showing them the scars while still under the Veritaserum. I'd hated doing it. Hated slipping off the old, ragged cloak I'd nicked from someone's garbage. Hated the gasp from Martha as she saw the rips in the back of my shirt, caked with dried blood. Hated the sickened look on Tom's face as I lifted up the back of my shirt and they saw what had happened. I remembered the strained, tearful sound of my voice as I told them my story. I was frightened, tired, distraught, and trying to fight the Veritaserum to no avail.
They'd naturally wanted to take me to St. Mungo's for treatment. I was severely underfed, clearly traumatized, dirty, and covered in various cuts, scrapes and bruises-the worst of them all obviously being the two long cuts on my back that I'd managed to haphazardly heal myself not long after I'd run away. I was obviously no Healer and I had been slightly out of practice with magic. I hadn't had a wand for quite some time. Plus, I hadn't been able to actually see what I was doing. So, the healing job had been pretty shitty. I was in desperate need of medical attention, but at the first mention of the word hospital, I tearfully pleaded with Tom and Martha not to bring me there.
I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it. The environment, the questions, the attention. Too many people, all of them attempting to get into my personal space. Poking and prodding at me and peering at me in alarm. It sounded horrific. Besides that, I didn't want any trace to be left of me being here. The less people who knew I was here, the better. The less people who knew anything about me, the better.
I cried and pleaded and fought Tom and Martha on their suggestion to bring me to St. Mungo's. I begged them not to until they finally-and hesitantly-agreed to avoid the hospital and do what they could to patch me up themselves. But Tom insisted that if anything more serious came about, such as an infection, he'd take me straight in to see a Healer.
And after that, I was even fighting Martha as she tried to get near enough to tend to the partially healed wounds on my back as well as on the rest of my body. I hadn't quite realized that if I didn't go to the hospital, I did leave Tom and Martha no choice but do heal me themselves. I don't know what I expected. They couldn't leave me the way I was. But I didn't want to be touched-not by Tom and Martha and certainly not a team of Healers. I wanted to be left alone.
Tom had eventually ended up using the Immobulus Charm on me to keep me still which had made Martha yell at him for not approaching the situation more calmly.
"Where were you getting with being calm?" Tom demanded. "She was putting up a fight!"
Later that night, after I'd finally allowed Martha to tend to my injuries, she'd shooed me into the bathroom with a pair of old pajamas from her dresser. They were big on me, but it didn't matter. They were fresh clothes and I appreciated them more than I even cared to admit.
I'd taken a bath, Martha had fed me dinner, which I'd devoured, too hungry to even be embarrassed at how quickly I ate. And then afterwards, as I sat shaking in the guest room-the one that had become my own room afterwards-Martha had stopped in to check on me and ask if I had needed anything else. I had refused to speak to her, instead just sitting in the center of the bed, my knees to my chest as I trembled uncontrollably. Eventually, Martha had left the room, turning to shut the door behind her, but pausing halfway.
"You know," she had said, "if you ask me, it seems that the person who did this to you was trying to take away your angel wings. I hope they didn't succeed."
And then she had closed the door with a quiet click.
Now, sitting in the tub, I finally leaned back and stretched out, trying to relax my muscles. I rested my head back on the edge of the tub and tilted it to the side as I lifted my foot out of the water and wiggled my toes absentmindedly. Finally, I shook my head and let out a quiet sigh.
Angel wings, I thought. Yeah, right.
A/N: So we got a pretty good amount of new information on Sophie in this chapter! I know she's been pretty mysterious up until now. I hope everyone likes the chapter! Leave a review and let me know what you think or if there's anything you'd like to see happen! Thanks for reading!
