"I still don't understand why you can't just use your magic to heal it."

Oliver sighed, briefly pausing his stitching. "I already told you."

Maddy sent him a skeptical look. "You gave me one reason that, to be completely honest, doesn't even make sense. James doesn't care if I'm still hurt or bleeding. That doesn't stop him from starting another round of torture."

The englishman flinched at how casually she used the word 'torture' and sighed again. "Poppet I- there's really not much I can do." He finished stitching her arm and gently wrapped bandages around it. He hated how helpless he sounded whenever they had this argument, but after how he'd thrown a wrench in James' plan the first time, the blond had not so subtly been doing whatever it took to keep him away. He hesitated before bringing up yet another topic that often caused arguments. "You should have screamed."

"Absolutely not!" Maddy hissed, her eyes narrowing at him. "That's what he wants! Hell will freeze ever before I give him what he wants."

"You don't believe in hell."

"That is beside the point!"

Oliver shook his head, knowing he wasn't going to change her mind. Her stubbornness didn't usually cause her very much grief and he could get over it, but in this instance all being stubborn had gotten her were some new scars to add to her growing collection. "Biting your tongue until it bleeds just to keep from screaming isn't worth spiting him."

"Oh please, my tongue is fine. See?" To prove her point, her stuck her tongue out for a moment before closing her mouth again.

"The visual aid wasn't necessary." Oliver replied after a moment's silence. She simply shrugged in response, clearly not caring. He shook his head again, deciding to drop both topics and finished with the bandages. The silence stretched on until Oliver awkwardly broke it, "Do you want me to stay until he gets back?" She shook her head wordlessly. Suddenly, the door burst open and they both jumped. The stairs creaked as James came down them, raising an eyebrow questioningly at Oliver.

"He was just leaving." Maddy piped up before Oliver could say anything. The englishman sent her a look that screamed 'you shouldn't have said anything,' but she ignored it. Fortunately, the pink haired man knew he wouldn't win any sort of argument with either of them so he reluctantly made his way up the stairs. James waited until he heard the door close to turn his attention back to his captive. As usual, she was glaring at him, not saying a word. Her eyes were cold.

He sighed. "If looks could kill…"

"You'd have been died a hundred times over." She snapped, her voice just as icy as her eyes.

Despite the venom in her tone, he chuckled. "You know you're not as big and bad as you like to think you are, right?"

She attempted a sardonic smile. "So I've been told. I've been able to put up a fight against you though, so…" She trailed off, shrugging.

James tried to hide a smirk as he jumped to another topic. "I have a proposal."

This caught Maddy's attention and she tried to feign indifference. "So?"

He internally snickered. "I give you a head start and you try to get away."

She didn't like this. There had to be some sort of catch. "What happens if I do get away?"

He shrugged, trying to remain casual. "You can go back to your family or disappear somewhere. It doesn't really matter to me."

This was too good to be true. There was no way getting to go back to her family was this simple. He wasn't going to just let her walk out of here. There's no way he's actually serious about this. It was times like this that her irritation about not being able to read him reached its peak. If she could just figure out if he was serious... He certainly seemed serious, but she wasn't sure she was willing to risk it if he wasn't.

"Unless, of course, you don't think you can do it." James said, noticing how she was hesitating. This was it, he'd set up what he could. Now he just had to see if she'd bite.

She scowled as he said it, her blood boiling. He didn't think she could get away from him, huh? Well, she could prove him wrong no problem. "How much time do I get?"

James smirked, trying hard not to laugh. She'd taken the bait. "Half an hour." He'd found that the easiest way to get her to do something was to suggest she couldn't. She may have tried to deny it, but deep down she was quite prideful and that was always her downfall.

"What happens if I don't get away?"

"You come back here."

"That's… it?"

"Would you rather there was some other consequence?"

She shook her head.

"Then yeah, that's it."

She gnawed at her lip, still apprehensive about the whole thing. Could she really get away? She had to try, right? Wasn't this opportunity worth the risk? But would he keep his end? Would she actually get half an hour or would he cut the time short once she'd left?

She had to at least try, whether he played fairly or not.

"Deal."

His smirk widened and grew more malicious, but he followed her up the stairs and stood near the basement as she made her way to the front door. Her hand had just closed around the handle when Allen walked over and grabbed her. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Let her go." James interjected. "I told her she could go."

Allen looked at him like he was crazy, but let her leave. "I hope this is some sort of scheme of yours." He said once the door had closed behind her.

James smiled at his brother. "You should really have more faith in me. Could you set the timer for twenty minutes?"

Run. Just run. Don't look back. Don't slow down. Just keep running.

Maddy stumbled and sat down on a bench to catch her breath. She'd been jogging for a while now and since she didn't run much in her spare time, she was now extremely winded. Her side still hurt from where Allen had gotten her with his back, even that had been almost a month ago now.

Two weeks I've been with them.

She pushed the thought to the back of her mind, forced herself to get up and kept moving. She couldn't rest now. She finally had a chance to get away from James, away from having to be stitched up every other day.

She couldn't blow this.

Strands of hair had come loose from her ponytail and were getting in her eyes. She began to fix it then stopped and, after a minute of pondering it, simply let her hair down. It wasn't much in the way of changing her appearance, but it was better than nothing.

Of course, James had seen her with her hair down plenty of times so it probably wouldn't do any good.

Focus!

She suddenly wished she had her phone with her. At least if she had it, she could have set a timer. She had no idea if her half hour was up or if James wa going to come find her early, but she hoped she'd be able to stay hidden long enough to evade him.

She glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye and instinctively ducked into an alley. She peeked around the corner.

"Fuck."

So much for managing to get away.

"I almost got away." She grumbled, glaring at the ground and refusing to look at him.

"Sure." James replied simply, rolling his eyes. He supposed if he had actually given her thirty minutes like he'd said he would, she might have been able to get away, but alas, he hadn't. Now he just had to figure out how to break her.

Nothing he'd tried so far had seemed to work. All the torture did was make her bite her lip or tongue until it bled and glare at him as he left. He'd considered and tried not letting Oliver stitch her up for a few days, but that had just led to her nearly dying and Oliver lecturing him for an hour. She didn't seem to care about herself. "Do you know self preservation means?" He asked suddenly, an idea slowly forming in his mind.

"The act of protecting oneself from harm or death, regarded as a basic instinct in both humans and animals." She rattled off, still not looking at him.

Okay, so she knew what it meant, she just didn't actively practice it. Wonderful. That meant all his efforts had been for nought.

He left her to her sulking and went upstairs, his mind slowly turning over his idea. "I'll be back."

Maddy jumped as the door opened again. James was cautiously making his way down the stairs, holding a thrashing form. Once he got to the bottom, he dumped the humanoid shape on the floor. Without a word, he turned and went back up the stairs, closing the door.

The form sat up, spitting swear words and grumbling. Despite the fact that she was horrified what James bringing Lovino here could mean, she chuckled as he continued to curse the canadian. He turned and was soon enveloped in a hug. "What are you doing here?" Maddy asked, without letting go.

Lovino hugged her back. "I was coming to get you, but that bastard grabbed me and dragged me here and- You're hurt!" He pushed her off him and inspected the bandages wrapped around her arms. "What happened?"

"I refused to scream."

She was met with a confused look, but after a minute, he shook his head. "I'm not even going to ask."

They fell into silence, until Lovino noticed that she seemed upset. He racked his brain, trying to figure out what he could say. "Hey."

She looked at him, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

"I'm not a pimp."

Her face went red and she buried her head in her hands. "You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"Never."

pinkittwice54: Go ahead, I won't stop you.