Apologies for the delay in updating this. I really hope you enjoy this second chapter and please review if you want to read more! :)


Her head was pounding; her surroundings were spinning and her heart was racing as she jolted upright, immediately throwing up to her left. Addison felt a stabbing pain in her stomach that spread across half her body and a freezing cold breeze crept up her dress, or what remained of it. The dark green was stained and ripped, shreds of the material hanging off by a thread and barely covering her body at all. Her ponytail had all but come out, strands of hair matted and falling in her face.

Addison looked around, panicking, but she couldn't see anything. It was still dark, the sun only just beginning to rise, leaving the sky tinged red like blood.

Blood.

She winced as she held a hand to her forehead, a bright red liquid staining her fingers as she pulled it away. Addison heaved again, but there was nothing left to bring up and so she was left retching for a few minutes, the pain in her stomach never subsiding. Once she was finished, she leant back against the wall and stared at her legs that were covered in filth. She didn't want to look at the bruises that she felt starting to form on her thighs, nor the blood pooling between them.

She knew exactly what had happened.

Resisting every instinct to lie down and go back to sleep, Addison forced herself to her feet unsteadily. She pulled the remains of her dress around herself with one hand and leant on the wall with the other, using it to guide herself to the front of the club near the street.

Come on Addison, pull yourself together, she thought. All she had to do was get herself home, and then she could sort herself out. She wasn't sure how she was going to do that, but then she reasoned that it was that one hour between night and day where the city was quiet, too early for the early birds and too late for the night owls. Few people were around, and her apartment was close enough to walk. If she got a cab, they'd call the police or take her to a hospital, and that couldn't happen. The doctor in her fought with the scared woman that refused to allow anyone to see her this weak and vulnerable, though she knew that she needed to report…. this. She couldn't bring herself to say the word.

She'd lost her shoes somewhere, not that she cared, and so Addison trekked barefoot a few blocks west to her apartment, let herself in through the back door by typing in her passcode and almost collapsing into the elevator- not really stopping to wonder how she managed to avoid the glance of any passers by. Her bleeding head threatened to stain the plush carpet, and she carefully avoided catching a glimpse of herself in the four mirrored walls surrounding her. She was sure she looked a mess; she didn't need to see it.

It felt like the longest elevator ride in the world, each time the floor numbers lit up felt like it was marking another hour gone past. Addison stared at them, breathing in for one floor, holding for another, and breathing out again at the next floor. She repeated her breathing mantra all the way up to the thirtieth floor, each shuddering breath gradually becoming more and more stable as she calmed her thoughts, stopped her heart from racing.

She could do this.

The trick was not to think about it, not to think about anything beyond the next hour. All she had to do was get through one hour, and then the next… and the next-

Stop it, she scolded herself. Letting her thoughts spiral wasn't going to get her anywhere, much less out of the situation she'd somehow never thought she'd end up in. of course, she'd treated countless other women like her before (like her, how funny. She'd never thought they were like her before) and she always gave the same advice. Though she tailored it to each individual, the general gist was to go to the hospital, have an exam and then go home. Take a few days off work, she'd suggest.

Never did she think she'd end up taking a few off herself.

No, taking the day off work wasn't a good idea. Everyone would know something was wrong- Addison Montgomery hadn't taken a day off of work for years, and only a couple in her entire life.

Addison blinked as she reached her front door, not remembering having stepped out of the elevator and down the corridor. Nevertheless, a trembling hand reached up to the top of the door frame and pulled down the spare key. It took her several tries, but eventually she got the key in the lock and pushed open the door, stepping over the threshold and finally feeling safe for the first time since waking up.