When They Came [Under editing]

Chapter 9- Nothing

Waking up much later in a familiar room which I soon realised to be Max's, I slowly tried to sit up, groaning at the ache in my stomach.

Damn that Zack. 

Max was sitting on the edge of the bed as he stared down at the floor, seeming to be lost in his own thoughts.

"Max?"

His head turned up to look at me as soon as my voice reached his ears. He tried to give me a fake smile but the guilty look in his glossy eyes helped me to see right through it. He himself was adorning a forming bruise on his jaw along with a bandaged nose.

The band aid having cat prints over it couldn't escape my observation.

"Jennifer, your face..." He gulped as he looked away in shame, clenching his fists tightly.

"Is it that bad that you can't even look at me?" I tried to joke to lighten up his mood but it didn't seem to work.

"Max?" I called out his name again.

The tears in his eyes were more prominent this time as his irises met mine.

"I am so sorry that you had to go through that-" He started in a shaky voice but I gently interrupted him.

"It's not your fault, Max. Please, don't blame yourself. If anything, you saved me from the hot headed panda." I smiled at him, chuckling later at my nickname for Zack. Seeing me laugh so freely, a smile soon overtook his features too, this time genuine.

"They are at the hospital." Max said after a minute of silence.

My eyes widened, "What?! Who?"

"All three of them. I choked Zack and he passed out. He was quite bruised and was bleeding so they took him to the hospital." He glumly confessed.

"Oh my god! Why would you do that?" With furrowed eyebrows, I asked him, trying to get a peek at his face but he just turned away from me.

"Are you really asking me for the reason? Get some rest and I'll drop you at your house." He sighed, running a hand through his dark hair.

"What? You guys are releasing me?" I tilted my head in a mix of confusion and bewilderment.

"I am."

"Why are you doing this for me? Aren't they your friends?" His eyes met mine again and the deep confliction swirling in those ocean blue eyes seemed to be drowning me in them.

"I don't know, Jennifer." He whispered, gazing at me for answers I definitely did not have. "I  felt an immediate connection with you. I don't know why but you are like a part of me. Like a lost family." He said softly, like a lost child trying to find his home.

The thing about the connection; I felt that too. As if I am somehow connected to him. It's like our relationship runs much deeper than that of just strangers, acquiantances or even friends.

But how can that be when I haven't ever even met him before this?

"Aren't you afraid that I may go to the police?"

He was silent for a few moments, thinking about the situation we were in. "You have the right to but I can't see you get tortured here. Zack is doing the same thing to you as they are doing to Celine."

"Who is Celine?" I caught onto the slip of the new name that left his mouth.

Max's eyes widened a fraction and he  looked like he spilled out information that he wasn't supposed to.

"No one. Just get some rest, Okay?" He got up and hurriedly left the room, leaving me alone to indulge in my own thoughts.

I noticed that there was a tray of food kept on the table beside my bed along with a glass of water and some painkillers.