Eli Borrelli

16: First break through

Alessandro POV.

I was so confused. I knew the only way to find any answers was from Eli, since trying to fish for them turned out to be a bust. Dimitri searched all of Illinois rehab centers and found absolutely nothing. There was little to no record of Eli even visiting a hospital, let alone a rehabilitation center. We were all growing impatient so the second their ankle was taken care of, we were going to have a chat.

For now, I was running through the hospital with Eli in my arms. I burst through the door to their room where a scared-looking nurse was waiting for us. Eli stopped fighting after a while and I could think that meant they were in too much pain. I had known them long enough to know they didn't back down that easily. They took out a gad damn nurse just trying to get out of the hospital, so saying they had some fight in them would be a huge understatement.

Eli was soon rolled away into a x-ray with Lorenzo by their side to make sure they didn't try another daring escape. Even with a broken ankle, I knew they might just find a way.

After what seemed like hours of us just sitting in their room, fiddling with out thimbs, Lorenzo walked through the door with Eli in his arms. We didn't want to give them a wheelchair scared, that they'd run off. Eli was obviously dodging our gazes as Lorenzo placed them back onto the bed with a terrified nurse walking soon behind the two. 

The nurse didn't dare to lift her eyes from the little clipboard she held tightly in her arms. She just quickly ceared her throat and quietly announced trying not to stutter:

"We- We have the bloodwork results here,"

Immediately Eli's head snapped at her, and then at all of us.

"You took my fucking blood?!" they asked with some sort of panic in their eyes.

"Well, next time one of us takes an unknown amount of drugs and then passes out, you can take all of our fucking blood," Antonio said rolling his eyes.

Eli let their eyes drop back to their lap in shame. That was anew look on their usually so confident face it almost confused me.

"Were- were any of you here when they took it?" Eli asked suddenly shaking a bit with their words.

My eyes met Lorenzo's in complete confusion, but neither of us knew what was happening.

"No. Why does it matter?" Matteo asked a bit too roughly.

Eli just stayed quiet, fiddling with their fingers. My eyes darted to their palms, where I could still see the crescent-shaped scars. I had no idea how they were that strong, but it was a bit scary. My face dropped for a second before bouncing right back as I recalled what had happened.

"You know you have to talk to us," I said after a long silence.

"I don't want to," Eli said almost in a whisper.

"Well, your bloodwork says you had weed, and opioids in your system. Why don't you start with that?" Lorenzo said eyeing over the documents given to him by the scared nurse.

We all just looked at Eli expectingly, but they didn't say a single word. I could see their mouth twitching as if they were trying to say something but always decided against it. Every time they almost started a word, letting out a sad little whipm that broke my heart. Finally, they took a deep breath and started muttering:

"It's just been pretty rough. I- there's just so many emotions."

Eli scrunched up their face trying to figure out what to say. They were slightly shaking their head as if getting rid of something I couldn't understand.