Kill The Innocent

Chapter Ten

You're cold, and I burn

Unknown

***

I wake up with a pain in my neck. My instinct was to reach up and massage the knot but my hands were tied behind the wooden chair I was sitting in.

I look around and find myself in a very familiar place. Declan's training room. I tried to hide my surprise as Declan walked down the stairs. His steps were heavy on the rickety wood. "I'm glad you're finally awake," He said, his voice slow and slightly slurred.

"Declan, what's going on?" I ask, "Untie me, please."

"Valerie, I need you to understand something." He said, taking steps closer to me and his index finger meets my jaw, tracing the bone down to my chin. I flinch against his touch, something I've never done, but this feels dangerous. Poisonous. "In a world, this toxic, trust is a thing that shouldn't be so common."

He pulls his hand away from my face and I watch it slip inside his suit jacket, I can't see what he's after. "You make the mistake of trusting me." I feel my breath hitch in my throat.

He pulls a gun from his waistband. "Valerie, you trusted me with your life, and look what I'm doing with it." He holds the gun to my head and pulls the trigger.

When I open my eyes Declan is still asleep next to me. Tears start to spill out of my eyes, and I have the weirdest feeling that I want Declan to wake up and comfort me but I also want to steer far away from him. Am I trusting him too much? Should I put my walls back up? He hasn't given me a reason to not trust him but what if it gets too late and I can't hide anymore?

Shakenly, I fumble out of his grip and up from the bed. Standing, I realize the pill bottles that were on the nightstand when I went to sleep aren't there anymore. I start to really panic now, I open the drawer, nothing. The second drawer? Again nothing. Where did they fucking go?!

I get on all fours and start searching the floor, maybe they fell. I look all around the nightstand and under the bed. Nothing. They couldn't have just grown legs and walked away.

Searching gets harder and harder as a thin layer of tears covers my ability to see. It's endless, every time they spill down my cheeks more come. I can't find my fucking anxiety pills and everything around me feels like too much. I want to punch something. I want to break something, I want-

"Valerie?" Declan says, tiredness filling his voice. "What are you doing?"

"Where are the fucking pills," I say, opening drawers again. "T-They were right here when I fell asleep and now they–they're–I can't find them" I stutter.

"Hey, take a deep breath. Here," Declan gets up and heads into the bathroom, when he comes back he has both bottles in his hand. "I put them up after you fell asleep. Did you have another dream?"

I nod. He sighs. A disappointed sigh, but not as though he's disappointed in me. As though his disappointed in the medication. Or in Cohen. Declan dumps a pill in his hand and gives it to me, I swallow it dry before he's able to hand me water. I feel desperate at this point. I can't just not sleep as I have been. I need to sleep.

Declan wipes tears from my eyes. "I'll take you to town tomorrow," he says, pressing his lips to my forehead. "If you still want to, but you need to sleep, okay?"

"But the medication-"

"It will work, it's been just fine besides tonight. I need you to just try okay? If you wake up I'll be right here. I'm not gonna leave your side, I never will." I take a deep breath and lay down.