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Aria couldn't remember much after the cafe. She remembered needles and screaming and a man making promises about how he was only going to help. After that it was all hazy - a new voice and feeling warm.
She was laying down in front of a fireplace. She didn't even know when she woke up or if she had passed out at all. Just that she was somewhere else and then suddenly here, staring into the flames as they warmed her up. Her clothes were a little damp, but the heat was helping.
I should make a run for it.
The room seemed to be family room or something. There was one couch pushed against a wall that was the opposite of the TV above the fireplace and an armchair.
Aria didn't move right away. This didn't feel like the other places she'd ended up. There was nothing sealing her mouth shut. There were no bars. There weren't any restraints. If she wanted to run, it seemed like the option was available.
Trick.
Forcing herself to sit up earned her a fresh stab of pain and trying to walk to the door sent her sprawling after a step, legs buckling as black clouded her vision.
When Aria woke up again there was no fire. Her clothes had dried and she was frozen despite being sandwiched between a warm bed and a thick blanket. It was a bedroom, she noticed, but that was all she could process about it after she noticed the door was shut. Panic buzzed in her brain.
Aria pulled herself out of the sheets and headed to the door, peering out into the darkened hall. All the other doors were shut. She threw out a hand, trying to feel for a light switch. It wasn't that she couldn't see, but she didn't want to walk around in the dark. She needed to see.
One of the doors opened and light streamed into the hall.
It was a girl around the same age as her - there was sleep clouding eyes that reminded Aria of honey and an angry set to her mouth that made her want to run. "You should be in bed. You'll pass out or tear your stitches. Go lay down."
All Aria could manage to choke out was, "I want to leave."
The girl's brows rose to her hairline. "So go." She took a step back into the room and shut her door, leaving Aria in the dark again.
It isn't that dark, she tried to convince herself.
Aria put one hand against the wall that was closest to her and took a step. And then she took another. And another. She kept going like that, breath held and steps slow until she was at the end of the hall, standing at a staircase with sweat beaded on her forehead.
She thought about the bullet that had been buried in her and the pain in her side.
I've had worse.
One hand gripped the railing and she was moving again, one step at a time, panting by the time she was down. The lights were on downstairs and they spurred Aria on through the pain - she made it to the front door and wrestled it open with fumbling hands.
And she was out, out, out. Her legs kept moving forward without any thought. She was off the wooden porch and looking ahead into a thicket of dense green trees below the night sky.
She didn't know where to go from there but she was out and she was free and she wasn't locked away in a strange place she didn't want to be. Her head was spinning and rain seeped through her clothes but it was okay. She was okay.
Aria didn't remember when she ended up on the pavement, just knew that at some point she was doubled over, gasping and cold and aching but that was okay too.
But then there were hands touching her and she couldn't think well enough through the haze of fear to convince herself that this was fine. There was too much touching and too many voices and static in her head made her want to scream until she couldn't even if she knew she wasn't back there. The leftover shred of rationality wasn't winning out over all the noise.
Too much. Too much. Too much.
The noise stopped eventually - the voices and the static died down. Hands stopped trying to drag her away.
Aria sat slumped against the porch steps, too drained to move, too tired to speak to the girl sitting beside her. There wasn't enough energy left in her to be embarrassed. The girl didn't do anything to make her feel that way anyway. She only sat there.
The temperature began to dip and the wind sliced through their soaked clothes, but the girl didn't make her move. She merely turned her head to look at Aria, the circles under her eyes making her appear every bit as tired as Aria felt, and said, "I'm Eli."
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