Foreign |l.r.h au|

0.4

"Poor baby girl." Alex ran his hand down my face causing my body to tense. I was pressed against a wall. "You shouldn't have done that." I started to bit the insides of my cheeks. My stomach was doing cartwheels and my skin was going to jump off my bones.

I felt the tears begin to brim my eyes. I tried to move, but I couldn't.

"What were you thinking?" he hissed. "God, what the fuck did you tell them?" I wanted to open my mouth, but it was sewn shut. He stepped away and reached into his coat pocket. A gun is soon pointed between my eyes. He counts down from three.

"One-" 

My eyes shoot open and I am sitting up, panting. It has been three weeks since I returned back home and the nightmares haven't gone away. I blamed it on the stress.

I thought going home, I would leave this all behind. But I was part of an investigation. Most of my days, I was talking detectives and looking at photos of men and women.

The sky screams, causing me to jump out of my thoughts.

"Fucking thunder," I mumble to myself, getting up from my bed. I take a minute before walking; my abdomen feeling excruciatingly sore. I look at the clock of my new phone. It's two forty-eight in the morning; I went to bed at midnight.

Walking out of my room and hear some snoring. I open the door and see Emery hugging her body and shivering. She must've kicked the blanket off of herself. I enter her room, quietly and pick the yellow blanket up, putting it on top of her. I smile, kiss her head and walk out of the room.

I saunter into the kitchen and look at the sliding glass door. The granny-house lights are on and I bite my lip, wondering if I should go over there or not.

If I do, I would get wet because it's pouring outside. If I don't, then I'd be left with my thoughts. I stand, weighing the pros and cons in my head.

Finally, I walk towards the glass door and slide it open. With one step outside, I was drenched. I rush my way to the granny-house and walk in without knocking.

I see Archie and his girlfriend jump away from each other. My eyes go wide. I've seen a lot when I lived with Alex. Sometimes I'd sleep in a room with a threesome going on next to me. I don't know why this situation made me uncomfortable, probably because it's my brother attempting to swallowing his girlfriend. 

"I-I was, uh, looking for Luke." I stammer. Mary smiles and points down the hallway.

Why did I say that? I mentally facepalm. I was not looking for Luke, I just wanted to be distracted. I had not talked to Luke since our minor argument in the car. I make it down the hallway and knock.

The door immediately opens and I'm met with a half-naked Luke. A pair of blue basketball short dangle low off his hip bones. He has a toned stomach and his biceps are on display.

"Remington," he breathes "you okay?" I nod my head and he opens his door slightly, welcoming me in. The walls are painted green and strung with Christmas lights. There are pictures hanging on his wall. One of him and his girlfriend, he's squeezing her cheeks. It's adorable.

Another of him and three other boys. The one with curly hair was one of the boys who had hugged me when I came home the first night. He had his arms hanging around the shoulders of two unfamiliar faces, with Luke at the side, holding a red solo cup and throwing up a peace sign.

As I study the pictures on the wall, Luke came up next to me. Words are not spoken, we just sit there in silence. I can feel Luke's eyes on me, but I refuse to acknowledge it. I know he wants to say something, but he doesn't know how.

"Just say it," I say after a few minutes.

"I heard what happened yesterday." he looks at the ground and shuffles towards his bed, sitting down.

"How?" I sit next to him.

"Your brother told me. Are you okay?" Yesterday, the detectives were getting into detail. Nearing towards Bella's death. Though their tactics were smart, it had pushed me towards a breaking point, and I had a meltdown. I started screaming, crying and shaking, and it all just went black from there.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I say, wrapping my arms around my stomach and closing my eyes. He looks like he's about to protest but then closes his mouth.

"Why are you here?"

I keep having this reoccurring dream that Alex is going to kill me and that's why I'm not telling the detectives anything. I sneer at myself.

"I can't sleep, the Thunder is bothering me." I lie. Luke shrugs his shoulders and accepts my answer.

"Well, I'm about to go to bed, Remington." I sigh. I did not want to hang out with my horny-ass brother and his girlfriend.

"Okay, good night Luke," I tell him, getting up from his bed. "Sleep tight, kiddo."

"Don't call me that, I'm older than you." I smile at him and he chuckles, putting himself inside his blanket. "Can you unplug my lights?" he asks point towards an outlet, right next to his door.

I unplug the lights and open the door, getting ready to leave.

"Hey Remington," I turn back and see the hallway light illuminating his face "goodnight." I smile at him and closed the door behind me.

I find myself, again, in an interrogation room. At the police station. I've been here for what feels like eight hours, but it has only been three.

I practically live here. 

"Remington," the female detective begins "you need-" I cut her off.

"I don't want to talk about it!" I exclaim icily towards her. She isn't phased by my outburst. Instead, she gets more frustrated.

"Look I know you've been traumatized, and you've gone through much more than what an eighteen-year-old girl should have gone through." she begins. "But there are other girls out there, and the more you keep quiet, there will be more girls out there, getting raped and beaten." I stiffen and bite down on my lip. She had said this before, but the more she brought it up, the more guilty I felt.

"Remington, do you recognize this girl?" she slides a picture towards me and I feel a lump form in my throat. It's Bella. "Do you?" she questions again, after a few minutes of me staring blankly at the photo.

I nod my head. My thoughts tracing back to Jason, wondering where he is and if he's okay. If they had shown him these photos, and how he reacted when he saw them.

"Do you remember what happened to her." the room begins to get smaller. I could feel beads of sweat running down my forehead. I can feel my heartbeat in my ears and my brain pounding against my skull. I close my eyes and open them.

Bella's body is on a bed. Her eyes are open, blooding pooling around her mouth, causing drops to course down her cheeks. Her blood adds color to the white sheets and paints the wall behind her. Her clothes are torn off and there's a horizontal slit on her throat.

I'm screaming and a hand is placed over my mouth. The voice is calling out to me, but I can't comprehend what they're saying. My eyelids feel heavy,  my eyes are burning.

And everything went black.