Poker Face

Chapter 3 - Waking

"M...Miles?" Darkness surrounded Aven, but not a bad darkness; it was comfortable, heating her whole body like a woolen blanket. "Miles?" She asked, her voice cracking as she became more lucid. She opened her eyes to a splitting headache and a dark room. She immediately squeezed them shut again. Despite the darkness, the light from a pale beam of moonlight coming through the window was enough to send a sharp pain through her eyes and skull.

"Miss?" Dr. Carson asked, appearing by her side. "Can you hear me?"

"Miles?"

"No, my name is Dr. Emmett Carson. You're coming down from a very bad fever and you've been in bed for a few days but you're safe and we're gonna take care of you, okay?" She moaned again when he flipped the light on, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes.

"No light," she groaned, her voice raspy. "My head." Dr. Carson quickly complied before turning on a lamp on the other side of the room so he could tend to her. He called out to Dwight who came through the door a moment later. "Go get Negan." Dwight nodded and was gone before Aven could even register that a third person had been there.

Dr. Carson hurried back to the bedside to see the girl struggling to keep her eyes open. "Hey, stay with me, okay? Try to stay awake so we can figure out what you need." She nodded slightly but didn't seem to be very present. "Can you tell me your name?" Before she could answer, the door swung open and Negan strode in with Lucille resting on his shoulder. Dwight had just so happened to find him hanging out right around the corner from where Aven was being kept, doing nothing in particular.

"How is she?" Negan asked gruffly, looking directly to the girl without acknowleding Dr. Carson.

"I'm not sure, she's awake but is still coming to," the doctor answered.

"She say anything?"

"'Miles,' I think? Sounds like it's someone she's asking for, although she seemed to be talking to him at some point. I'm not sure how lucid she is right now." Negan rested Lucille against a wall and pulled up a stool to sit near the girl's head, trying to make eye contact with her.

"Hey doll, can you hear me?" he asked firmly but softly. With her arm still over her eyes, shielding her headache from the light, she nodded and gave an affirmative grunt.

"Where am..." she began without finishing the question. "I...where'd he go?"

"Come on, babe. Snap out of it." He reached out to tap her face lightly, her arm immediately coming off of her eyes to slap him away like their first interaction. "Well that's a good sign," he mumbled. At his intrusive touch, Aven began to come more into consciousness.

"Wh...where am I? What happened?" She looked around groggily. It was an unfamiliar room and she was surrounded by unfamiliar men. What had happened? She was with Miles and...no, Miles was dead. That wasn't new information; why did she think she saw him? She blinked hard trying to orient herself. She'd been in the woods...why wasn't she in the woods anymore? Slowly, her memory came back to her. She'd been cooling off in a river...and then she was tied up with a strange man forcing his mouth on hers. Running. She was running. And then she was on the ground, and then...

Aven's eyes widened suddenly and she sprung up to get away from the man attacking her now that she wasn't being held down. She whinced as she noticed the IV in her arm and tore it out before pushing herself out of bed, but no sooner than her bare feet hit the floor and the room started spinning, she was pinned back to the side of the bed. Negan locked her against it with his body, a hand on either side as she shook controllably, staring at the ground, mind racing a mile a minute over how to escape. The man had tried to rape her and she knew it wasn't over. After a moment of stillness, Aven tried again to run but only struggled in place as Negan kept her trapped.