Lost in a Reverie 18+ Only (Book 1 of Lastor Series) ['23/'24 EDIT]

Chapter 49: Frederick

I was woken up with Andrea screaming and bursting through the door.

"She's gone ape shit!"

Confused and half-awake, I sat up.

"What?"

"She took all my shit and locked herself up in the bathroom!"

My head whipped to the side where Angel should have been lying in and sleeping but the sheets were cold and empty. I got up, following Andrea as she ran back to her room just as Jude was running out of his with Stella behind him.

"What happened?" he asked, panicked.

No one had to say anything. We just listened.

"Shut up! Shut up!" we heard her scream. "Go away! Go away! Fuck you! Leave me alone!"

We heard a crash and something breaking. And then she screamed.

What the fuck is happening?

Jude reacted immediately. "Angel?" he called frantically, banging his fist against the door. "Little Angel, open the door. It's Jude."

She screamed again. A long painful cry. It clawed at my skin.

Jude dropped to his knees, an ear pressed to the door, his face a picture of horror and panic.

"Little Angel... open the door, sweetheart. Open the door. Let Jude in," he urged in a consoling voice.

"Jude..." she sobbed. "They won't go away. They keep hurting me. What did I do?" she cried.

His eyes screwed shut and he gripped the door knob, forcibly trying to open it.

"What did you do, little Angel?" he fired back the question to her.

"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know!" she cried, a banging at the door coming repeatedly.

"Don't hurt yourself!" Jude immediately said.

"It hurts," she cried. "They won't go away. I tried. I tried."

She screamed again, the sound of it piercing my chest more than my ears. I stared, horrified and confused.

What is this? Why is this happening?

"Ssshhh... I'm right here," Jude soothed. "We're okay. We're okay."

For a moment, all we heard was her sobs.

"We're okay," she echoed. "We're okay," she said, crying so hard it was becoming harder to listen to her. "We're okay."

"We're okay," Jude repeated, looking relieved. "Breathe, little Angel. Count to ten."

"One," she said, choking the word out. "Two."

There was a pause. She went on crying. Crying so hard that I couldn't just stand there anymore.

I started for the door but Jude held out a trembling hand, shaking his head. I pursed my lips, looking at the door, waiting for anything, but the sound of her crying was all that we heard.

Fuck this.

"Angel?" I called and her crying stopped for a moment. "Baby, what's wrong?" I asked, trying to catch up.

When she came back to bed last night, she was okay. She was okay. What happened?

"Everything," I heard her broken voice say. "Everything's wrong!"

I didn't know what was happening behind that door, but it sounded familiar. It sounded like the time she had torn her room apart in a fit of rage.

I pushed Jude aside and with one solid kick, I broke the door open and found her breaking the mirrors surrounding the room. She was hitting and kicking them. Trying to pull them off the walls while she screamed.