A gasp left my lips as my eyes jolted open. My breaths came out heavy and loud.
Why couldn't I forget?
It didn't seem to matter how long ago it was, it never gets easier.
I'd hoped that three years would be enough, enough time for me to move on and accept it for what it is. That they were gone... and there's nothing I can do about it. My hair was matted to my face, the sweat clung to each strand forcing it to sit uncomfortably against my skin.
It wasn't until I moved to sit up that I noticed the wetness of my pyjama bottoms. Warm and hot, soaking into the sheets below me.
Shaking my head, I wiped the tears from my eyes. Quickly jumping out of my bed in frustration because this was the second time this month this had happened. I was too old for this, right?
It's embarrassing but I really can't help it. I just get so scared that it happens before I can even begin to wake up. And though the nightmares had become less frequent, they were not any less terrifying.
I made fast work of pulling my clothes off, grimacing at the urine-soaked material as I peeled them off me. I flicked on the lamp by the bed, illuminating the entire room so when I turned to the digital clock beside my bed 3:43 am hit me in the face. I couldn't wake anyone up with the shower, instead I decided on grabbing a change of dry clothes till the morning.
I began stripping the covers from the bed, hoping to avoid June knowing again, she'd seen the covers two weeks ago. I can't let her see these ones too, otherwise she'll send me back to the therapist again and I just think that seeing them makes it worse.
My head throbbed relentlessly with the headache, presumably from dehydration after I'd sweated and cried it out in my sleep. As I removed the duvet cover, I glanced around my room, to the window where the only light from outside came from the glowing streetlight from across the street. My eyes shift to the walls, still plain white since I hadn't made much of a change.
Maybe, even after all this time, part of me thought that my brother would change his mind and come back for me... but he hasn't even called, never mind visited. I tried for months afterwards to call him, but he'd switched his phone number.
Now all I get is that stupid women telling me his phone number doesn't exist.
Next to the window, June had put up one of my paintings. She got me to paint or draw every Sunday now to try and integrate me with the other kids, to give me something to do. Get me using my hands like she always seemed to say... I liked it, not that I'd let her know that.
But it didn't help me one bit, not with what she thought I needed it for anyway.
This painting, not that she realised it, or maybe she did and just didn't want to say it, was a lot of blue and black colours. At the time she'd said it was abstract or something like that but those were the only colours I could think to use. To me, it resembled water and how I sat beneath it.
How I hear a scattering of words and conversations, all muffled and empty. It's how it's felt for a long time, since that day in all honesty, some days are easier... most aren't. The colours were randomly smashed onto the page, portraying the angry and thunderous ocean. It probably sounded stupid, but that doesn't change anything.
Now finished with the covers I brought them into a ball, grabbing my pyjamas along with me. I tried to ignore the strong smell of urine as I carefully tip-toed my way out of my bedroom and into the hallway. I knew this landing like the back of my hand now, so I could manoeuvre my way silently to the stairs.
It was as I hit the landing, turning on the hallway light so I can see and bypassing the front door that I heard it.
A crunch.
A grinding of the stones so my head flicks quickly to the pane of glass of the upper half of the door.
I freeze because what else was I supposed to do?
Stupidly, after a few moments, I stepped closer. Maybe I misheard, it was probably nothing.
My hand reaching for the lock on the door to check, about to flick it open when I see the shadow growing on the glass pane. The outline of a person growing bigger the closer they get to the door, my hand stays frozen on the lock now. My breathing turning in over itself in my lungs so I can't breathe anymore. All I can do is stare as the shadow looms over me, it's outlined by the faint orange glow of the streetlight.
I can barely hear the sounds of their footsteps landing heavily on the porch on the other side because the thumping of my heart is too loud, it's too loud and too reverberating.
"Is that you I can see on the other side?" I rip my hand away from the door the minute I hear the voice.
I don't say anything, words stuck in my throat. My eyes widen when I see the letterbox flip open with a creak, so his voice can be heard more through the eerie silence of the world around us.
It feels like it's just us, and it's terrifying.
"Of course, it's you. Your little light came on...did you have a nightmare Elbina?"
What does he want?
All I could do was clutch the sheets in my hands more, clenching at the material too tightly and completely forgetting about why I even came down here in the first place.
"I can help you with that, you know. Just turn that lock over, and I'll help you." I take a wavy step back from the door, nearly toppling over myself because my legs felt so shaky.
"No." I whispered, shaking my head and somehow, he hears me even though I could barely hear myself through the noise going on in my head.
He sighs, a long-drawn-out sigh, as if he's annoyed, and then I see his fingers twitch at the letterbox that confirms it.
"I'm giving you a choice Elbina. Don't think that I can't get in without your help..." He leans down, I take another step back and so my eyes meet his through the small gap between us.
His scrutinizing eyes hardening and turning into slits the more he takes me in, his eyes crinkling briefly in a smile once he realises how scared I am, how my hands shake, how my knees shake.
"You can't hide from me anymore kid." My throat closes up, shaking my head watching his eyes travel away and his other hand raising up, silhouetted by the orange glow.
"I've found you." He says, until suddenly the entire glass pane smashes into the tiniest of pieces between us. Scattering along the floor in a sheet of glass, his arm stained by blood as he grapples his arm through and flicks over the lock on the other side.
And then the door opens, and he's smiling at me in recognition.
For a second, we just stare at each other. As if neither of us are sure what to do now that there's nothing between us, now that he's gained access to the house as if it were nothing.
It's only when he takes a step forward that I realise the gravity of the situation and I drop the sheets to the ground and run for the stairs.
My feet hitting the first two steps, my hands falling as I scramble up the stairs as fast as I can.
"No!" I shout, his hands grabbed me from behind, pulling me back into his chest and he's trying to drag me away. I try gripping the handrail in hope, but he only rips my hand from the railing and twists me till I can't reach anything anymore.
"JUNE!" I scream as loudly as I can, kicking and screaming with everything in me as he lifts me off the ground and takes me out of the door.
"JUNE, HELP!" I try to hit him in the face but that doesn't work either, throwing my head back and wriggling as much as I possibly can.
His hand covers my mouth now, holding me tightly and carrying me further away. Tears flood my eyes in the panic until the only thing I can see is a blurry image of my surroundings. I dig my nails into his wrist, scratching his skin and fighting to get loose.
Where is he taking me?
What's going to happen to me?
"Let go of her!" I register him moving quicker, jostling me in his arms. I'm sure that was June, I'm sure of it.
"I SAID LET GO!" Her voice so much louder now until suddenly I'm dropped to the ground, the man dropping to his knees beside me. His hand holding the back of his head with an angry groan. When he turns his head up, his eyes meet mine with a curl to his lips.
June goes to throw another hit, the heavy bat coming down on him but he grabs it. My eyes widen, scrambling back away from them and watching him rise up and pull at the bat in her hands.
For a second, I think he might win it, but he doesn't. Instead, June flicks it back so suddenly that she stumbles and falls backwards onto the ground. Enough time for the man to come marching over to me till he's looming over and his hands reach out to me.
"Leave me alone!" It comes out so pathetic, so terrified that I hate it.
He doesn't listen, wrapping his large hands around my arms and pulling me from the ground, lifting me up and ignoring any of my failed attempts at stopping him. None of my kicks land, none of my scratches seem to matter and he's taking me further and further away from the house.
I twist more in his hold, till I can see June running for us again. I try reaching for her over his shoulders just as she raises the bat and she's shouting at me to move.
The sickening thud of the bat against his skull is loud, sudden and brutal. It has the both of us toppling to the ground, his hands falling limp till it gives me the chance to wrench myself away from him. June pulling me away and to her, pushing me behind her back as she faces him. The bat still raised high as if to ward him off but he's stumbling on his feet. Struggling to get up and when he stands, he turns around, there's blood pouring from the side of his head. An eye already beginning to swell and his ear's all shiny and mutilated from the blow under the light.
His eyes meet mine, pointing a shaky finger towards me so June stands a little more protective between us.
"I'm not done with her yet, you hear!? She's not done with, whether you like it or not!" He growls at us, clutching his bleeding skull and spitting out blood onto the gravel between us. We both take a step back, watching him stagger forwards a few more steps.
His head turns to the sounds of sirens coming from somewhere down the road, his nostrils flaring in fury before he spits at us again.
"And there's nothing that you can do about that." And with that, he turns away and he runs. Blood still dribbling from the side of his head and if I look to the ground there's blood splattering's from when he was hit.
There's probably blood on me too.
And by the time that the police have arrived, June's got me wrapped in such a tight hug that she might as well have been suffocating me.
But I liked it, I needed it.
Because my body's trembling so much that it doesn't feel normal and his hands on me feel too real.
"You're okay. You're okay." She's repeating it into my ear, the police are trying to talk to her but she keeps uttering the words over and over again.
And I thought initially that they were just for me, but then I realise she's panicking too. Her breathing quick and laboured between sobs breaking through her words, her hands getting tighter and tighter around me.
"Did you make the call?" I can hear them speaking, June's still hugging me.
"Yeah, I ... mom said, shit." It's Jake's voice, wavering and incoherent as he tries to come up with an answer.
"What did she say?" They pressure him more because by the way June rocks me back and forth and repeats the words over and over again, the more I think she might be in shock.
"We heard a scream; someone was taking Ella."
"Did you see who?"
"No, I didn't see, I don't understand how – "He pauses, a muttering of curse words between. "The door was broken; they broke the door to get to her."
"June." I whispered to her, if only to stop her incessant words. "Who was he? Where was he taking me?"
She shakes her head at me, holding my head between her hands and wiping the tears from under my eyes that I didn't realise were still falling quite as hard as they were. "I don't know sweetie, I don't know."
"He's going to come back; He's going to get me." I say, believing every word I was saying. Remembering his words and how sure he was of every single one of them.
"Ella, are you sure you don't know the man?" An officer spoke up, knelt down on the ground beside June and me. Her eyes concentrating on me and me alone, giving nothing else away.
I shook my head, sniffling against the brimming tears as I whispered again. "But he knew me."
"What?" She was pushing me to elaborate, pushing me for as much information as possible. June's eyes unwavering from me as she waits for me to speak too.
"He knows me, he called me by my name." That name, a name of a different life and a different world. A world I'd been told had closed, a whole portion of my life that had disappeared as if it had never existed and suddenly, here it was all over again.
When it shouldn't, and certainly not in this way.
"Ella?" I shook my head, tears bubbling up into a ball in my throat, so my words come out fractured and broken up.
"No. He called me Elbina."
*****
I don't know when I fell asleep, it was probably at some point during all the shuffling back to the house as Jake carried me there. The numerous amount of police that came, all meeting up in front of the house and heading off in different directions, it was probably at some point that Jake wrapped me in a hug and held me close to his chest that I fell asleep.
All I know is that I did, and now I was waking up to the sound of voices muffled in the room. A gentle warmth spreading over my cheeks and the bright light hitting me even through my eyelids from the morning sun through the window. I realise that I'm on the sofa, and that the voices I can hear are off in the corner of the room near the window to the front of the house. I see them, peaking my eyes open at them all hunched together, each with a mug of something. Presumably tea because that was June's go to for any given situation.
If tea didn't fix it, then nothing would.
Above the quiet murmurings of the few people in the corner, June being one of them. I can hear the distant shouts of the other foster kids from the kitchen, not that I'd be able to tell you their names never mind who they were as a person. They change too often, they're all just temporary so what was the point in getting attached?
They weren't like Jake and I; they weren't adopted.
Me after that day, and Jake a few years before I turned up. He keeps telling me how he was one of the lucky ones, how I should consider myself lucky too.
But I didn't feel lucky.
Is it lucky to lose all your family in one day? Is that really lucky?
It didn't stop him telling me horror stories of the foster system though, reminding me that it's nothing like it's pictured on the TV. Except he never got into the details. The only thing I know about his life before June is that the scar on his stomach was from his time there and that was all I needed to know.
I'm brought out of my running thoughts though, keeping myself still on the sofa as if to still be asleep. "She's safe here, you can't move her." June's whispering to them, she's probably worried she'd wake me up.
"She was nearly taken last night, June." Someone says in response to her, a unimpressed tone as if he were scolding her. Which is weird, no one has the upper hand with June. That's not how it worked in this house, or with anyone outside of this house either.
"By some random lunatic." I look over at them more, she's stressed. Leaning forwards across the small table and all the other man does across from her is shake his head, leaning forward in his own seat. His hand easing down the mug onto the table between them. His partner beside him stays put, briefly turning his eyes between them.
"It clearly wasn't random. We have a duty to make sure she stays safe, if she isn't safe here, then relocation is definitely on the cards." I can already see June growing irritated, frustration lining her features and she's only growing more annoyed.
"You can't. She's struggling enough as it is, she needs to stay here." She hisses at him, goosebumps form on my skin listening to her and my gut churns.
There's a sigh, "We'll investigate, see what that turns up but let me be quite clear June. If I find anything that suggests her location has been leaked, then she's being moved, and that's final." I thought for a moment, that June might fight back. That she might tell him to mind his attitude like she always did with one of us. From my experience, she treated most adults the same as kids, she was just a little more discrete in her methods with the adults I noticed.
Maybe it's because she doesn't want to upset them. I smile every time though, because I could see it, even if they couldn't.
Instead, she chews her lip and she sinks back down into her seat. The man regarding her change of attitude and copying her actions. It's quiet for some time, I flick my eyes shut when I think she might look at me on the sofa.
"Where did you find him?" She spoke in a hushed tone. I open my eyes again, catching her running her thumb along the edges of her mug. Catching a trail of tea as it travelled down the side.
"About a mile away from here, towards the town centre. Whoever got him didn't want him getting far." Both the men took a small sip from the mug in their hands, glancing down at the coffee table.
"Do you know who killed him?" They shook their heads unable to answer, one of them rubbing their hands on their thighs in frustration.
"Whoever it was, they knew what they were doing." I was wide awake now, hand pressing into the cushion as I pushed myself up, watching them all jolt at seeing me awake. They looked between each other in hopes that I didn't hear a word of their current conversation.
"He's dead?" I whispered, their shoulders sag, knowing that I had indeed heard.
"All you need to know, is that he won't be a problem anymore, he obviously had a lot of enemies." One of them spoke, he stood up before walking over to me. I leaned back into the sofa away from him the closer he got, as if the sofa would engulf me.
I winced slightly as his hand came down to rest on my shoulder, trying to comfort me somehow. I raised an eyebrow, staring at him silently. He eventually moved away, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck before turning to June.
"Ella? How about you go and get some breakfast?" I sighed before lifting myself off the sofa and walking out of the room.
I could hear the foster kids angrily shouting at each other, and as I stepped into the room there was Jake, frustration evident on his face as he shouted at them to stop throwing food.
He was nearly 17 years old now, but he definitely hadn't mastered controlling the troubled kids as June does.
I made my way to the cupboard, opening it up to grab cereal and not really thinking about anything other then the sight of the broken glass above the front door as I made my way to the kitchen.
The reminder of his hand smashing through it and the look in his eyes as he smiled down at me, in my mind, June doesn't help me, I get dragged away but I never seem to find out where he's taking me.
My brain keeps imagining just a singular long dark path to nowhere and he's carrying me kicking and screaming along it.
By the time I sat down and started eating, they were all beginning to filter out of the room. Jake pauses beside me as he goes to follow after them all; I look up at him.
"You're not allowed to scare me like that again, you know that right?"
"I'm not sure that I can control that." I manage to let out a part smile, but he doesn't find it in the least humorous.
"You need to promise me." He said with more conviction, edging forward.
Instead of arguing I gulped and nodded, "I promise." He quickly hugged me, squeezing me tightly before ruffling my hair as he backs up. My frown forming on my face when I have to dampen it back down again. His own sly smirk etching its way onto his face until he walks out of the room, his eyes tracking back once or twice until he's through the hallway and the sound of the front door is shutting.
So, for the rest of my breakfast, I eat in silence. My knee jostling up and down and it isn't until I was tidying my bowl and spoon into the dishwasher that I heard June sending the police off at the front door.
Moments later, after the door shut, her footsteps came down the hallway before her head popped through opening to the kitchen, eyes now resting on me.
"How are you doing?" I shrugged my shoulders; in all honesty, I was exhausted.
And terrified beneath it all, but I wouldn't admit that.
"We're going to get a new door today, without the glass, of course." She crossed her arms, still watching my every move.
I shrugged once again, shutting the door to the dishwasher.
"What do you think he wanted?" Her eyes widened, standing much straighter as she heard me.
"What could he possibly want with me?" I clarified as June looked at me in question.
"It doesn't matter. He won't get to you ever again." A shiver ran through my body, I nodded my head in understanding.
I walked towards the door, hoping to get to my room but as I passed June, her hands rested on both my shoulders.
"I won't ever let someone hurt you, Ella. You're safe here, you know that right?" I didn't know whether to look away at the intensity of her eyes.
Instead, I let a tight smile spread, nodding before she let me go and I walked out into the hallway. I glanced backwards, watching as she moved into the kitchen.
It allowed me to sidestep into her office, eyes landing on the phone and grabbing it between my hands to start dialling. I wait with bated breath, until it comes crashing down all over again.
"We're sorry. You have reached a number that is disconnected or that is no longer in service."
My heart dropped all over again. Stupid Fallen.
And despite June's words, they didn't make me feel any better or safer.
I think the only way for me to be safe, is to become someone who is so strong... no one could take me ever again.
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