Chapter 24

As I lay on the ground, all I could seem to take in was how cold it was. My head was pounding as I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to ease the on-going pain.

My head was throbbing.

Groaning, I slowly opened my eyes as I began to sit up. The first thing I noticed was how I was alone. The two idiots who’d attacked me were gone and I was stuck in this room. Probably locked in too.

I had no idea how to get out from the area that I was locked in. As I finally got up of the floor, I slowly made my way over to the door that had me trapped. With the last bit of hope I had left, I pulled on the door handle in an attempt to see if it was open.

Only it wasn’t.

There was no way that I was going to get out until they came back. And if they came back then I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to get out. Alive or not. There was nothing stopping them from doing anything to me. They had me and they could do whatever they wanted to. 

Making my way over to the closest wall, I let my back hit the wall as I slid down until I was sitting down. I pulled my knees up to my chest and laid my head on top of my knees, gripping my head as I did so. The pain in my head was dreadful.

I didn’t know how long I’d sat on the floor, or for how long I’d even been out cold for that matter, but it felt like it’d been hours. It could’ve been minutes, or hours, but I found myself longing for those men to come back just so I could attempt to get out of the room.

Just like that, the door was forced open. The two men, Paul and Max stood there smirking at me from the doorway.

“How are you feeling?” Max smirked, tilting his head to the side as he stared at me on the floor.

“Fine.” I bluntly answered, turning to look at the wall beside their heads so that I didn’t have to look at them.  

A hand grasped my chin forcing my gaze to turn to look at the person who’d done it. Max stared into my eyes. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.” He spat.

I felt absolutely terrified as I looked the man dead in the eyes. Still though, I refused to speak. I just stared.

Max copied what I was doing, staring at me dead in the eye whilst also making no move to speak. After staring, he let go of my chin and stood back up returning to his space next to Paul. Neither of the large men spoke as they stared down at me on the floor like I was a little child who was getting told off.

I felt like a child, if I was being honest.

The two men in front of me, however, were distracting me from the pain inside my head caused by the blow I’d taken to knock me out. The pain was still there although it felt duller due to the fact I’d put my attention towards the two men.

I had to find a way to get out of this room. There had to be a way of getting out of here. Whilst Paul and Max whispered to each other, I let my eyes roam around the room, trying to find an escape route, an escape out of here.

The room itself was bare. A tatty chair sat on one side of the room, the only piece of furniture that there was, no pictures were on the wall at all. In fact, the wallpaper itself appeared to be beginning to peel giving the room an old, abandoned look. All that was left in the room was a window which appeared to be all locked up.

From my view on the floor, the window didn’t look like it was open or going to open anytime soon. So I decided that after the two men left (which, they probably would) I would inspect this window. Knowing these two though, there’d be no chance that I would be getting out of that window. But I had to have hope.

“So, Zach’s on his way. We’re just going to leave you here. Enjoy the view.” Paul chuckled, walking out of the door with Max behind him.

“Oh! And do not attempt to get out there’s no way you can!” Max called. The door, once again, slammed shut and the echo of the door locking echoed around the empty room.

As soon as I heard that sound, I jumped up from the floor. I automatically regretted my movement as pain shot through my head making me freeze in my steps and grip my head as if that would cure the agony I felt. 

Gritting my teeth, I moved forward to get closer to the window whilst trying to ignore the growing pain. Taking a deep breath, I gripped the ledge of the window before trying to pull it up. Obviously, the window didn’t open. It was blocked up.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Max had just said there was no way out. The window had probably been blocked up in advance so that there was no way out. I was trapped.

I let out a loud groan as I allowed my head to lean against the window. This had to open somehow. There wasn’t any type of object in the room to smash the window either. Unless I threw the chair off it, which one; I couldn’t even pick up and two; it was far too big to smash a window.

Sliding back to the floor, I returned to my previous position of leaning my head against my knees. All I could do now was hope that Zach hurried up and arrived to this cottage soon so I could get out.

And then I would apologise to him and hope that everything could then go back to how they were. Hopefully.

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There was silence from the other side of the door for a while. No sound came from there at all. All I could assume was that they had left… maybe to go find Zach. I had no idea.

It was pitch black outside now which only made me assume that it was really late now. Had my parents not realised that I hadn’t arrived home? What if they were panicking? What if they’d called the police? I hope they had, maybe then someone would find me sooner rather than later.

The worst part was no one knew where I was. My parents didn’t know about my run in with Paul or Max. They wouldn’t have any idea where I’d gotten to. Rebekah also had no idea because I hadn’t told her about them either. And obviously none of Zach’s friends knew because I hadn’t seen them properly since we’d broken up.

No one knew except Zach. He was the only one who I could rely on now and all I had left to do was hope that he’d arrive and maybe, just maybe, get me out of this house and away from those two weirdoes’ in the other room.

Shouting outside brought me out of my thoughts. The only thing that came to mind was that Zach had turned up and was here to see either Paul or Max, which ever one had called him up to tell him that they had me.

“Open the door, now!” A voice shouted out from the other side of the door. The voice was familiar. It was Zach’s voice; I was one hundred percent sure.

A voice called back out to who I was assuming was Zach’s. However, I couldn’t make out what the person was saying. Their voice was somehow muffled, most likely caused by the fact my hearing wasn’t exactly clear.

“Let go!” Another voice shouted. This time it was Paul’s voice.

Lifting myself up from the floor, I stumbled over to the door, gripping the handle and attempting to yank the door open. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t budge. After trying again, I did the next best thing that sprung to mind.

“Help!” I screamed, banging on the door. “Someone let me out! Help!”

I carried on banging on the door as hard as I could. I needed to get the attention of Zach or at least the attention of someone on the other side. Someone needed to open this door and I needed to get out.

My hand was beginning to get sore from the repetitive hits it was taking to the wooden door in front of me. The strength in which I was using to try and get the attention was inflicting pain to my hand. Pain I wasn’t used to feeling. Well, physically at least.

Suddenly, the door was forced open causing me to fall backwards off the impact. Looking up, Max was stood there, an evil glint in his eye. He had a plan; it was obvious in his eyes. Walking over to me, Max grabbed my wrist pulling me up from the floor.

Unsurprisingly, he’d re-grabbed the wrist on the side I’d previously fell and taken an impact towards. The pain shot up my arm making me let out a small whimper. The pain in my arm and the pain in my head didn’t particularly go well together.

At the doorway, Zach suddenly appeared his face emotionless and tense. His eyes softened as they landed on me before tensing back up when he turned his attention to the man who was gripping my arm and holding me to them.

“I swear to God, Max, let her go.” Zach threatened, taking a further step towards the pair of us.

Another step forwards taken by him resulted in Max appearing behind me and wrapping an arm around my neck. Out of a natural instinct, I lifted both hands up to grasp at Max’s arms, trying my best to pull the arm away from my neck.

“Let her go? Are you serious?” Max laughed. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck which only made me feel physically sick. “I’m not letting her go.”

Zach made some sort of inhuman noise before he moved forwards, closer towards us in larger strides than he had previously used.

“She’s done nothing wrong. Let her go.” Zach demanded, adding the extra emphasis on the last sentence.

As Zach carried on towards us, the arm that was wrapped around my neck tightened making me splutter out a cough from the lack of air that I was receiving. I couldn’t breathe. The tightness of his grasp was stopping me from being able to breathe.

“You take another step forward and I end her life right here, right now.” Max growled. His other arm moved up to the one wrapped around my neck, he grasped his elbow allowing him to have extra strength around my neck.

Just one tighter squeeze and that would be it. I wouldn’t be able to breathe and I’d be gone.

“Why are you doing this? I came to you like you asked, didn’t I? I allowed myself to get into fights I wasn’t capable of fighting just so you wouldn’t hurt someone I loved, didn’t I? Why? Why are you doing this?” Zach demanded, repeating the question that he’d started with almost like it was out of desperation. He wanted an answer.

And then that was when his reply hit me. Zach had broken up with me just so that I wouldn’t get hurt. He fought fights just to protect me. He was protecting those he loved.

Wait.

The ones he loved.

Did that mean that he loved me?

Thoughts then began speeding through my mind so fast that I couldn’t even keep up with them. That had to mean that he loved me, right? That’s what it sounded like. That thought alone distracted me from the fact I had two arms wrapped around my neck.

I could feel the smile spreading on my face as Zach’s words raced through my mind. Then the question ‘did I love him’ entered my mind. After hearing about what he’d done to protect me, one word entered my mind.

Yes.

Yes I did.

I loved him and I wasn’t even phased by it. Had I known that I had for a long time but not realised it? I probably had. We hadn’t even been together that long but time didn’t control how fast you could fall in love with someone. It was the person alone.

Max’s voice brought me out of my flow of thoughts. “Yes but you see, capturing her,” he said gesturing to myself. “Gives me power. I had power against you. You’ll do anything I say if she’s at risk.”

“Maisie.” Zach spat, his eyes shining with anger. “It’s Maisie, not her.”

Max laughed, his body vibrating against my back. “You think I care what her name is? News flash Zach, I don’t. She’s only bait for me, she means nothing.”

The look on Zach’s face only signalled that he was getting angrier. Everyone knew what was happening. He was going to snap soon. Max was riling him up and he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Aw, am I annoying you, Zach?” Max chuckled, moving his head to rest it on top of mine. I felt sick being this close to him. He was a disgusting person and I wanted nothing more than to be as far away from him as humanly possible.

Zach’s eyes closed before he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Then before I knew it, Zach had lunged forwards and grabbed Max’s arms in his hands.

“I’m going to tell you once more. Let her go.” Zach growled. My eyes were level with Zach’s shoulders. I could see his chest rising and falling at a fast pace as he tried to keep his anger under control.

“You let go of me or so help me, I will end her life right now.”

At those few words, my eyes shot up to Zach’s face. Silently begging for him to let go of Max like he’d asked. I didn’t want to die.

But Zach seemed to have other plans.

A fist flew above my head so fast that I almost missed it. A sickening sound could be heard as suddenly, my neck was free from the pair of arms. A thump to the floor followed next.

Zach had punched him. Still in shock, I looked up at Zach who seemed to be grinning at his handiwork. It took me the matter of seconds before looking down at the floor to see what Zach was so proud about.

He’d actually managed to knock Max out, which was what he was so happy about. I grinned up at him, watching as he repeated my expression.

Then he grabbed my hand and began to drag me out of the room. Predictably, we were stopped by Paul. Of course he was going to be the one to stop us. He wasn’t as strong or powerful as what Max tried to come across as but he still had us blocked in the room. That was the only was he had the power here.

“You think that was clever?” He asked Zach, his facial expression unusually calm. He didn’t even look phased by what had happened.

Zach nodded. “Yeah, I think it was.” He replied nonchalantly. Why the hell was he being so calm?

“Well, it wasn-” Was all Paul managed to get out before sirens could be heard in the background. “What the hell!” Paul shouted, turning to stare at Zach.

Zach shrugged, putting on an innocent look. “Oops, did I forget to mention that I’d called the police?”

Now it was my turn to stare at Zach. What the hell? He’d phoned the police?

“Zach, we need to leave now!” I gasped, talking for the first time in aged. I gripped his hand tightly in my own before dragging him towards the exit of room. He couldn’t get caught by the police.

Paul managed to block us from leaving, once again. I was beginning to grow impatient with this guy, when would he learn to just stop?

“I swear to god, Paul, if you don’t move I will hurt you.” Zach threatened. He pulled me behind him a bit so I had some protection from the man stood in front of us.

“Try me!” Paul shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. His face was etched with defeat.

Zach just sighed in anger, dropping my hand before repeating the actions he’d taken with Max. Paul fell to the floor in a heap. I barely had any time to take in what had happened before my hand was re-grasped in Zach’s and he was pulling me out of the room.

Obviously the police we entering through the front doors so Zach grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the back of the little cottage.

The door was flown open and then…. We were running.

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I have a week or so off now so I'm hoping to update some more... If i'm not busy... lol who am I kidding I don't have a social life.

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