•F O R T Y S E V E N•

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Riley's POV

"Jamie?"

"Yeah?"

"Here," I whisper back, gently dropping my cellphone in her small freckled hand. The two of us stare down the door of the third floor, and on the otherside is hopefully Robin. Holding onto each other's shaking hands tightly, not one of us dares to bring up about how badly they're shaking. All I can hear is the blood pounding in my ears and my too heavy breathing. "Call your brother. Or text him. Just... I want you to talk to him one more time."

"Okay," A part of me can't stand how Jamie instantly gives in. I wanted her to wave it off, assure me that she wouldn't need to say I love you to her brother one last time, because we'd be okay. Instead, she types a phone number that she remembers by heart, the glow of my IPhone cutting through dark to illuminate each and every single one of her freckles, also the tears she's blinking back, and the lump her throat she's trying to swallow.

"You should call your brother." She offers my phone back to me, her face choked up. "Or maybe your parents—even though I know how much you hate them—"

"I would call you." Jamie nearly drops the phone when my forehead softly lands against hers, the green of her eyes everything I see. She's so close, every inch of her brushing across me...

"You're my somebody I would call." Right here, right now facing down Nate and hell on the other side of this door, everything crashes down and feels so meaningless. I've wasted so much time with Jamie. Every little difference, every let down flashes before my eyes. When I just up and bailed for New York. Or how every night I stayed out till the sun came up, and shut her out. Now all I want is more time with her. Nate be damn, I should have cherished every time she looked at me. I could done things differently. I could have done better by her. I even want this small moment to last forever. Just her and I in a dark little corner forever.

"Riley," It feels so cold when Jamie breaks away, "every minute we stall, the longer Robin is trapped with Nate." Her hands clasps around the doorknob with her one good hand, but her green eyes won't let mine go.

"Let's go get her." I whisper. Just like earlier, Jamie presses her ear against the door to listen for any sign of trouble on the other side. When there's no sign of life, Jamie carefully lowers herself down to prop herself up on her elbows to peak at the crack under the door for movement. That action proves she grew up with siblings.

"I think the coast is clear," she breathes while strengthening up. "Let's be quick. In and out."

"We'll be a hot minute." I assure her, white hot anxiety seeping into my muscles.

"On three?" She suggests quietly.

"One." I start the count down.

"Two."

"Three." Jamie tentatively opens the door inch by inch to steal a glance out.

"Robin!" The door almost slams into me when Jamie uncharacteristically loses composures when she swings the door open to take off running. More now than ever, I thought Jamie would be more cautious than any moment in her life, but she pulled a me and just ran straight into it. I grab after her, but she runs pass my out stretched fingertips.

Poking my head in, I take a hard look around. Unlike the top floor where Jamie and I first came in, the third floor are a few rooms surrounding one massive room that are all filled up with packed up boxes. Stealthy placed amongst the boxes of sealed cardboard of old equipment are Nate's own boxes filled with his product. Hidden in plain sight. It's fucking brilliant.

You can tell Nate was just here by the empty beer cans and cigarette butts littering the dusty ground. One particular pathetically twisted butt is still smoking. Then I spot her and my heart stops altogether. As if carelessly dumped, Robin's unconscious body is abandoned on the sea of boxes, her limbs tangled up like her hair that is all over the place.

When my heart kicks up again I'm running for it. I nearly crash into the seas of boxes when I reach Robin. To the right of me, Jamie is already nursing Robin with love, by straightening out her clothes and pushing Robin's dark locks away from her face.

"Robin. Robin, can you hear me? Robin, open your eyes." Jamie voice shakes as hard as she is shaking Robin awake.


"J...Jamie?" Squinting through the drug induced haze, Robin struggles to make sense of things.

"Riley?" Fat tears well up in Robin's baby blues as she takes in her surroundings, feeling the gape of missing time settling down on her.

"We're here." Jamie comforts her. Robin rushes at Jamie, clinching her arms around Jamie's waist in a desperate hug.

"We came for you." I add, helping Robin straighten up. She gasps for air like a fish out of water, her muscles buckling as her body struggles to function again.

"Here," Jamie hurriedly pulls out a water bottle out of that black duffel bag that she's been clinging to since we freed ourselves from the tattoo parlor. "You need to drink."

"Flush down Nate's super date rape drug." I grumble to myself. Robin downs the entire bottle in seconds, then nearly pukes.

"Have you been knocked out since the tattoo parlor?" Jamie inquires, spotting the irritated inked skin on the inside of Robin's knee.

"What day is it?" Robin croaks, confirming that she's been out cold for this whole time. We never get to answer.

Every hair on my body stands on end at the shrill sound of an off pitch whistle of take me out to the ball game. It's an eerie sound that makes the pit of my stomach drop. Seeing the scared shitless expressions on Jamie's and Robin's faces worsens my terror, making my ears burn with anxiety.

"Nate!" Robin chokes down a sob, that Jamie muffled by engulfing her in a bear hug.

"It's okay, it's okay. We're here." She soothes into Robin's hair. I finally notice that I'm shaking as badly the girls. "We have to hide. We'll have to be quiet and hide."

Leading Robin and Jamie deeper into the factory. We don't have enough time to make it back the way we came at the fire exit, so instead I guide them into one of the smaller rooms, and hide them away behind a giant wall of boxes. It's even harder with Robin's legs getting feeling again, resulting in her slowing us down to the point I have to hoist the thin girl up. Every sore muscle protests as I heft Robin up and run for it— reopening some cuts twice as painfully while some bruises throb so much I almost black out.

"Jamie," I pant, gently lowering Robin behind a tower of cardboard. "If anything happens, you take Robin and run for it."

"Wait," Jamie is bewildered at my statement. "What do you mean—" I take off, ignoring Jamie and Robin whisper my name. I risk getting caught as I hurriedly stash myself behind some boxes that's too close to Nate. I'm so close I can hear every step of Nate's heavy combat boots landing against the dusty floor, but as he approaches it feels like his every step is stomping down on the back of my neck.

I'm trying to hear Nate coming to a stop over the uneven eccentric hammering of my heart. It goes dead silent, intensifying my nerves so bad a panicked sweat breaks out down my bruised face.

"Hahaha," Nate's sick chuckle makes my hands shake so badly I have to sit on them. "Riley it's not nice to steal other people's girlfriends." He sings-songs.

"Riley... Riley..." My heart threatens to stop at the sound of Nate kicking over boxes. I flinch at every crash. What's even louder than Nate's search for us is Robin's and Jamie's silence on the other side of the factory. I pray Nate will never find them.

I desperately rack my mind for a solution. How the hell can we make it out of here? There's a fat chance in hell that we can just crawl past Nate.

Jamie is going to hate me.

"Nate." Standing up straight over the boxes, I call his attention and feel my every worse fear I've had of Nate I've had since I meet him confirmed. His green eyes landing on me feel like my life ending right here, right now.

"Riley, mate," Nate smirks at me like we're the best of friends, and last week hasn't happened. I can't find any words. Nothing. No witty come backs. Not even one single fuck you I've been dying to say to him since I second I meet Nate. I just stand there, punched in face, traumatized, tattooed and homely like an idiot.

"Now where's my girlfriend?" Nate questions with a smirk.

"I..I..." I keep down the bile threatening to come up my throat. "Cut the shit, Nate. I'm looking for Robin, now where is she?" I've always been pretty decent at lying, but I can't even hold a straight face against Nate. Either he's humoring me or believes me, but his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline.

"Where's your cute little red head?" Nate stifles a laugh, eyeing the room before kicking over an entire stack of boxes.

"I don't know." I lie. "You think she stayed after that shit you pulled?! In the tattoo parlor?! Jamie left me! You drove her away! So thanks a lot, Nate. You ruined everything." He loves my melodrama. It practically makes his day. While Nate is basking at my fucked up life, I struggle to come up with a plan. I'm making this up as I go. The only goal I have is to lure Nate away from the girls.

"Now where is Robin?" I lie through my teeth.

"You know, I've always hated how you've had such an obnoxious thing for my girlfriend. You had the balls to pine after her. The balls to make googly eyes at her. The balls to flirt with her for all these years! My best friend..." Instead of fringing hurt, Nate smiles fondly to himself.

"Why didn't you say anything?" I mutter to myself. Nate knew this whole time. During every screaming match with Robin, every time they had sex, every time Robin would come to me crying, every time the three of us partied, every time I looked at Robin he knew. Why hadn't he beat the crap out of me like the guys who would hit on Robin? Why didn't he plant drugs on me like the guys Robin slept with that he knew about? Or put me in the hospital like every guy who looked at her?

"Because it was fucking hilarious." Nate summarizes. "Nothing was funnier than the look on your face than when I touched Robin, it was even funnier when I slapped her. And how you fucked every girl before Robin? Pathetically adorable how you couldn't make a move!" Fear evolving into rage, I fight to stay still. Years of torment and humiliation don't hold me back anymore, but makes me to charge at Nate with all my might. But everything I have is a broken nose and a shit ton of bruises.

"Nothing can make you happy." I already knew that. I've always known that. But the saying misery loves company has never been truer. "You sick fuck." I add, prepared to take off running when Nate starts hurtling boxes at me. My broken nose hurts twice as much as I duck as a massive box rattling with heavy machinery misses my head by mere inches.

"I was the truest mate! When your parents didn't want your pathetic arse, I was there to put a roof over your head! I gave you everything! A car! A job!"

"You took advantage of me!" Seeing red, I roar back at him. It feels fucking fantastic to put that into the air. "You saw a scared kid with nowhere else to go, and made him do your dirty work! You ruined my life—"

I don't move fast enough. Nate's hands clamps down on my neck like someone bending a garden hose. Putting all his weight into, Nate clutches my windpipe till tears welp up in my eyes. Nate's fingernails bury themselves into my neck, worsening the pressure till I'm wheezing. I feel the world fall under my feet, then my back crashing hard into the cement floor, worsening the suffocating pain in my pinched lungs. Weakly fighting for air, I can't muster enough strength to pry off one finger. Am I going to die like this? Broken and bruise on a dirty factory floor looking up into Nate's angry face?

Then I see her. Coming up behind Nate, I catch a glance of Jamie's panicked expression looming over Nate's shoulder in the corner of my bulging eyes. I can't tell whether it's the lack of oxygen in my brain or if the bat Jamie swinging far behind her red head is actually real.

The crack of splintering wood smashing against the back Nate's dirty blonde head confirms it. Nate's fingers slack on my jugular upon impact. I gasp big mouthfuls of air, immediately coughing up a lung. I ironically choke down a scream. Jamie's horrified expression mirrors mine. Instead of Nate falling down at the blunt force like a normal person, he just lets out a cruel laugh that makes me question if I've somehow died already and I'm in hell.

"Now that's spunk!" Nate twists around to shoot Jamie a nasty looking smirk. Her green eyes are wide with terror, while her freckled face pales. Readjusting her grip on the baseball Jamie usually keeps under our bed, Jamie takes another hard swing.

"Aye batta batta!" Nate catches the bat mid swing without so much as a flinch. "Romeo here lied. You were here the entire time, just hiding. I'm guessing Robin that sluzza isn't that far either." Nate taunts, still gripping the bat with ease. When Nate comes down his hand is gonna feel like he put it through a wall.

"Robin says," Rather than trying to pull the bat back, Jamie shoves with all her might and sends it into Nate's chest. "That women can't be sluts, but judged for their choice to be sexually active!" Jamie's voice shakes as she pulls a mace out of her back pocket and pepper sprays Nate's crazy eyes. As someone who was maced by Jamie too, I can feel tears sting the back of my eyes at just the smell of its chemicals in the air.

"Are you okay?" Jamie hurriedly asks over Nate's cries as she helps me up, her one good hand gingerly running over the freshly bruised flesh of my neck.

"Where did you get your bat from?" I question, leaning into her as we poorly make a run for it, but it resembles something out of a three legged race.

"What do you think was in that black duffle? Socks and bandages?" Honestly, if it was Jamie's bag, yes. If it was Robin's bag I would have suspected it was stashed with narcotics.

"Fuck you!" What's left of the bat lands hard against the back of Jamie's knees, sending her collapsing into me, dragging us down onto the floor in a tangle of limbs. Hovering over us, Nate furiously wipes at his watering eyes with the back of his tattooed hands. Fat globs of snot run down to Nate's trembling chin as he curses Jamie out. In a weak attempt to protect Jamie, I loop my arms around Jamie, pulling her into me as much as possible.

"Hey, you bastard!" Robin rushes at Nate's back, tears pouring out her blue eyes like a faucet. She takes a sledge hammer that must have been in one of the boxes, and mashes it down on Nate's foot just as he turns to face her. "You're bad in bed!"

Nate feels nothing. Just gazes down at his probably broken foot and cocks an eyebrow.

"That's all you got?" Nate snickers.

"No." Robin spits. Her arms shake as she raises the sledgehammer as high as it goes.

"Catch." Robin hurtles the sledgehammer right for Nate's head. Despite every horrendous thing Nate has done to me, I couldn't keep my eyes from squeezing shut at the sound of the metal sledgehammer colliding into Nate's face. I looked away for just a second, but it feels like the moment drags on forever. When I reopen them again, Nate's just about neck deep in fast growing pool of his blood on the floor.

"Is he dead?" Jamie chokes, going still against my chest.

"Ughhh..." Nate stirs, answering Jamie's question.

"Just die already!" Robin (half sarcastically) groans, nearly pulling her dark hair out by the fistfuls.

"Whatever he's on... that kind of blunt trauma should have at least knocked him unconscious, not give him a bump and a headache." I shudder as I wobbly get back to my feet.

"Should have used bear mace." Robin takes a cautious step back when Nate's green eyes blink open.

"Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" I push them towards the main staircase, purposely throwing boxes down in the path between Nate and us as an obstacle to delay him. We don't even try for the fire escape on the others side of room. We bolt down the stairs to ground floor in an effort to lose Nate, figuring our chances up three flights with Nate on our tails aren't very good. If he doesn't catch us, he'll start firing at us for sure. No, we'll use this head start on him to hide downstairs, and hopefully get a better chance to use the fire exit down there.

This one way in, one way out is really starting to piss me off.

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