It was never effortless to love Aaron Warner. He was a difficult teenage boy who seemed to forget a lot of the time that that was what he was-a teenage boy. He'd always felt that loving or even caring for him would be impossible for all the world to...
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THERE IT IS. The crack in the wall I've been looking for for ages. Finally I see it. Grey and oozing with misery. Pathetic. Much like my situation.
I've never been in a place more despairing. Whatever the hell it is I'm on—for God's sake, I might even be in the capitol—I'm never winning. Anderson's won already. He's stripped me of whatever once made me Mara Lockhart. To be truthful, I can't remember her. It's only been a handful of days and I'm still suffocating. It's as if someone keeps holding me underwater, keeps drowning me and making sure I stay dead for eternity. I might physically be here but mentally? I have no clue where I am. I'm lost and alone and I'm starting to doubt I'll ever find my way back. My back is a map of scars. My mind is plagued by diseaseful memories of events that occurred only hours ago. My heart is a chained prisoner, graying with each passing second.
Did I deserve this?
What if I had just walked away that day I saw him?
Would I be okay?
Would I still be hurting?
But I love him. I love him so much it's literally torturing me. I won't ever blame him, I can't do that to him or myself. Aaron never wanted this for me. He's always trying to protect me, always trying to cheer me up. Always loving me. I can't blame him. I'll blame his father forever.
A knock. How polite of him to knock after he's spent days torturing the life out of me.
He doesn't even wait for me to give him permission, Anderson simply enters. His smirk is wicked and evil, like he has something planned and he can't wait to tell me what. "It's your lucky day," he says to me as though it's a promise. "Get up, Blondie."
The bitter taste of my fury: "What for?"
"Today's the day I get rid of you," he says to me. You already did, is what I don't tell him. "But first we're going to make some use of you. We're going to take a little trip on a boat."
————————
It's been hours. I was injected with something right after Anderson left my cell and in walked a doctor. I've only just now gained consciousness again and I'm trying my best to figure out where I am. He said a boat. . .an actual boat wouldn't be this large. I'm in a room.
A room like my old one; chained to a chair; surrounded by wallpapers of green and a ceiling lamp hanging over my head, its warmth contradicting everything he stands for and everything I've gone through in the last. . .God. I don't even know.
"Hello?" I call out. I should know by now that it's hopeless. "Anderson?" Even that doesn't do anything. Silence encompasses me like an incurable illness.
There's voices beyond the door. This one isn't made of steel. It's wooden and I can hear the soldiers behind it, laughing and chatting like there's no place they'd rather be. It makes me sick to think people like them exist. That they let things like this happen. A part of me wonders if they know what Anderson does to his victims. Do they understand how monstrous their leader is? They have to, right?
