MINE

Chapter 13

Cole's POV

I tried my best to not slam the door behind me as I left the room. My heart was heavy and my eyes watering from the pain I was trying to keep inside. My chest burned with confusion. My head was telling me to punish Emily for aggravating me into feeling this way, but the truth is she did not make me feel this way. Years of making bad decisions and poor judgement calls is why I feel like this.

I hit the door behind me silently cursing my own name under my breath. I shouldn't have stayed up late. I could've been awake before her and left the room, that conversation didn't need to happen.

He faced seemed to mock me when I told her I wasn't a bad guy. Did she not hear the part where I stayed up to make sure another nightmare didn't come? I watched her as she slept, calmly. I was ready to wake her if a sign of fear showed.

My mother use to have nightmares. I never knew about what, but I can only imagine it was about this place. This cabin. My dad. The nightmare of a life she thought she lived probably transferred to her sleep.

It's hard to watch Emily as she goes through the same thing. I would protect my mother as best a kid could. Part of me felt that I owed it to my mom to do the same thing for Emily.

I walked down stairs and the hall to the kitchen pouring myself a bowl of cereal. No one was in the common rooms, I wondered where they were. The boys probably out entertaining themselves somewhere. The girls most likely in theirs room waiting for their return.

I watched as snow fell from the sky and onto the ground, finally it had become winter.

Images of Faith fled my mind. Emily knew her name now, but not about what happened to her. Unless I somehow let that out in my sleep too and she just didn't tell me. The girl who's life I took haunted me.

Faith was similar to Emily in many ways, the most obvious was her attitude towards this way of life. Faith never broke. Emily probably won't either.

The feeling of wanting a normal life crept into my mind more than usual. The harsh words of my father would fight it off and usually I'd go back to being what he made me to be. I could feel it failing this time.

Emily's POV

It had been an eventful day. After about an hour of waiting for Cole to come back into the room after leaving this morning, he brought me my clean pants and another one of his shirts and took me downstairs to eat and showed me around the house.

I didn't object, it was kind of nice being able to know where every room was. It was a big cabin. There was a room for every boy every room had their own bathroom. Extra rooms were empty and when I asked if they were planning on filling them with more boys Cole didn't answer.It was confusing with him. One minute he'd show an evil, closed off, monster who wanted nothing but for me to be afraid of him. The next he'd tell me not to be afraid and said sorry for scaring me.

Who is Cole? The real Cole.

Eventually Cole left me in the living room and brought Sara out to sit with me. He let us talk, which is just another thing I am confused about.

Sara cried for the first couple of minutes telling me all the horrible things Alec has made her do. In that moment I was thankful for Cole's flip flop personality. Alec was always bad, no glimmer of a good guy ever showed.

I was told in detail about the way Alec would make her kiss him and when she didn't he would beat her. She was forced to get un dressed in front of him and never talk back to anything he demanded.

I hugged her and told her everything was going to be okay. I couldn't risk telling her about my plan, not that I knew what my own plan was...but I knew that cameras were watching us. I wasn't sure if they watched them in real time or only when they expected something - either way I played it safe.

She asked me how I was doing, she flinched at the sight of my cuts. I told her it was bad, not like hers..just different. When she asked if Cole had caused the now healing knife wounds I changed the subject.

Cole had appeared out from wherever he was hiding and told us he'd be back later before leaving the cabin. All of the girls were now alone, however no one besides Sara and I were brave enough to explore the house while the boys were gone. We even tried to get Jenny, and the othe girl to come out with us. They were too afraid even after hearing that the boys were not here. I wondered how long they've been here? What has Zac or Jesse done to them?

Sara and I scanned the cabin, I showed her all the places Cole showed me. We even entered rooms I know we probably shouldn't of. We didn't find anything though. Nothing creepy, nothing disturbing, and nothing that would help us escape.

I was now sitting back on the couch with her.

"Why don't we just leave?" Sara broke the silence.

"Now?" I asked looking at the front door and out the window seeing snow covering the ground.

"Yeah. No one is home. We have the freedom to leave." Sara stood up.

"Do you think it's a good idea? It's snowing...by the night time we won't have anywhere to keep warm." I reminded her.

"Do you want to stay here?" She came closer to me.

"No. But I know that we'll die if we try and run without knowing how to get out of these woods."

"Emily...we're going to die in here! Look at you! If you don't start listening - which I know you won't...you're going to get punished again. Maybe so bad that you won't have the strength to try and run. We have the opportunity now!" She finished, begging with her eyes for me to come with her.

"I'm not going to stop you. I already feel bad enough for stopped you before...I just think.." I couldn't continue.

"You just think what?" She asked.

"I want to make it out of this alive." I told her. I grabbed her hands and placed our foreheads together.

"I want to go back and see Katie, and get adopted. I want to finish school and have a life." I started crying.

"You can. We just have to go now." She cried back.

"We won't survive in the woods."

"We won't survive in here." Her words hit me hard.

She's right. I know she is yet I couldn't shake the scary feeling I got from not thinking this through. We could leave now and take our chances in the woods or I could tell her about my plan to make Cole a better person. She'd laugh in my face but I'd have to explain the things I've seen. The talk Zac had with me. Maybe she'd believe me. Maybe she'd agree that it's a better plan. Am I willing to take that chance?

"Fine." I started.

"I saw a couple coats in Cole's closet upstairs. I'll go get them, at least we'll have those to stay warm." Sara nodded as I walked up the stairs with so many new thoughts running through my head.

I quickly opened the closet door grabbing the warmest coats I could find. Right as I was about to leave I heard a door slam.

I peaked my head out of the closet, no one was in the room. The door was still open. It wasn't that door that slammed.

I dropped the coats, running back down to the living room. Something wasn't right.

"Son of a bitch!" Alec screamed at the top of his lungs.

I stopped, not making another move.

"Calm down!" Zac reprimanded him.

"She's gone. She's fucking gone!" Alec continued to wine.

Who was gone? Sara? She left without me? Why were the boys back? Were they listening to us?

"You." Alec caught my attention. He grabbed my arm and threw me onto the floor.

"Hey!" Another voice shouted pushing Alec away from me. It was Cole.

"This is her  fault." Alec made sure to practically spit in my face.

I looked around. Everyone was here. Even the girls...everyone except Sara.

"Where is she?" I asked. They knew who I was talking about.

"Gone." Zac answered me.

I dropped my head. What happened? Why did she leave without me?

I looked up to Cole to start talking but was interrupted with Alec's handing slapping me across the face.

"Woah, hey now!" Zac stood up for me. Excuse me? Zac? Is that you?

"You'll get another girl, don't worry. Jenny told me herself that Emily had nothing to do with it. She wasn't even in the same room."

I was even more confused now with what Zac was saying.

"What?" I asked.

Zac looked at Jenny, she gave the same confused look as me. "Sara went to Jenny. She told her she was running and asked Jenny to come. So she called me. The little bitch ran before I got here."

Called? She has a phone? I needed answers.

"Come on." Cole grabbed my hand and helped me up.

I was brought back to the room and watched as Cole paced back and forth.

"What happened?" He asked.

"Sara wanted to run. I was going to go with her." I told him.

"But you didn't?"

"No." I told him. I was lying. I was going to go with her. If she didn't tell Jenny what was going on, we could both be out there right now. Running together.

"Why not?"

I stayed quiet.

"You know what." He stopped moving.

"It's doesn't matter." Cole left the room.

What was going to happen? Another punishment? My heart raced, sweat began to pour down my body due to nerves. I sighed, sitting on the bed.

Despite all the bad things that could happen to me, I couldn't stop thinking about Sara. What was going to happen to her? Would should make it out of the woods? Or would she die in them?