𝗗𝗜𝗚𝗜𝗧𝗔𝗟 𝗦𝗜𝗟𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘

A Troubled Mind

AEI: this chapter is so short but i literally haven't slept at all lately and i feel like shit so :)))

p.s. this is not the aforementioned tragic chapter that i have coming up, but i'm sure you'll know when it arrives due to all the trigger warnings...

Isabell smells smoke, and the ringing in her ears is so loud she can fucking taste it.

The first thing she really registers, however, is how bad it hurts.

Everything, every bone in her body, every nerve under her skin, they are all alive and singing with pain. Blood drips from her face like a faucet, something is snapped under the soft flesh of her wrist, and dizziness sweeps over her like a cage whenever she tries to move.

Fuck. FuckfuckfuckfuckfuckJamie-

Isabell digs her nails hard into her thighs and screams.

For a few moments, there is nothing. Isabell briefly considers if she would be OK dying this way, and is just coming to a conclusion when finally – finally – she feels somebody crouching down beside her, pulling her sticky hair away from her face.

"Hey, you're OK, you're OK, just keep looking at me," James whispers. His voice is steady enough but his hands shake frantically, clinging to Isabell like she's about to melt away from him. He kisses her bloody forehead. "Come on, you're OK, just keep your eyes open and focus on me. Gotta get you up, OK? You're gonna have to stand for me."

Isabell squirms unhappily. It's been years since anybody's touched her quite so tenderly and she hates it; wants to howl and bite and curl away into a dark, cold corner. That is what she deserves. If she deserved nice things, people would've given them to her. Instead, they treated her like a monster, and that is what she has become.

James needs to accept that. She is not worthy of people loving her, no matter how badly she craves it, and she curses herself for screaming in the first place.

You don't need help. You can do it yourself, and you know that, but you're fucking pathetic. Make him stop. Just stand the fuck up.

"Gonna help you, Iz, I swear on it, but we gotta get out of here." James gasps. He loops one arm around her waist, uses the other to steady her, and heaves Isabell upright.

Her whole vision blackens.

The pain is acute now, rushing to her head like a tsunami, and her body drops against James' like a dead weight.

Pathetic. Patheticpatheticpatheticpathetic should've just left you here to die you aren't worth this fucking useless.

"You're OK, you're doing great, just stay with me now. Hold onto me, tight as you can, and just stay awake."

Isabell does not want to stay awake.

Her whole heart is cracking and crumbling, spilling like powdered char onto the floor as James helps Sam and Sharon to their feet. They take her in – bloody and bruised – and Isabell feels so ashamed that she wants to die right there and then.

Instead, she buries her face in James' coat and breathes in the smell of him like it is her own, special source of oxygen.

Besides, with her face so slick with blood, shoulders shaking with pain, nobody can tell when she begins to cry.

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

The air is thick with gunshots as James hauls Isabell outside, doing his best to keep her awake and steady. She's bleeding like hell, her wrist bent at some sickening angle, but she's doing her best. It hurts his heart that she clearly doesn't want his help.