DERANGED

7

Asha-

Waking up to a bunch of masked me surrounding me, I froze for a moment before I composed myself as I tried to sit up, noticing the ropes on my ankles and my wrists, I eyed the men down as I pulled myself to a sitting position. My head was throbbing and the last thing I wanted was to go to war with these guys again, at least not for now.

"Finally awake princess?"

Hugo said as he walked over to me, checking the ropes, making sure they were secure enough so that I couldn't run again.

"How's your head?"

Xenon asked calmly as he sat on the table in front of me, lowering his gaze at me while I glared at him.

"It's fine."

I lied, I could feel it pulsating against my skull but that wasn't important, what was important was the fact that I was stuck here. I had saw one of their faces and I was sure they wouldn't let me go anytime soon if they didn't kill me.

"Bring her a glass of water and pain killers."

Xenon called out to one of the guys as the other guys scattered away, not surrounding me anymore which I was thankful for not having sit here tied up at the mercy of six masked me.

Coming over to me, Xenon grabbed the glass of water and pills from Hugo and brought the pill to my mouth, waiting for me to take in my mouth, I instead moved my head to the side, facing away from him. I wasn't willing to take any form of pills they gave to me, after all of this, I didn't trust that they wouldn't just kill me, even if Xenon had saved me, my paranoia was still at its peak.

"Ok, you can take it."

He said as he set the pill and glass down on the table before reaching over me and undoing the rope on my wrists so that I could hold the glass of water but I had other plans.

Tilting his head to the side, Xenon watched me smack the glass of water and pills out of his hand, watching the remains of the shattered glass scattering across the floor as I spat out.

"I don't trust you guys."

Letting out a malicious chuckle, he sat back for a second just looking at me before launching towards me without a warning and grabbing my jaw in his hand.

"Don't play with me little girl. I am not in the mood to entertain anyone."

With his fingers digging into my jaw, I groaned out, pulling my head away from him and when he noticed he was hurting me, it's like he snapped back into reality as he suddenly retrieved his hand and sat back down on the table, holding the top of his ski mask, he sighed, almost like he felt bad for grabbing me like that.

"Don't make things difficult Asha. Please. I don't want to hurt you."

He seemed desperate, like he really didn't want to hurt me and for some reason I trusted his words although I wasn't sure if I was just being naïve or not.

"I'll figure out a way to handle all of this. Just don't do anything rash, it won't end well for you."

And with that, he got up and left, and as I watched him leave, I could see him clutching his head like he was in pain or something, he just didn't look... right.

"I wouldn't take Xenon's warning lightly."

Emmi said as he walked over to me and sat on the sofa, leaning back like I hadn't just saw his face hours ago and even still, he was still covering his face with the mask. Maybe to get me to forget what he looked like?

"He saved you from Adam but I'm not sure if he can save you from himself."

Looking over to Emmi, I could feel my eyebrows furrowing as I tried to figure out all of these weird things they were telling me.

"And what does that mean?"

And as I asked, I remembered the antipsychotic pills in the bathroom, so were those... for Xenon? I didn't want to ask, I didn't want them to know that I had saw the pills.

"He can be unstable sometimes, just be careful around him."

Emmi whispered to me, like he didn't want Xenon to hear this conversation, so I whispered back-

"Just how unstable?"

I couldn't see it, but I knew Emmi was smiling behind that mask, he was finding amusement in this conversation.

"Very."

He said as he leaned his head back and looked towards the ceiling.

"You know we're not bad people, we try not to harm anyone as much as we can but when push comes to shove, we'll always save ourselves first."

I could hear the sincerity in his voice and behind his words, I knew they weren't completely awful, they could've hurt me in so many ways by now, being the only girl in the middle of all of them, I didn't even want to imagine the things that they could've done to me but that didn't change the fact that they killed Rose right before my very eyes and killed other innocent people, robbed banks and shot a cop, and these were the things I had witnessed, let alone the things I hadn't witnessed that they'd done.

"So why do you do this? Why do you rob banks?"

Letting out a small laugh, he turned his head as he stared me down.

"Money, what else?"

That much I knew but as I looked around the house, it was luxurious enough for it to cost millions, so clearly they had enough to waste on a house in the middle of nowhere, why did they want more?

"You don't seem so poor to me."

I rolled my eyes as I gestured towards the house,

"No, but no rich man stays rich if he doesn't earn more."

He said firmly, as he pulled out his packet of cigarette and lit one up.

"Except, you don't really earn the money, you steal it."

Smirking, he looked over to me once more as he said-

"If you could get the elevator to the top, would you take the stairs?"

And with that, I realised that, they knew they could do it, so they did it. Maybe if I knew I could rob a bank and get away with it, I would do it too because he was right, maybe some people enjoyed struggling through finding success but others, they'd take it if it was handed to them and these people, they were the latter.