i got you.

6 | The Good, The Bad And The Okay I Guess

EMERSON

I watched as my best friend pressed the scalpel further into Bruno's skin, and with that Dante, Luca, Arianna and Giovanni pulled out their guns. They'd all hidden them in various waistbands and holsters. My eyes then returned to Eloise, my arm extending over them all.

"Don't shoot her." I asked, more as an order than a question. My voice was calm and steady, my eyes glued to her.

She was having one of her episodes, she often does when she's in a new place.

"Pierce." Luca warned, his demeanour protective and stern. I gave him a small look to say that it was ok, and he waited for a nod from Dante.

"Emmi, you are unarmed right now and I am not giving you a gun. Get behind us." He ordered, not even looking at me. A scoff escaped me and I shook my head as my eyes rolled.

"She has PTSD dumbass." I say, noticing all of their jaws twitch at the information. "She grew up in Mexico surrounded by war, new places make her nervous." I informed them, taking a step forward.

Eloise's story, while it wasn't mine to tell, was enough to make anyone's skin crawl. From infancy, she was handed round different gangs in Mexico. They used her for labour and drug trafficking. But when she was 10, men from The Pierce Mafia infiltrated and saved several hundreds of women and children from those fates. Elle was one of them, she was staying at the house when I met her and we instantly hit it off.

However, new places bring her back there. Unfamiliarity, while it seems like nothing to most, is her greatest fear.

A/N: Play 'Battle Scars' by Daisy Clark while reading this scene for extra emotional p-zaz.

I held my hands in-front of me, making sure to be slow as I know Elle can be very sensitive when she's absent. "Elle?" I say, smiling when her head whips towards me.

At first her face is relaxed, but not for long as her eyes tighten shut and the pressure of the knife on Bruno increases. I take another step forward. "Eloise?!" Her eyes whip open and glare at the barrels aimed at her. I pause for a second. "Look at me. Not at them. At me." My voice is calm but pointed, it's enough for her to look at me again.

"I- he wanted to touch me and take me like they did." Eloise started saying, her hands trembling with the scalpel.

I felt terrible. Eloise had suffered from these since I met her, possibly longer. But she got used to waking up back home and hadn't had one in a while. I just had to come downstairs and get a fucking drink.

Curse my thirsty ass.

"Elle, listen to me." I try and meet her eyes again, catching them and giving her a small smile. "No one here, is going to hurt you. No one is trying to take you. No one will ever get the chance."

From experience, I know that the best thing to do is make her as calm as possible. Talk her down before taking any rash actions. So, every so often I'd take a step forward... never tearing my gaze from hers.

It was normal for me to be there for her. We used to be all each other had. Before Xander... and my dad was always off with work so it'd be Elle and I against the world.

"I will never let anyone get the chance." I continue softly. "You are not there, Elle, you are in America. With me... with Emerson."

Something else important I've noted through the years, is names and facts pull her mind back to the now. They are key, and remind her of the present. So mentioning my name or Xander's. A certain date or story, anything to click her conscious mind.