Hidden Tracks | ✓

45 | clean

Hammers.

That's all I could feel. A thousand hammers, of all sizes, pounding down on my head.

That's it. I couldn't keep my eyes closed anymore, or else these hammers were going to keep up with their torture. I somehow felt if I opened my eyes, they would go away.

My eyelids slowly fluttered open, and I instantly regretted my decision, because the hammers grew worse. Blinding white surrounded me on all sides, and they only made those hammers increase their pounding. Ugh, stop. Why couldn't they stop?!

Slowly, as my eyes adjusted to the white around me, I realised it wasn't all white. No, there were some pale blue curtains to my right, a few colourful framed pictures to my left, and--

Soler. With Miranda.

They were both sitting to my right, talking in hushed whispers. I tried to move to sit up, because for some reason I was lying down, but my movement caught their attention.

I saw their eyes widen as they stood up and started speaking. "Kaia, Kaia, you're awake! You're awake, oh thank god. Doctor, she's awake!" That was Miranda.

Oh, so I was in a hospital. Why was I in a hospital? What happened?

I saw an unfamiliar man come into the room and check my forehead and read the beeping monitors beside me.

"She's doing fine now. Much better than the condition you brought her in. We recommend her to spend tonight at the hospital, and then tomorrow, if she remains this way, we can release her."

Soler nodded, worry still lining his brows. "Okay, doc. I'll spend the night here then."

Miranda looked at him. "Are you sure? I can stay here too."

He shook his head. "No, I'll stay. You go back to the hotel and get some rest."

After a while, she nodded and sat back down beside me. She took my hand and smiled.

All this while, I hadn't uttered a word, mainly because I couldn't understand what the hell was going on. After Miranda smiled at me, I finally managed to croak out, "Why the hell am I here?"

She had tears in her eyes. Miranda, with tears in her eyes. I'd never seen her cry. Seriously, what happened?

"You don't remember, Kaia?" She said.

I shook my head slowly. Soler wasn't looking at me.

Miranda sighed. "You--you almost got-- you almost got raped, Kaia. Back at Ianucci's mansion. Gauthier and one of his men assaulted you before we could find out where you were."

Then, one by one, the horrific events came rushing back to me.

The memories of Gauthier, that other man, their vicious smiles, their predatory eyes, the knife gashing my flesh, their hands...Oh god, their hands.

I closed my eyes. I felt Miranda saying my name, combing her fingers through my hair, trying to comfort me.

"Kaia, we're so, so sorry. It took us a while to reach you, because at first we were attacked by Ianucci's men after Amélie was caught. You don't know how many men that druglord has, lurking everywhere. Then we went looking for Gauthier ourselves, and after a while we realised we weren't being able to track you. We couldn't find you anywhere. He had you cornered right at the top floor, at the farthest end of the hallway, and we had to search each and every room on all the floors before we found you. And I'm so incredibly sorry, Kaia. If we'd found you sooner, then--"

Her voice broke at the end. I shook my head.

"No, don't blame yourselves, Miranda. If you guys hadn't come then, it probably would've been way worse. You stopped those men from raping me, and moreover, I should've put up more of a fight myself."