𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙺𝚎𝚢𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚢 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 (𝙰 𝚂𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢)

𝚀𝚞𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝙿𝚊𝚒𝚐𝚎

"You." Growls Claire, lunging at me with her nails. She grabs my arm and digs her nails in and drags them along the length of my arm.

I gasp in pain and rip my arm away from Claire. "Help!" I shout. "Somebody help!" "Shut up." Claire grabs my shoulders and pushes me to the ground. "Beg, dog. Beg!" Claire shouts.

I suck in a breath, determined to not let the tears flow. She grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls and I wrench myself from her grasp and run several steps away. 

I run into the nearest guard and quickly read his tag. Noah Smith. "Help. Claire, she attacked me." I point to my arm. He nods and says something in this earbud like thing in his ear and another guard runs past us and down the hall towards Claire. 

"I will take you to the infirmary. Being left alone was a terrible idea." Noah shakes his head. He takes me up several staircases and deposits me at a plain door. I open the door and Queen Paige and Princess Lydia are standing there. 

"Oh Iris dear!" The queen exclaims and wraps me up in a hug. I awkwardly pat her back and hold my bloody arm away from her. Lydia gives me a side hug and lets go and steps away and I manage a small, weird curtsy. 

"Oh darling you don't need to do that. I get that enough in one day." Queen Paige quickly says and adds, "Please, call me Aunt Paige or just Paige. Please." She takes my right hand and pats it. I nod uncertainly and Lydia adds, "If you're calling Mom Paige then I'm Lydia. Just Lydia." 

Lydia takes my uninjured arm and pulls me to a bed, where a doctor whose tag says Dr. Drake checks up on me and tells me that I'm going to have scars from Claire for the rest of my life. 

Liam walks in at that time to check up on me, apologizing for the fact that he wasn't able to check in on me sooner.

"Please." Liam begs, asking me if I'll have a private dinner with him. "As friends. As friends. Not whatever I'm supposed to make you." 

"Fine. Just expect me to look very fancy when its supposed to be a casual dinner." I state. He nods and has the experession on a little boy who was told that he could have two scoops of ice cream for dessert. 

I smile to myself and wince when a nurse applies a stinging cream and wraps up my arm. 

Then I'm let go and Noah escorts me to my room, where Estelle and the others are waiting for me.