"We fought an uphill battle. One we had no hope of winning."
~~~
Felicity-Flick as most call her-Carter, has learned a thing or two in her 12 years of life. How to deal with drunk parents without waking the neighbors, how to smoke a cigarette withou...
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"Flick?"
A gentle hand shook me awake, dragging me out of the restless sleep I had fallen into a little while ago. I had no idea how long I'd been out here.
My head was pounding. My stomach was in knots. The hand shook me again when I didn't immediately respond.
"Flick, kid, c'mon wake up you shouldn't sleep out here." The voice said in a whisper, shaking a little harder. I groaned and sat up off the apartment hallway floor, feeling the imprint of the carpet digging into the sticky skin on the side of my face.
"You good kid?" Nick Daily stood over me, a worried look on his sunken face as he rubbed a hand up and down my arms prickled with goosebumps. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, adjusting to the harsh hallway lighting.
"Where is Jack ?" I asked, my brain still too fuzzy to think of anything other than my best friend. He hadn't answered the door last night. He hadn't been there when I needed him. But as mad as I was about that, I was inevitably far more worried than I was angry. He'd been so upset when he left my house last night. Thinking of all the things that could have happened between then and now made me nauseous.
"He's not here. Why are you? Are you okay?" Nick hovered above me, his protective brotherly instincts towards me kicking into high gear. I swiped a hand over my sticky tear-stained cheek, pulling a piece of hallway carpet off my face.
"Where is he?" Nick sighed and stood up, gently pulling me with him and brushing the dirt and debris off the back of my shirt like a little kid who'd fallen on the playground.
I felt like a little kid. Like a child who had run away from the monsters in her closet because she wasn't brave enough to fight them off on her own.
"Don't worry about that, hun. He's alright. But you're not, so let's go inside." I allowed him to pull me inside, only half aware of what was going on around me. I felt like I was in a trance. My mind was blurry, my body was numb.
"What happened, Fee? Did someone do something to you?" Nick questioned me as he opened the apartment door, keeping a gentle grip on my arm as if he feared I would collapse if he let me go. I leaned into his side, emotional and physical exhaustion wracking my body. It felt nice to be cared for, especially by someone as familiar and safe as Nick.
He had once called himself my replacement brother. I never quite told him how much I considered that to be true.
"Yeah," I whispered. My voice sounded far away and empty. I looked around the dark living room hoping to spot Jackson. I didn't. He wasn't there. My heart seemed to sink even further into the dark pit in my stomach. I wondered how much of me the black hole would swallow before the night was over. It felt like there wasn't much left inside me anymore. Nick shut the door behind us. "Someone did something. But it's okay. I'm okay."
Nick stopped walking and looked down at me for a second. I leaned further into his side, closing my eyes for the second time that night. "You'll tell me about it in the morning, okay?" He said softly, guiding me further into the foul-smelling room.
