Returned to Sender - Scarlett Johansson

Part 39

Sawyer's POV

I do not like to wake up in new places. Cooper used to find it fun to move me in my sleep into new torturous locations when he got bored of leaving me in the attack. At first, it was just him moving me around the house, putting me in weird places like the closet or under the bed so that I would be disoriented when I came, too. 

But as time went on, he started moving me to worse places, such as a locked empty freezer, her left me in there for three days, or one time when he moved me to the middle of a forest and just left me there to figure my own way home, took me a week to get out of the forest and just when I was going to make a run for it he turned up to bring me back to the house and then punished me for taking to long to figure out how to get out. The point is I hate waking up in places different from where I fell asleep; it triggers a lot of bad thoughts.

So when I woke up in a room I didn't recognise, I couldn't stop the panic from hitting me in full force. As soon as I came to and looked around the random room, I could feel the pressure crashing down on my chest as my throat tightened and the process of getting air into my lungs became impossible. 

Jumping out of the random bed, I ran over to the corner and started rocking. Images of all the other places I have woken up in and what has happened there hit me full force as I began to wheeze as air stopped passing into my lungs. I tried to remember to be gentle in my rocking so as to avoid hitting my head because Mama hates it when I hit my head. 

Wait, Mama can help me. Gathering all the air I had left in my lungs, I managed to choke out a desperate cry, "MAMA!" I have no idea if she heard me or how long I was rocking, but I must have hit my head too hard on the wall because my forehead was throbbing. I could feel my lungs scrunch up as less and less air entered them as I tried my best to fight through the panic. Noticing a table just in front of me with a lamp on, I kicked it in the hopes of getting Mama's attention, although I didn't even know where she was.

I don't even register the sound of the lamp falling onto the carpet, but it must have because, within seconds, I feel myself being pulled into someone's grasp. For a brief second, I fight against the hold, that is, until I recognise the familiar coconut smell and thumping heartbeat as my head is pulled into someone's chest, into Mama's chest. Using the thumps of her heart to calm down, the muffled ringing in my ears eventually cleared, and I could hear Mama muttering soothing words into my ear.

"You're ok. I'm ok. Everyone's ok", she chanted softly as she swayed us gently. After a while, I felt my breaths become steady, and it was no longer challenging to breathe, so I turned my head so that I could face Mama. "Mama," I mumbled out so that she was looking at me. Silently admiring her features, I let the image of her face replace the last lingering nightmares I had been seeing.

"There's my baby," Mama cooed at me when she realised I was looking up at her, making me smile as I traced her features with my fingertip. "Are you okay now, baby?" She asked softly, and I just nodded in response, still looking at her as she smiled softly at me. "Wanna talk about it?" She cooed after a moment of silence; I just shook my head, not wanting to speak, but made it obvious I was confused as to where we were as I looked around the room. Mama must have caught onto my silent question because she smiled before moving us back to the bed that was in the middle of the room. 

"We are, to your surprise, princess; you fell asleep once we got off the plane. We are in the hotel. Can you guess where we are?" She asked softly, pointing around the room. I looked around the room but still remained clueless about where we were, so I just shrugged. Mama smiled before standing up. "How about we get ready, and then we can meet everyone for breakfast, and you can see where we are?" she offers as she walks over to the suitcase, pulling out some shorts and a few T-shirts and holding them up for me to choose from. I noticed that they all have Disney characters but thought nothing of it as I pointed to the white top with Donald Duck on. Mama smiled before pulling a similar outfit out for herself, which made me smile.