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[DAY THREE]
At this point Tom was questioning reality. He didn't know if what he saw was real, or if his mind was playing tricks. "Hey, are you okay?" Archie asked, coming up behind Tom who was sitting on a log, bouncing his leg up and down. It took him a while to respond, but when it did, it was a bit frantic and not really there. "Yeah, I'm fine." He responded, just lost in thought. "You just freaked out back there, with that girl..."
"I think I'm just tired of all this you know, I'm sick of doing things like this, and being apart of it." Tom said, which was true, but the real reason was of course being the fact that Juliet was actually here, alive and breathin—barley. "Yeah I get you..." Archie said with a nod of his head. Tom couldn't think about anything else but what just happened, it just couldn't register in his brain, he thought this was a very weird fever dream. It seemed as though the importance of this situation didn't click yet.
Very quickly, Tom got up from his seat, his eyes a wide and red. "I'll be back." He told his friend quickly before almost frantically making his way to the main tent, where they were keeping her. Right now, he was pretty sure for some reason that it wasn't actually her, it was too good to be true, maybe it was just some girl that looked like her. He just needed to be sure that this was reality, and he wasn't making it up from his lack of eating or loss of blood
When he approached the tent, one man stood up from his chair, letting out a sigh. "Do you mind taking watch?" He questioned, all Tom did was nod, not really hearing what the man said, just mindlessly opening the flap to the large tent. When he was there, his heart was pounding, it felt like some sort of twisted dream he couldn't wrap his head around.
She was unconscious, lying on a low stretcher with both her hands and feet tied together. Tom promised himself, and her, never to leave her side, not when she was this vulnerable. She was helpless and not fully there, he knew maybe some of the guys were thinking of doing horrible things. Tom of course didn't want that. He knew he had to stay by her side right now, that's all he could do at this point, he didn't know where else to go from here.
As he got closer, he could really tell that it was undoubtedly her, not just by the soft features of her face, but by her shoes. As he got closer, he could see fresh bruises and scratches. Then, in that moment, it clicked with him "I have to get you out of here." He said quietly to himself. He knew she wasn't safe here, any minute of the day she could be killed. "I'll get you back home, I promise okay?" He knew she couldn't hear him, but he didn't care.
"And I'm sorry." Tom confessed "for everything, but I'll make it up to you, this is me making it up to you." He felt so guilty, so horrible, firstly for being part of the group that nearly killed her whole community, and lastly for leaving her without a word all those years ago, putting both of them through torture and pain. He didn't necessarily care about his pain, but he cared about hers deeply. Tom knew she deserved none of that.
