Escaping Ethan's Clutches (Ruining Innocence Vol 1)

Chapter 5

(Author's note: The entire book is available on Patreon. Head to my Patreon account to read the full book, username: shaziyakhanwrites. Follow me on insta for fun reels of my books, username: shaziyakhanwrites. Any grammar or spelling mistakes, point them to me politely, thank you!)
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Not all wars are meant to be fought, some wars are meant to be survived, in hiding, in anguish, especially if it means protecting those we love.

-Maryam
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"Ten...," she flinched, hands shaking, lips quivering, and eyes shut tightly in dismay.

Thud!

"N-Ni-Nine..., eight...,"

Keep counting, her mind shouted, don't stop! Don't look!

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Drawing her knees close to her chest, her hands wound themselves around them. Her head pressed itself atop of her knees, in a failed attempt to faze out the world. She had no option but to try. Tears streamed down her face, wetting her dull gray jeans as breathing became hard.

"Seven..."

"You don't get to," thud, "bloody touch her and think you can get away."

"Six..."

To her, the experience was nothing short of witnessing the awakening of a demon. Unleashing of a beast.

He roared ferociously at the boy on the floor. Although it has now become a recurring event in her life to watch him shower his wrath upon people, beat them up, and torture them, she could not get used to them. She could not get used to him..., Ethan Russo. Rather, his antics tickled viciously at her sanity, every second of his presence, gauging out the worst of her nightmares. While they used to attack her in the night. They've found ways to invade her mind while she was still conscious. Panic attacks. And right now, she was in the middle of one of them.

"F-Five..." Her voice barely audible to even her own ears.

"Maybe you should let her go to her class." It was Lucas. She knew it was him. That brooding, warm voice.

"No, she stays!"

In a flash, she was jerked off of the floor, right in the middle of her episode, making her fear if she might have a cardiac arrest. That didn't seem like a bad idea to her in that moment. She embraced the thought with open arms. Her back hit his chest as she was made to face the battered boy, heaving on the floor, groaning and gasping for breath.

"These fuckers never learn, do they?" A bloody hand ran along the rim of her scarf, lining her face, but never smearing it.

She kept her eyes shut but she could feel it all, she had witnessed it several times in the past year. So many times that it played like a broken cassette in the back of her haunted mind.

A full year of torture. A year of pain. A year of isolation. A year of waiting...

It was the first day of her senior year in school now but nothing else had changed in her life. Everything was the same. Same torment, and she was still the same prey in the clutches of the serpent. The same puppet tied to the strings of the master. The same runner continually dangling at the edge of the cliff.