Epiphany

Chapter 48 Part 2~Violation

And with that, she pulled me closer to her as we backed off to the wall, the wall that Ryder was leaning on, but at the far, far end. Farthest spot away from them.

When my side touched the wall, my legs stopped moving for a second when my eyes met the person lying on the ground.

He still haven’t moved an inch. He was lying on the floor with each muscle still in place.

Shouldn’t we help him…?

“Mama…” My voice came out crooked and low, but she hummed in response.

“We should take Jesse with us.”

Her grip on me softened a little. She said in a low voice. “We can’t.”

What…?

“It'll only get us into more trouble with them,” she elaborated. “We can’t risk more of that. We’re already in deep sh!t.”

The frustration that filled the pit in my gut was emptied.

“I also don’t know which family he belongs to, Alyssa, or who exactly he might be, meaning I don’t know which trouble I might get myself into if I took him out of his original habitat.”

I gave a hesitant nod, but still couldn’t get rid of the small drops of frustration.

What mattered right now was us. If we could make it, then we might later save him.

But then the thought of my mother telling me that not even the police could do anything about this place came crashing on my hopes.

Let’s make it out of here first.

“Mama—"

“So you’re just going to leave this poor guy here, Zoella?” A playful voice resonated across the place, cutting my lower voice off, and I found myself gazing at Ryder who was grinning ear to ear. He acted as if he was watching a movie, and the part where my mother told him to raise his hands was the boring part, while the part where we were fleeing and leaving the poor guy behind was the amusing one. This didn’t bother him at all, and I was glad he had brains because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have considered the gun a threat and would have attacked us by now.

“Do you know what got him in this lowlife position he’s currently in?” he said, tilting his head.

My mother didn’t give a response, but she seemed to be watching the teen closely, examining every inch of his body for any movement.

Ryder took a small step forward, testing his boundaries.

“Don’t move an inch, I said!” my mother snapped, aiming the gun now at him.

Like I said, he didn’t look the tiniest fazed, as he pursued to beam. “This little guy over here.” He pointed at Jesse, even though it was obvious as to who he was talking about. “…admires you.”

He gave a loud chuckle. “You could even pretend that he worships you, or that he worshipped you—if he isn’t already dead—and that your irrational, rebellious actions gave him hope of actually getting out of here.”

“Alyssa.” Amidst Ryder's chattering, I heard my mother's whisper when we stood in our tracks.

“Get out,” she said as she let go of my shoulders.

I frowned and before I could question where exactly, I looked beside me and saw the view of the forest through the glass panel of the large window.

I didn’t notice there was a window in this place. It almost felt like luck that we were also in the ground floor.

It was gloomy outside, the thick gray clouds still there.

I put my left palm on the window frame and grabbed the handle with my other, and pushed the glass panel open. It swung with ease and slammed on the outer wall, allowing for the biting breeze to rush through my hair.

“Because of the hope you spurred inside of him, he mirrored your actions.”

I should’ve been on the other side of the window by now, but I didn’t cross it. It was as though Ryder’s words took hold of my eyes and forced them to look at the slumped guy and away from the freedom awaiting me.

“He tried running away but obviously that was a fail.”

The more I looked at Jesse, the more I felt a pang in my heart. It was growing, and the more it grew, the more painful it became.

“Because that was a fail, he, of course, had to be punished, so he was sent to the naughty group alongside other losers to do loads of sh!t and crap and you could guess the rest, Mama.”

God, I never thought I would’ve felt something for this guy. The guy who was one of the reasons I was kidnapped in the first place. I felt nothing for him other than the familiar hatred I felt for the majority of the people in this place. But now… I pitied him.

We should save him.

It was obvious what would happen if we left him alone with these guys. If we were to leave him in the same room as Ryder.

“And now thanks to a specific someone, thanks to a specific pathetic mother, his life will be cut short.”

Jesse ran away before.

Ryder opened his mouth wider, almost yelling now. “His dreams perished.”

I knew he wanted to run away again but was too afraid to admit it.

“Mama, we should save him.” I heard myself mutter.

“We can’t. Now, Alyssa, out—”

“What do you mean we can’t?” I turned my head to let her see my pleading eyes. But she wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were pinned on the three standing in the far end of the chamber.

We can’t leave him.

“Mama—”

“Alyssa, not now!”

“What do you mean? They’ll kill him if we—”

“They’ll kill us too.” She glanced my way.

“They already want to!”

“We don’t need more enemies. We already have enough of them on our tail.”

When I thought I finally understood her before, I realized I didn’t.

At my silence, she continued, “I don’t know which family he’s from. We can’t just take anyone with us, we don’t know who we’ll later be dealing with.”

Dammit.

But did it really matter? Jesse tried to run away before and failed. This meant his family were obvious crap. This was another reason to save him. But… they will target us.

“So his family cares if he ran away, but not if he’s going to be killed?”

“Yes,” she mumbled, her brows forcing themselves to lower to the point of touching.

“This doesn’t make any sense!”

Her head jerked to the side, face flushed with irritation. “Alyssa, out. Now.”

I then shut my mouth. It wasn't because I couldn’t think of anything to say, but because my jaw clenched and I could feel every premolar, every molar press against their opposite one.

A sound that I could finally put a name to stopped me from moving. Even though it was short-emitted, it still echoed in the place, bouncing off the marble floor and reaching my ears, freezing my whole bloodstream.

It was the same sound that occurred just before Edward handed the weapon to Andre.

A gun.

“Alyssa!” my mother screamed.

Everything happened like lightning striking the ground as two gunshots broke out.