Survived Me: a Shatter Me fan-fiction (Warnette)

Chapter 43 - Wake Up

⚠️TW⚠️
Blood
Kidnapping
Hostage
Murder
Threats
Torture
Injury details
Cruelty
Mention of war/attacks
Anxiety/stress
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(⚠️A very dark chapter, so if you don't want to read about that then skip this chapter. Read only if your comfortable with a lot of blood and gore, kidnapping and death⚠️)
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AARON'S POV:
We had Sonya and Sara wait in one of the tanks whilst we fought in the RARE's base. So now I'm here, in a tank containing me, Juliette, Kenji, Castle, Sara and Adam.
Juliette is lying unconscious, head in my lap, as Sara uses her powers to tend to her wounds. Luckily, before she fainted, she must have turned off her lethal touch.

"Shit" Sara hisses in a whispered voice.
I have never heard Sara, or Sonya for that matter, swear.
"What?" I panic, "what's wrong? Is everything okay?"
"She's been drugged," she breathes, "I think, by my evaluation, they tortured her till she passed out, then overdosed her so it would look like an accident".

I stop breathing, I feel the anger. The very same anger I felt towards my father for all those years.
Anyone and everyone who helped in doing this to her, I hate with a passion.

"Will she be okay?" Kenji asks, voice cracking, taken over by tears.
"I hope so." Sara replied.

Excuse me? You hope so!
Hope so!

"What?" I look at her, dead in the eyes. "What will happen to her?"
"Well, I can not be certain, but she looks like she will pull through." Sara lets out a small, weak smile.
———
We are back on base, Juliette has, only half an hour ago, been rushed into surgery. So now I'm sitting here, alone, in Juliette's hospital room. The room is dull. It holds an empty space for a bed, the one that they rolled her out in, and into the surgery she's currently undergoing. White curtains that cover a small window, a sofa and armchair. The armchair is positioned to be right next to the hospital bed, when it comes back. To the right of me is a bathroom - containing a small bath with a shower head and some old looking shower curtains, a toilet and sink.

I'm sitting in the arm chair, waiting for my love to come back to me, for her bed to be wheeled into the room.

Knock knock

I bolt up, excitement and nervousness fill me. Is it someone telling me how Juliette is? If she's awake? When will she be back?

I open the door, it creaks wildly, slightly stinging my ears.

"Hey, pretty boy." It's Kishimoto. Ugh why him, out of everyone, why him?
"Kishimoto." I plainly say.
"I came to see how J is," he peeks into the room. "Wait. Where is she?"
"In surgery, they took her in about half an hour ago."
"Oh," that's all he says. I don't blame him for saying nothing further.

This, right here, how I'm feeling right now, this is pain. It's even more agonising that I have to wait to see if she's okay.
———
It's been two hours since Kenji invited himself in, I've had to speak to Kishimoto non-stop, for two hours!
When suddenly the door opens, a nurse, wearing a white coat with a clipboard in hand, walks in. Behind her, another nurse pushes Juliette's bed back into its place.

God, Juliette, love.
She is so pale. It looks like she hasn't been fed in ages. She is significantly thinner, majorly underweight. Her face is bruised and battered and her lips cracked and dry.
I push her hair behind her ear, kiss her forehead.

"Love, can you hear me?" I take hold of her hand. "Please, Sweetheart, please wake up." I shed a tear.
"She will." The nurse who pushed in her bed spoke. She is now setting up machines and other technical equipment that help Juliette and keep her monitored.
"When?" I wipe my tears away.
"I'm not sure. Whenever her body is strong enough." She smiles then walks out.
"Man," Kenji sighs from behind me, "come on J, wake up".

I sit back into the chair, now besides her bed, and hold her hand. Kenji stands on the other side of the bed and just looks down at her, hopelessness in his gaze.

Hopelessness, that is one thing that, at this moment, I am not. I know she will wake up, she has too, I need her, we all need her. She is okay. She had surgery and they fixed her, there is no need to worry... right?
———
It's been two weeks, she's still asleep. I haven't left this room. Not to work, not to get some fresh air, nothing. I only go into the small en-suite bathroom, then come straight back, sit and hold her hand again.

God I miss her so much.

"I don't understand" Kenji sniffles, he's been coming to the hospital room everyday for an hour or so, sometimes longer. It is, for the first time, and only time, I can say that I appreciate Kishimoto's company. "Why would someone do such a thing?"
I sigh. I don't know how to respond to that, simply because I don't know the answer. Why would someone do something like this? It's inexcusable, disgraceful and sickening.
Even after this long, all this time to think and process what's happened, I still can't fathom why they would do this.  Sure Juliette took over the Reestablishment, but not the French Reestablishment. Alexander was my fathers friend, but I don't think that they were that close.
So why?

"I don't know kishimoto" I say. "He will pay for what he's done." I growl, anger rising inside me.
"Too damn right he will. He'll get the shit beaten out of him," Kenji grits him teeth. "He won't-" he stops, we both stare at the unconscious girl, she just moved. She moved for the first time in two weeks.

A shift, a small movement that distracts me from everything that's happening around me. She moved, shifted, showed some sign of life.
"Juliette" I say in utter disbelief and shock. "Love, can you hear me?"
She groans. Shifts more, then opens her eyes.
"Wha-" she winces, "augh". Her hand flew to her head.
"Love" I whisper, not quite believing she is really awake.
She tries to sit upright, painfully failing as she flops back down onto her back.
"Take it easy, Sweetheart." I brush her hair away from her forehead. "Everything is okay, you need to do nothing more than rest and get better."
"But what about the RARE's?" She looks worried, fearing the ones who held her captive and tore her to shreds.

I know she won't let herself heal if she knew some of the things that we now know, so, until she recovers, I think it best to keep them to myself. I can't have her finding out that Alexander is in one of the holding cells in the basement or that Sebastian is still alive and trying to get her, I don't want to put more stress on her than she has already been through. So for now, she has to stay in the dark about the whole situation.
—
JULIETTE'S POV:
They're hiding something from me.
I know they are, Kenji is staying silent, which isn't like him, and Aaron is avoiding my questions. They know something, something that would have me worked up. I know how Aaron thinks, how he protects me, he won't tell me until I'm back in good health. And right now, I am not.
My head is pounding and my stomach is twisted in a sickening knot. My throat is dry and scratchy whilst my arms and legs ache.

"That doesn't matter at the moment, you're awake, that's what matters." He smiles.

I admire him for his ability to lie, most see this as a bad sign but in this job, this situation, it is the difference between life and death, though I can see right through him. He's as clear as glass to me.

"Stop lying to me," I huff. "What's happened, Aaron? What's gone wrong?" I panic, I know he can sense and see how I feel. "Please," I beg.
He sighs, looks at me, searching my eyes, like the answer to keep the pain from hitting me is resting within them. "Nothing went wrong. No one is hurt, other than you that is." He grips my hand, tight, yet not too hard. "You do not need to worry, we have it taken care of."

I sigh, like I thought, he won't tell me. I guess I'll just have to find out on my own then
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Word count: 1446