𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐟𝐢𝐚 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 ✍︎

52| 𝙷𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚘

Don't hate me for what's going to happen.

Ayla/Dove's POV
Age: 10
Location: Ricci's Mansion, New York

It has been five days since Christmas, four days since the fight with my parents, and three days since all communication with the rest of the world has been cut off.

On my first day of being grounded, Alex came into my room to give me dinner and informed me that all secure communication channels with my family had been suddenly severed. No one can tell if my parents severed the connections, or if a third-party did.

Either way, I'm all alone with no one but the hundreds of guards swarming the premises.

I had spent hours thinking of how to apologize to my parents and how to make up for my stupid behavior.

Now, I spend hours stressing over what could have happened to my family.

Every horrible scenario my mind comes up with seems more than possible, and the whole thing makes me sick.

I've been feeling sick a lot lately.

There's nothing to do besides read, think, and sleep. But reading often leads to overthinking and sleeping means dreaming.

I haven't had any kind of escape from my own thoughts in three days and I feel like I'm drowning.

Alex had been trying to get me to leave the house. To just step outside and get some fresh air, but nothing he says can convince me to leave the safety of the house.

Maybe it's false security that's keeping me from leaving my room, but I don't care.

A knock at the door drags my sluggish mind out of a very messed up scenario that my brain has conjured to torment me.

Too tired to move from the warmth of my weighted blankets, I yell a small "come in."

Alex enters, with no tray of food for once.

I'm almost happy he's stopped giving me food. These days it's been hard to keep anything down, even harder to eat at all since I know there's no point.

Between my own thoughts and the demented dreams I've been having, vomiting over the toilet has become part of my tedious daily routine.

Over the past few days I have come to trust Alex. He's reliable, and obviously trustworthy if my parents assigned him to me. I don't mind Callum, but he's a little less likable. He doesn't talk to me much and doesn't really look at me often.

"You alright?" Alex asks. He walks over to me and sits by my side on the bay window.

I fell asleep here last night, and despite the fact that we are well into the day, I haven't been able to gather the strength to move.

"M' fine," I mumble, too tired to talk.

He glances at me skeptically. If I look as bad as I feel, I can't blame him for not believing me.

"Well...before your parents left, your Dad told me that he planned to unground you today." Now it's my turn to shoot him a skeptical look. He grins and shrugs. "Alright, maybe he didn't say that, but if your Dad was here, he wouldn't want you locked up in your room for days on end."

"I thought that's the point of being grounded," I mutter. "I like it in here."

"I never said you didn't. But you need to get out."