Don't let go: Joel Miller x OC

Heavy Air

Her heart raced at a hundred miles per an hour, eyes reddened and puffy from the frantic tears she cried and her stomach tied in constrictor knots, stealing the breath from her lungs. A part of herself stolen from right beneath her own very nose.

She pulled the woman's house apart in hopes that the child would somehow be there. Thinking rationally had been a struggle. All of the worst possible scenarios plaguing her sore mind like a disease.

She couldn't tell you how long she had been sat, collapsed crossed legged on Sophie's living room floor, clutching hold of the only trace of her daughter that she could find... her beloved teddy bear. The one that had been with her since birth, the teddy that she wouldn't go anywhere without.

So Ava sat alone. The smell of that slightly tattered teddy being the only thing that was preventing her from falling over the edge.

She hoped and prayed that it wasn't these raiders that had fought their way through the walls of Jackson and abducted them both. Oh god, she hoped they hadn't. She knew only too well how a little girl and young woman would be treated by those monsters. The vile atrocities that would be inflicted on them both... they'd get bored of her daughter first... would probably slit her throat and then leave her to bleed out...

Ava began to heave and hurl at even the notion of her little girl having to be put through the torture. She was three years old, still just a baby...How frightened and in pain she must be. Their filthy hands- She had to stop, stop before she completely fell apart. She had managed to drag her heavy body up and off the floor, weak legs stumbling over and out of the front door where her stomach completed its churn. It's contents being spilled onto the earth beneath her feet between strangled cries.

She had to keep looking. Maybe Sophie had taken her home? Maybe they crossed paths without noticing each other? Perhaps her baby girl was tucked up on the couch waiting for her...

She wiped her eyes and mouth before forcing her position to straighten. Forcing her legs to move forward, the teddy bear still tightly within her grip. Forcing those vile thoughts to leave her mind for a minute.

The walk home was made within just over five minutes. Her chest heaving, breath panting, lungs feeling like they were full of tiny needles. Each breath she took felt like she was inhaling razor blades. Her body rammed through the front door and she all but sprinted into the living room.

"Lily!" She shouted, her voice strained from fear.

She wasn't there. She wasn't curled up in Joel's corner of the couch with bright eyes and a cheesy grin just as she had imagined. There was no beam of 'mommy' in her sweet little voice. That breath of relief that she was so so desperate for, didn't happen.

Another whimper left the lone mothers lips as a further stream of fat tears slipped down her cheeks. Her sweet girl couldn't experience what she had, not at her young tender age, not at all. As much as she wanted it to be anything but, the only logical explanation she could fathom was that her daughter had been abducted by them. Her only child, fallen into the hands of raiders just so she could have a night off from being a parent.

Her mind turned on itself, trying to pinpoint the height of who was to blame. Herself. If she kept Lily home, this wouldn't have happened. Terrible mother, failed her only daughter. She had to find her.

An abundance of anger rippled through her skin and bones as her maternal instinct peaked. She was going to find them and she was going to kill them. Every last one of them. She was going to get her daughter back, going to make it up to her. Even if it killed her.

Again, her red hazed mindset had collected just enough energy and focus to keep her pushing forward. She hurried into hers and Joel's room to grab her rucksack, being sure to stick her head around the door to the nursery- just in case.