"Please don't hurt me, please..."
Travis had listened to the audio from the night before countless times and with every sentence his heart grew a little heavier.
She had seen and heard everything, that much was clear to him now.
Every agonising moment her mother and her brother had suffered, she had been there, she had seen and heard and felt everything they did.
Travis wasn't sure why she refused to admit it or why she seemed so set on hunting it out and subjecting herself to the same sort of agony but he knew her mind was heavy, she was sinking below the weight of it and losing every part of herself in the process.
Who was Taylor Swift?
He wasn't sure but one thing he was sure of was that she wasn't the self obsessed, spoiled brat that she wanted him to believe she was.
His mind went back to the poetry from the night before.
How many times had she written and underlined 'scared?' he wanted to help her, wanted to rescue her from the chaos in her mind, but at what cost?
Could he keep it professional?
He knew he had to but something about her was pulling him in, speaking to corners of him he had thought were long cut off from human contact
This was getting dangerous, he should leave, he knew he should, he was crossing a line in his mind but he knew if he left no one would see Taylor the way he did, in need of protection and help, in her acts of aggression only searching for comfort
"Arggggggghhhhhh!!!!!" a female voice screaming broke Travis from his thoughts as he jumped to his feet
"Taylor?!" he didn't recognise the voice as hers but the fear that she had been hurt ran deep into his soul "Taylor!" he ran from his room, following the sound of the seemingly never ending scream.
Down the staircase he went and into the kitchen where he came face to face with Ana.
"Where is she?"
"Don't go out there Señor" was her reply but it just propelled him further into action.
"Taylor!" he ran to the front door and found Taylor on her knees, 2 guards by her side whispering words of apparent comfort to her
"...Taylor?" Travis asked the question to the tangled mess on the floor and she turned to him immediately, her eyes wide, her face pale.
Reaching up to him he realised she held a beautifully decorated box in her hands
"This" she whispered, her voice and hands both shaking
Travis took the box from her and slowly slid the lid off, what lay in the bottom of the velvet box causing him to choke on bile and struggle to steady himself.
"Taylor..."he managed to stutter out
" There's a note"
Taking the small, cream card he heaved in a breath and tried to make himself appear braver than he felt.
Inside the card was beautiful, black handwriting
'He can't watch you all of the time'
And inside of the box lay what Travis had no doubt was a pair of human eyes
"Travis..." Taylor gasped through her panic
"It's okay, just move into the house and lock the doors, we will conduct a thorough search of the grounds"
"They are coming for me, aren't they?" Travis couldn't help but find the hopeful coating to her voice
"I won't let them"
"Please, please don't stand in their way" Taylor fiddled with the golden band she wore on her wrist.
"It's my job to protect you, not let you be killed"
"It's what I deserve, promise me, if they come for me you will let me go"
"I can't do that!"
"Why not?!" asked Travis whilst stamping her foot hard on the patio tiles "I'm asking you, I'm begging you, please let them have me"
"No"
"Travis..."
"I'm going to fix you"
She laughed as though Travis had told the funniest joke of all time
"You can't fix me, don't you know? Haven't you heard what they say? I'm broken, I'm like a fractured glass mirror, I can't be fixed".
"I don't believe that"
"I'm broken, get too close and I will break you too. Whose eyes do you hold in your hands?? Who suffered just to punish me? There's no end to this unless you let me go" her eyes were deathly dark eyes locked on to his "You don't have to protect something that isn't worth saving, let me go... I beg you"
*Are you still reading this?
