Wings

19: I'll Follow You Way Down Wherever You May Go

A/N: quick note: If you're listening to the music as you read, play it about halfway through the chapter, not right at the start. This chapter switches vibes halfway through and it made it nearly impossible to find a song that fit well lmao. if you don't listen to the music while you read, have you considered: listening to the music while you read so that it feels like a movie? 13/10 I very much recommend. also I'll smite you if you don't /j

WPOV

Track: Follow You, Imagine Dragons

I don't know how much time passes while I'm sick. It must have been more than one day at least because I vaguely remember being fed a couple of meals. Gentle, steady hands helped me sit up and a concerned voice told me to open my mouth, chew, swallow. I was not alive to remember many other details, but the sense of always being watched lingered over me even in the depths of my illness.

Eventually, the fog began to lift and the dread returned full-force. For another day or two, I continued pretending to be sick because being sick meant that my father watched disapprovingly from the corner of the room, but Mr. Chase was adamant that laying a hand on me in this condition would kill me. Mr. Chase must have quickly realized I was slowly recuperating, but he did not say a word about it to my father.

"Is he improving?" my father asks every time Mr. Chase's gentle hands take my pulse or feel for a temperature.

"Afraid not," Mr. Chase responds every day. "The sweat has gone away, but the heartbeat is getting worse."

It's a lie. A smooth lie, at that. My heart is fine, I know it's fine. But my father doesn't know enough about heart health to be able to call out the lie, and Mr. Chase knows it. He's trying to give me as much time as he can where I'm left alone.

And then, every time, Mr. Chase is eventually forced to leave, and my father locks me in my room again. No one else visits me. No one is allowed.

Each day follows a relatively consistent routine like this. Mr. Chase comes twice a day: once in the mornings and once in the evenings. He asked if he could please visit for lunch as well, but my father only said that they'd already talked about this, and Mr. Chase is on thin ice as it is. Apparently, he was not allowed to ask for more.

The routine never changes in all the time that I'm ill, at least as far as my muddled memory can tell, and it doesn't change when I'm faking an illness, either.

Which is why when someone starts messing with the lock in the middle of the night, the hairs raise on the back of my neck. Why would anyone be trying to get into my room in the middle of the night? Maybe this is my father and the priest again. Jesus Christ, maybe Mr. Chase is watching them too closely for them to hurt me during the day, maybe they know they wouldn't get away with it easily—but in the night, things are different—

My stomach twists terribly, and in a panic, I try to decide whether this will be my best chance at escape—when they believe I'm too sick to be waiting on the other side of the door—or if I'll simply ruin the excuse that I'm too ill to hurt. I have probably five seconds maximum before they push that door open and I run out of time—to escape or to fake an illness, fight or flight, I risk my life either way—

"Shit," I whisper, hands shaking as a surge of adrenaline surges through my veins, and I push myself out of the bed as quickly as I can, striding towards the door and preparing to lunge through it and run the moment it's open wide enough—

The door creaks, and my heart pounds, this is my only chance—

And it creaks—

Time is frozen. I can't breathe. Only another half of a second. My muscles coil—