𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐒 𝐌𝐄

─ ❝ act xxxix ❞

⎡ act xxxix - false hope ⎦

┊❝ Her compliance certainly is attractive ❞┊

── AFTER talking with Sawyer, (Y/N) said goodbye to him before walking down his driveway towards her car, her hands stuffed into her jacket's pocket whilst her brows were furrowed in concentration. As she mulled over what he informed her of, she also couldn't help but recall the words Shariah had spoken to her when they had first met.

To use what I can to make it so they can't hurt me anymore...

How do I do that?

Taking out her phone and scrolling through the incessant, obsessive text messages Dylan and Ian sent her, she finally realized what she had to do. The next few weeks, she laid low, doing exactly as they told her to do without much resistance so neither would become suspicious over what she was actually doing. Using her phone to secretly record her conversations and interactions with them, printing out their text messages, and photographing her wounds and whatever she could, she carefully began the layout of her plan.

She only had a few months left in that school before she was off to the college of her choice, so she saw no need to transfer. All she needed really was a way to eliminate Dylan and Ian from her current day to day life so she could finish the school year in peace.

It was a peace she craved.

After everything Dylan, Ian, Carmen, and the rest of their twisted gang did to her that was more than illegal, she saw need to have them suffer just as much as she had. The needling feeling of eyes constantly on her left her feeling more paranoid than ever before, therefore she always kept her actions as discreet as possible, even at her own home. It was so bad that she often found herself lying awake at night, shivering under her covers as she tried to convince herself that the shadows in her room were just that: shadows, and nothing else.

Unfortunately, her mind wasn't put at ease.

Nor should it have been.

"It's cute how in control she thinks she is," Dylan murmured one evening as he stared through the screen of a camera lens peering into (Y/N)'s room, his eyes focused on how she carefully went over her recordings from that day. "Well, if we didn't have these cameras installed in her house, I guess she would've been since her actions recently are so desirable, aren't they?"

"It's definitely possible," Ian hummed from where he sat, propping his head up with his fist.

"Anything we should do?" Dylan questioned.

"Maybe not right now," Ian glanced at him from the corner of his eye, a dark shadow cresting over the silvery sheen of the hue. "I actually quite like how she's acting right now, and don't really want that to change in the least."

"Her compliance certainly is attractive," Dylan's smirk turned eerie. "So?"

"So, what?"

"When should we do something?"

Ian drummed his fingers against the counter of the desk he sat at in the dark room of Dylan's home, his brow twitching at the thought of having to do something in the first place just to keep (Y/N) by his side—a fact that he only thought was natural. If anything, he could feel a type of dark, irritable force creep within his mind and cloud his thoughts with nothing but disdain. Not only that, but if he really thought about it, the days he and Dylan had with (Y/N) as a fixture in their lives was slowly dwindling the closer the end of the year crept.

Even worse, he had already heard that she had gotten into a college—a college far from town, and far from him.

"We'll have to soon, as much as I hate to admit it," Ian scowled as he leaned back in his chair, his jaw tensing whilst his teeth grit. "(Y/N)... she still thinks she can do whatever the fuck she wants. It means she's learned nothing. What she's doing now to appease us... you know it won't last."

"Yeah..." Dylan mumbled whilst crossing his arms over his neck, his expression darkening. "You're right in that instance."

His frown deepened.

She keeps thinking she can leave us.

Leave me.

How do I erase such a loathsome concept from her mind until she's only mine?

"Ian..." Dylan uttered as he uncrossed his arms so he could tightly grip the arms of his chair, his muscles so tense veins started to scrawl across his skin in visible tangents. "What can we do, then?" His eye twitching, he turned towards his friend with a twisted grin as he chuckled out, "What the fuck can we do to stop her from trying to leave us?"

"Calm down," Ian scoffed.

"Shut up," Dylan growled, his very sanity which had already been hanging by a loose thread snapping instantaneously. "Just answer my damn question. She'll move on from us. How do we stop that?"

"Always so quick to emotion," Ian rolled his eyes. "If we want her, we'll just take her."

"Hah?" Dylan laughed incredulously at his friend's idea. "And you say I'm quick to emotion? We can't just steal a person." Leaning back, a finger to his chin, he actually pondered over the thought in his mind, delighting in thinking of (Y/N), tied up, in his bed so completely helpless, stating, "Though I don't mind the idea, we have to properly plan for something like that to have a flawless execution. There's fucking Sawyer and Carmen, not to mention her father. What about her not showing up at school, too?"

"I've already thought about that," Ian laughed lightly, as if he hadn't just suggested kidnapping another person. "Think about it... it'll be so fucking easy just to take her."

Dylan stared at Ian, his expression unmoving.

Then, he grinned maniacally.

"We'll just have to get rid of anyone in our way then, right?" He continued, biting his lip just to contain his excitement from thinking about (Y/N) finally chained firmly in his grip. "And then she'll be ours completely, right?"

"Right," Ian muttered.

Finally ours...

Permanently.

__________________________________

To be continued...