Domineering

Thirty-Five

My stomach is burning due to the healing cuts on my stomach.

When he left after his last visit I clutched the fabric of my top to my stomach in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

My top is now blotted with blood. Just the sight of it makes my head spin, so you can imagine how I felt when I accessed the damage to my stomach.

Though the cuts weren't deep they produced a lot of blood. My whole stomach has smeared blood over it. It's like something out of a horror movie, except for me it's never ending.

That night I'd kept waiting for that women to come clean up my wounds, like she had done after my first beating.

But she never came.

The next face I saw was Darren's, two days later.

I try to curl myself into a ball but the pain is too much so I barely manage it. I brace myself for impact, muscles tense. But it never comes.

"Stop your whimpering" Darren barks at me. "Shall we show Harry what we've been up to?" he says sarcastically and reaches his hand towards me to lift up my shirt. No matter how hard I try to stop it, he reveals my battered stomach.

"That doesn't look too good now does it Harry?" Darren turns the camera to himself and smirks.

"I'm just getting warmed up" is the last thing I hear him say as he walks out the room.

I'm left on my own again.

~

The door slams open and I flinch, bracing myself for impact. Instead about ten men pile into the room.

This is it.

I'm going to die.

But then they turn to face the door, guns poised. The door is shut behind them and they stand there, breathing heavy, guns ready.

What...? I don't understand, why would they point their guns that way? They're Darren's men so shouldn't they have their guns on me?

Unless...

He's here.

Harry is here to rescue me.

The first smile in a while makes its way onto my face. I sit up and anxiously stare at the door. I hear gun shots getting closer until I can hear them right outside the door.

"HARRY, HARRY" I call out before I can stop myself. The man closest to me turns to me and grabs a handful of my hair to slam my head against the wall. The impact causes my vision to go fuzzy and an intense amount of pain to erupt through my head. After a few seconds I black out entirely.

Come on Harry.

~

"I've got you"

"Stay with me"

"I'm here, it's okay"

"It's all over"

"I've got you"

This deep and desperate voice says these things over and over again. I try to speak, to tell it to shut up so I can just sleep but my body won't respond to my brain's commands. So I just have to listen until I can ignore the voice and return to a deeper state of sleep.

~

I awake in the comfort of a bed, something that I haven't had in weeks. There is a steady beeping noise which tells me that I'm hooked up to a machine. The room I'm in is bright so I have to blink multiple times to get used to it. It's not until I turn my head to the left that I see Harry asleep in a chair next to the bed.

"Harry!" his name is released from my lips before I can stop myself. He stirs and jolts up as soon as he sees I'm awake.

"Hey, easy now you're alright" he pulls his chair forward and reaches over to hold my hand.

I can actually feel his skin on mine. He's here in the room with me. This isn't another nightmare. Harry is here and I'm safe.

I react immediately to his though and sit up to hug him but I recoil when I feel pain shoot up my left side.

"The painkillers must be wearing off" Harry says and reaches to the side to press a button to call someone in.

"Are we in a hospital?"

"Not quite, we're at our new house. This is a makeshift hospital room for you."

"Why? What happened to me?" My fingers fumble as I throw back the bed covers and lift up my top to reveal my bandaged stomach. I gasp and gently run my fingers across the white bandages.

"What happened?" I repeat and turn my attention to Harry.

"When we got to you you were conscious but barely responsive. Your head was banged up and you were skimmed by a bullet on your left side. You were brought back here straight away."

"I got shot! I got shot..." I say in disbelief. I don't know if the painkillers are making me feel disorientated or not but my brain can't seem to process what Harry has said.

"You don't remember being shot? What can you remember?"

My face muscles form a frown as I try to remember.

"I don't know...uh..I remember loads of men rushing in with guns and one of them smacked my head against the wall" I reach my hand up to my head as I remember and feel more bandages on my head. Tears form in my eyes and I shake my head to try to shake away everything. This can't be happening.

All I want to do is cry. So I do. Because I wish that things were back to normal and that no of this had ever happened.

The doctor has impeccable timing and enters the room when I'm a blubbering mess. I stare at the unfamiliar woman through my tears. Harry speaks before the doctor can open her mouth.

"Her painkillers are wearing off, can you get some more in her system and give her something to calm her. I'll continue talking to her when she's rested some more." Harry speaks lowly but I can hear every word he says.

I want nothing more than to rest but I have so much on my mind and so many questions to ask.

"We'll talk about everything River, but you need to rest. I'll be here when you wake up" Harry says when the doctor briefly leaves the room. After she returns and injects something into my IV I shuffle around to get comfortable. Harry stands and plants a kiss on my head and leaves the room.

I try to fight the drowsiness but it's not long before I dose off.

~

"How did you find me?" is the first question I ask Harry after I have woken up and feel more rested and calmer. Must be the medication.

"We tracked the signal from the video messages and worked from there." Harry's jaw locks at the mention of the videos. My mind wonders back to that time, I have to squeeze my eyes shut to block out the thoughts and memories.

"River? River?!" Harry tries to help but as soon as he puts his hands on my shoulders I lose it.

"GET AWAY FROM ME" I shout at him, mixing memories with reality.

"Look at me River! It's Harry" he puts is hands on my shoulders, "Open your eyes, it's me Harry." The hurt in his voice causes me to relax my eyes and open them to see it's just Harry.

It's not Darren.

"Harry" I sigh and wrap my arms around him.

"It's me, I'm here" he holds me to his chest, resting his chin on the top of my head.

"I'm so sorry, I just..I.." I stumble over my words, mortified and emotionally psyched up from my memories.

"It's fine, you're safe. Darren is dead, I made sure of that."

Darren is dead.

We hadn't talked about what happened to him yet but I manage to find comfort in the news. My underlying moral self knows I shouldn't be pleased to find out Darren is dead but after the hours I spent suffering because of him, I'm relieved it's all over.

It's all over.