Tied....Their protector

Here

~~~~~~GARRETT'S POV~~~~~~

As we rush through the front door,
We are met with maids and my families Doctor, along with one of his nurses.

In a blink of an eye, they take Phi out of my arms and whisk her away before I can say anything.

I stand there in a daze where they left me; a buzz of people rushing around grabbing a variety of things.

"Are you alright?" Hayden comes up and pats my shoulder.

I look at me, but not really at him; I shrug, "I don't know.....what if she.....if she...." I try to finish but my brain and heart won't even let me say them.

"Garrett you have one of the worlds best doctors in there, he will be able to help her." He says trying to give me a reassuring smile.

"But you didn't feel the pain she was holding back." I whisper, out of breath from the memory of how it felt.

Hayden looks down, no words of pity or sympathy, no words of reassurance or kind hearted ones either; instead his response is much more clear and eye opening then anything he could have said.

I put her through it.

I was the cause for some of it and I didn't try to help her at all, I just gave her my pain to deal with on top of her own.

"Big Brother!!" I lift my head a little and watch Grace hurry down the stairs.

She wraps her arms around my waist and I wrap mine around her shoulders.

"Where is Bryce and Phi?" She says looks around.

"The doctor is looking at them right now. Bryce should," I look up to see him walk towards us as I speak, "speak of the devil."

Grace pulls away from our embrace, but keeps her arms around me.

"Bryce!" She squeals.

He smiles at her and then joins in our sibling hug. We stand there in that embrace for what seemed like minutes, but when I opened my eyes it had been 2 hours.

"How about you two go get some sleep, I'll be up in a minute." I ruffle both of their hair and they look at me with a mixture of worry and frustration.

"Alright..." Grace whispers and removes herself from the hug.

Bryce on the other hand stays standing in front of me.

"Phi said some thing to me and I want to know if it is true." He says fiddling with his fingers.

"Alright." I ask

"When they brought her back into the cages, the only thing she was worried about was me," my body stiffens when Bryce says cages and I feel a sting in my chest as he continues," she had just been tortured for hours, yet she didn't think of herself once. She made sure I wasn't touched even when she could barely open her eyes." His eyes begin to water

"Why would she do that?" He sobs.

I pull him into a hug and I try to hold back my own tears, " Because I told her too." I manage to whisper.

Bryce looks up at me and I shake my head at myself, "I told her to protect Grace and you no matter what the cost was, no matter what she might have to go through. I could handle losing you or Grace like we lost mom and dad."

Bryce cries a little harder," she only wants you to be happy, for you to love her. That's all she wants. She's your tie."

My tears break free from my eyes," I know and yet I was the one torturing her slowly. I never imagined her not being safe while keeping you two safe. I didn't imagine that I would almost lose her in a blink of an eye."

In a blink of an eye.....

It really was in the blink of an eye, they were standing on the dance floor just a few couples away from Grace and me, dancing and smiling; but then the lights went out, they were nowhere to be found.

"Excuse me Mr.Vincent, may I have a moment of your time?" The doctor asks walking towards me.

Bryce squeezes me one more time and then goes up stairs to join Grace.

"Yes?"

"Well you one lucky man." He says in a breathy laugh, but at the same time it is filled with sadness, "Phi will recover soon, but you should know that it will take time. Both the physical scaring and the mental. She was broken emotionally before she even got there, wasn't she?" He asks following me to the living room.

I take a seat and he wonders to the bottle of whisky, he looks at me and I nod in approval. He pours a glass for himself and then looks to me again and I shake my head.

I don't drink.

"Yes, she was." I say when he takes a seat in the other leather arm chair.

"It will take time for her to come back mentally and emotionally, but if you put in the effort to make things better I know she will come back Garrett." He says after downing his glass.

We talk a little more on what I need to do for her physically, but the rest is up to me to fix.

After a few more questions from me, he leaves and I go back to the living room.

The doctor said that I can go into Phi's room in the morning once I've gotten some sleep, but I can't get what he said out of my head before he left out of my head.

"I also forgot, because of the bruising and swelling on her neck she will have a hard time talking. Also she may have some nightmares from what happened, it's normal for people who have been through these traumatic events to experience the after shock of them."

I don't want Phi to be scared.

Not anymore, not ever.

I'll have to prove to her that I won't make her endure it all by herself anymore.