Arise

Chapter 10

"I want to stay." Ella states bluntly.

"Oh thank god." Bryony slumps with relief, everyone else seemed to be relieved as well.

"So where am I sleeping?"

"Umm you can stay on the couch bed or you can stay with Jace, or me." Bryony suggests, I was hoping she'd say one of the first two so that I could stay with Bry but she wasn't just mine so I grudgingly accept it.

"I'll stay with you."

"I'll stay on the couch bed." I voice, everyone nods and heads off to their rooms except Bryony and I.

"I'm sorry, I don't want you to be down here on your own." I wrap my arms around her waist and squeeze.

"It's okay, your friend needs you. And once she gets closer to Jace and we get closer too then I'll stay with you. Till then I'm happy with the couch." She smiles before exiting my arms to find a pillow and some blankets. "Thanks."

"Of course. Night." She says with a small wave.

"Night." She runs off up the stairs leaving me alone downstairs.

Bryony's POV

I don't think I should've left him down there but he was right, Ella needs me. When I got to my room Ella was wearing my pyjamas and snuggled on the right side of the double bed. "Are you okay?" I ask hesitantly.

"Physically yes, mentally I'm feeling a bit messed up. But you already knew that didn't you?"

"I don't read your mind if that's what you mean."

"What?"

"I don't read your mind or Chelsea's or Jace's. You get the gist."

"Why not?"

"I respect your privacy, besides I don't need to. Everyone in this house, besides you, knows how to send mental messages to Jay and I. We can teach you, if you want?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." She says before turning off her lamp, I change quickly and get into the bed. I turn the air con on before switching the lamp off and drifting off to sleep.

****FLASHBACK/DREAM****

I jerk awake in my cell to see Valem grinning evilly from the other side of the bars. "You're finally awake, come child we have a show to perform." One of his guards picks me up and drags me out into the courtyard. I look around the pen to see his whole clan surrounding me, there has to be at least one hundred people here. 

Some looked at me in sympathy, others just watched unfazed. When my eyes reach a small boy with jet black hair, he intrigues me. His green eyes showing nothing but pity, his mind screaming at Valem to let me go. He wanted to help me but he didn't have the strength, not yet anyway.

Valem kept trying to get me to use my powers, only the healing ones. Luckily for me, he doesn't know about the mind reading. Every other day he takes me to a room, a beautiful room with silk bed sheets on the four poster queen size bed. What I would give to lay on that bed, however it was already taken by an old woman, Valem's mother. 

He tells me every time that she has cancer, that she only has a few days left, that I should heal her... Every time I refuse. So the next day he would take me to the courtyard as he is now, to tie me to a pillar in the middle of the yard.

A guard then lifts the back of my t-shirt and puts it over my head, hiding my eyes and revealing my back. My raw and bleeding back that will never heal. He then brings out a whip and slashes my back open with it over and over again. Listening to my agonising screams, but he doesn't care about me, he has had me for over two years now doing the same thing everyday.

He's getting more and more impatient with me because no matter how much pain I am in I will no cave, he knows I am stronger than him, this angers him further. 

So he decides that after the whipping he will take me to a different room filled with assorted sharp tools that looked as if they hadn't been cleaned for years. He hands me over to a tall man with grey hair who looks like a kid in a sweet shop, happy to get something new.

"Break her." Were the only words Valem says before strutting out. I whimper as the man got closer to me, then I begin to scream.

****FLASHBACK/DREAM OVER****

"Bryony!" Someone was shouting, but I couldn't make out who as I writhe about on the bed. "Bryony! It's okay you're home now! You're okay!" I tune back in and see Jay's concerned face hovering over mine, before I burst into tears. He wraps him arms around me and behind him stands everyone else looking at me with sympathy. It reminded me too much of the courtyard so I bury my face in his neck.