Treacherous

Chapter Forty-Three

*~*~* Niall's POV *~*~*

I didn't sleep at all. I was too uncomfortable with Natalie laying on me the entire night. It's not that she was heavy, it was just different than what I'm used to. She's foreign to me, and honestly she's just not who I want.

She shifted a few times during the night, but not once did I lay my cheek to her head and try to sleep. If my head started to fall I would lightly hit my face to help me stay awake. Our fingers stayed tightly intertwined throughout the entire night, though.

I think she had nightmares because I faintly heard her whimper a few times and felt her squeeze my hand a little tighter. It's obvious that this little girl is in no way innocent. Her wide eyes and young-looking face don't fool me anymore.

She, too, is broken.

It's around 6 in the morning that she awakes with a start, her breathing set at an increased pace. Her hand crushes mine as she takes deep breaths to try and calm her racing heart. I rub my thumb across the back of her hand until she lets up a little. My hand has red spots adorning it from the harsh grip she had on my hand.

As she stands up in a hurry, I rub my hands together to try and get the little bit of pain to go away.

"I'm sorry!" she screeches as she heads to the other side of the room, her hands running through her hair nervously. She paces in front of me as she bites down on her nails. She repeats the words until I simply can't take it anymore.

"You're fine," I whisper, my voice coming out a lot huskier than I intended it to. I clear my throat before saying it again, clearer this time.

"N-n-no it's not," she stammers out before gasping and covering up her mouth, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stutter."

"It's okay, Natalie," I shush, slowly scaling my way up the wall until I'm standing upright. My knees wobble as I walk to her, but I make it. I take her trembling hands in mine and she gasps again as if she wasn't expecting me to be there. She was looking at me, but I don't think she was all the way there.

As soon as her skin touches mine she jerks away and turns around, retreating to the wall to the far left.

"Natalie..." I whine like a child. I'm tired and putting up with this is not something I want to deal with.

She doesn't answer me, but she crouches down in the corner and pulls her knees to her chest. When she begins rocking back and forth I'm sure that this isn't one of the times where she playfully copies me to show me how much I tick her off.

"Hey, Natalie?" I call out to her in the dark, flinching when she turns to face me quickly, half of her face illuminated by the moonlight and the other half buried in the shadows.

"Please don't hurt me," she hoarsely whispers. Her eyes are clouded over as if she's seeing some other vision that doesn't involve me.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Natalie." I start to pull her hands off of her knees, but she tenses and makes it absolutely impossible to.

"Yes you will. You always hurt me." She shudders and I sit down next to her, pulling her into a friendly hug. She sobs into my chest as her face gets squished up against it. She makes a wet spot on my shirt, but I don't mind. When I felt like this it would've been nice to have a shoulder to cry on.

I'm just glad that I can be there for someone else when no one was there for me.

"Niall...?" she gasps in amazement when she realizes that it really is just me and not the crazy figment of her mind that she saw earlier.

"Yeah, Natalie. It's me." I rub her back up and down a few times before letting her go and looking at her face.

Tears still run down her cheeks as she shyly looks up at me through her eyelashes. Her wide brown eyes look up at me in fear as she continues shaking. Fear is not the only emotion there, but appreciation also shines brightly in them.

My fingers gently dab at some of the drops that are falling freely down her face. Eventually I have to use my whole finger to catch all of the ones that continue to drip off of her face.

"Who hurt you?" My teeth are clenched and my entire body tenses up.

Her eyes widen, but she stays quiet. So I repeat my question.

"Natalie, who hurt you?" I look deeply into her eyes, hoping that somehow I can evoke some sort of truth-telling factor in that tortured brain of hers.

She rapidly shakes her head at me, swallowing loudly.

"I don't want to relive it." Her words make more sense than they should, but I know of this pain. To think that before I never believed that she had felt something as painful as I have.

 "Please tell me?" I rake my fingers through her hair, gently tugging through the tangles that have embedded on her head.

She takes a shaky breath before answering. "H-his name was Adam. He used to b-b-beat me all the time." She gets straight to the point, but still struggles to get the words out. No doubt, painful reminders are flashing through her mind.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, not expecting her to go on. She's just full of surprises.

"He used to hit me all the time. I didn't t-think he was doing anything bad. It's just that everything I did w-was wrong." Her eyes squint together and she starts rocking back and forth in my arms again. "When I was r-really bad he would throw me into the basement and lock me in the dark. It was so cold."

Upon saying the words she starts to shiver. I squeeze her tighter, not saying a word.

"There were rats down there... They used to... All of the blood and flesh attracted them and..." She breaks down again, no longer able to speak.

I remain frozen in my spot. How could someone be so evil as to hurt a girl as innocent as I know she once was?

Then again, how is it that I can hurt Amie?

It's different, but at the same time it's the exact same.

Adam and I are more alike then I'd like to admit.

XxXxX

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