Annie sat on the floor in the office.
Her knees were gripped up to her chin as she rocked back and forth widely, like a kid on a rocking horse. Her eyes were clenched shut, and her fingers loosened and tightened their grip over and over against her knees. The sheet she had wrapped around herself was somewhere discarded in the kitchen. She wish it was here, she wish she had something to hide behind.
But there was nothing. Nothing to keep her away from the boys besides the locked door, but that wasn't enough. She could hear all the sounds from the hallway.
Calum was yelling, directing the boys. Luke, grab this, Ashton, get another towel. Hold this, the ambulance is on the way.
When Annie was first thrown in here, she had stared at her hands for the longest time. There was blood on them, not her blood, but his. Mikey's.
So she closed her eyes so she couldn't see it anymore, but it burned. It hurt, as if it were her own blood, as if she had stabbed herself and not Mikey.
Annie heard the ambulance arrive. She heard the sound of worried voices, calling out commands and trying to bring Mikey to the ambulance. He must have lost a lot of blood, one woman said, he's so pale.
And Annie laughed, because Mikey was always pale, and surely that means the medic just is wrong. He always is pale, is so pale, pale as a sheet. Annie wondered if he was even paler now, if that was even possible.
She stopped laughing when someone asked who it was. The girl who stabbed him, Calum had said. She's not right in the head, has a traumatic past.
Maybe Annie did have a traumatic past, maybe that's why she was this way. But she didn't know if you could really call earlier today the past.
Then Annie was hitting the grouns, pounding her fists against it because it made no sense. What made no sense? She didn't know. She didn't understand. And Annie was being dragged away, dragged and pulled up into Calum's arms. She pounded against his chest and screamed and wailed, because he was touching her, because what was he going to do to her.
Annie, what happened, he asked. Annie didn't hear it like she normally did, it was like he was talking straight into her head. Or her ears were underwater and all she heard was the echo. But she thought he'd said something, so told him that Mikey did it again, did it again and please don't do it again.
Then they were in a car, and then in a house, a house she hadn't seen before. A small house, but not the boys house. And she was there and he was there but not he he just Calum just Calum and she screamed again but didn't know why. He said he was sorry and then Annie was in a room with a bed and not Calum and there was a bathroom and she screamed because she hated it but she didn't know what she hated and she had to get better had to get better but what she needed to do was empty space. What she needed to do?
What she needed to do? She needed what to do? What?
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A/N: I know this made no sense, just bear with me. Annie was just having a mental freakout, and the next chapter will be actually logical.
