To Fight Back, To Change

Chapter 6 - Running, Tripping, Getting Back Up

 *Alexi’s POV*

 I had been running for a long time, for weeks. But I couldn’t put it down to an exact, since days had stopped mattering. So had food and sleep and people. I had become a robot. My time consumed with running.

I still felt hollow inside and I knew that my wolf felt it too. The poor thing was exhausted.  I wore her out all day running and the only time we stopped was when she grew tired and had to rest or when we needed food.

I seemed to have hit that point in my life where nothing mattered. Where there was no light. Where there was no will and there was no way. I resorted to sleeping under trees or in caves and I had assumed that because I kept on running I would be safe. I was wrong.

On my 2nd week of running from my own thoughts I had stumbled into a very bad place. I had been drunk on misery and self-pity and hadn’t even heard the footsteps before it was too late for me to run. It was like the scene in the forest again...but much worse

Because this time I knew I wouldn’t be kept alive. They had trapped me the edge of a rock bed their smirking evil faces and dark-red hungry eyes. I was on the very last string of life when they finally had finished having their sick ‘fun’ with me.

*Ash’s POV* (this is on the second week, I know, the time-line’s a bit stuffed up but I really wanted to put this part in)

I had been training outback and had been sparring with Simon for the past half an hour when the pain began. I groaned as the searing waves crashed into me. It must be Alexis. I collapsed onto the ground and held my head together hard, fearing that It would shatter into a million pieces if I even moved an inch.

Then the pain stopped as abruptly as it had started. I felt the mate-link barrier re-form and I was completely blocked away from the pain. I thumped onto the ground and moaned into the dirt. What had happened, was she ok? Was she hurt!

God, she was so scared, if could still feel the last strands of utter terror clinging to my mind. Simon dragged me up and I leant on him breathing heavily. “Alexis. We have to…find…to…to…help” I managed to say before I collapsed.

*Alexis POV* (Starting from when it ended)

 But as their new play-toy they wouldn’t let me go so soon. I was held forcefully by them for months but most of those memories had been completely shoved behind a door in the back of my mind. Under a lot of incredibly heavy chains. At weaker moments of the day I swear I can feel those chains weighing me down as if I was the one locked, not them.

On a day as so unexpectedly amazing and horrible as my 3rd month and second week of being in the rogues capture I escaped from the rogue band. Broken, bloody and half lost in another world.

I think that’s how she found me. And healed me. Stace. Stace found me in a coffee shop.  Days later and in dirt unwinding clothes that barely covered the burnt and scarred skin of mine.  I was somewhere in the middle of Australia. I had been staring at a cup of coffee. I didn’t even like coffee. In fact I hated it.

But I had went up to the counter handed over $3.50 and ordered a black coffee with two sugars. Ignoring the strange looks I received. Then I had sat down at a side table and stared at the wood until my order came. Then I stared at the coffee.

She had walked in and come right up to me. I had felt a warm soft hand cover my scarred skin. I had first flinched, an instinct of my torture days, fearing to see what was above me but as I slowly looked up I found myself staring into sparkling brown eyes and kind face.

And she looked at me. Truly looked at me, like she was seeing the inside of my soul. She looked past the bleakness and the walls. I could almost feel her pity and pain at the things she saw.  And I saw her understanding, which blew me away.

 And I had started sobbing and she had patted my hand and said soothing words that didn’t really mean anything because all that soothing is, is a voice. And I needed a voice because I didn’t seem to have one anymore.

Once I was done and thoroughly dripping with tears and snot. She had grabbed my cold hand and said matter-of-factly. “My name’s Stace. I’m here to heal you.” I was so worn out that it didn’t matter that I had brokenly let her lead me to a large house. The only thing that mattered was that I was welcomed by an incredibly huge warm bed.

I had stayed in that bed for weeks, not eating unless forced and far too weak to move. My skin and injuries healed as slow as humans as my wolf was as lost as I was and couldn’t provide the power necessary to heal.

It was more weeks still I could walk, months till I could talk and took a whole year to smile. But over that time I had lost everything that Alexis was and had been. The name made me feel sick and I had chosen another name. One that I thought would help me heal and fit into the new me. I had become known as Ace.