Once Upon A Pink Suitcase|✔️

Chapter Twenty Seven:

I sit calmly on my bed, watching videos about cool things I can cook when I get home. Assuming I get voted off. Maybe if I get another date with Will we can do a cooking thing...

I hear quick footsteps in the distance. Then more of them, and they get louder and louder. My anxiety peaks, making me nervous and curious. A breathless Will appears at my door.

"Rebels...run." He manages to get out. I panic grabbing my giant S, and then running to the nearest pair of shoes, flats. I grab Will's hand squeezing it tight. A vase crashes in the distance.

"In the safe. Now!" I scoot in to the safe, a similar one to the one I was in last time. I clutch his hand and my S, very scared and spooked almost. I saw something in red, on the corner of my door. It was bright, but messy. I could make out the words 'we' and 'come' but I was so confused and tired I didn't pay attention to it. Now I guess I know.

"North or South?" I ask. A simple, but important question.

"South." he responds coldly. I squeeze his hand tighter.

"Hey Will? Something is red on your back, you might be bleeding..."

"Oh no..." he says, hurt and worried.

"I need to look at it to make sure it's not bad, and clean it and wrap it most likely."

"Saige, everything that happens in these next minutes," he looks off in the distance. "No one, and I mean no one can know about."

"Okay I won't tell."

"This is really big, and a slip like this would be devastating."

"Okay, I get it."

"I am deadly serious."

"Will stop you are scaring me."

"Just, don't tell anyone." he slips off his button up, to reveal long slashes across his back. They clearly dip below his skin, but not by very much. One looks new, and is red, a little blood is where it overlaps another mark.

"What happened? Who would do this to you? I swear I will..."

"Saige relax, it was my Dad."

"Wha-?"

"Whenever I do something wrong, he tries to correct me through pain."

"This is going to hurt." I say, the cloth inches away from his back.

"It's okay, I can take it. I was determined to never need a bandage wrap again. I grew tougher and built up my pain tolerance."

"How many people know?" I dap the cloth on the mark and he winces.

"Well just me and my father, and my doctor and a single maid but they are sworn to secrecy. And now you."

"Not even The Queen?"

"I am sure she has her suspicions, but she wouldn't dare confront my father on something like that. If she had any power against him, she would do something about him."

"That had huh?"

"Yea. Don't you wish sometimes you had normal parents?"

"Yes, but a wise man once told me 'normal' anything doesn't exist."

He smiles, "I suppose that is so."

"What would your dream family be like?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like characteristics of your parents and children and wife. Where would you live, what job would you have. Stuff like that."

"Well, I would want my parents and wife to be loving and supportive. And my father to still have tough love, just not that tough. My mom would be the soft one, overly protective and loving. Not that she isn't already. I would want bubbly, active, children. That way we could have active family vacations-"