Fractured

Chapter 24

Sometime later I woke with a start from what had been a pleasant dream. Thanks to how deeply I had been sleeping, it took a moment for me to register what had awoken me. It was the fact that I couldn't breathe. Despite still wearing my cannula, I found myself unable to take in enough air through my nose as there was strong pressure on it, and my mouth was covered, effectively stopping all attempts of breathing that way. I started to panic as I realized that it was someone's hand that was doing this to me.

Raven had been in the chair beside me when I fell asleep. Despite the darkness that enveloped the room, there was enough ambient light coming from the hall that I knew he was no longer in that seat. He was well within my eye line, but now, he was nowhere to be seen and I couldn't understand where he was. I started to struggle against the person that had me pinned down, but it didn't help.

"Shhh. It's okay. There's no need to panic. I just wanted to see how you were doing." The familiar voice said. "James was supposed to kill you earlier and make it look like an accident or a suicide, but your little friends killed him instead!" He hissed in my ear.

I struggled to see where Raven could possibly be. The only thing I could think of was he was sleeping on the floor where he said that he would be. With how dark it was in my room, I wasn't surprised my assailant had snuck in unnoticed. He was talking in hushed tones too, doing everything possible to minimise his risk of detection. I tried to move away, but between the hand across my face and his other hand gripping my thigh under the blankets, I wasn't able to move far.

"Do you know why I'm doing all of this, Alexandria? Why I was working with James?" He asked.

It was at this point I recognized the voice. Roy. Roy was working with James, but given he couldn't even work out the floor plan of the aquarium, he definitely couldn't have been the mastermind behind any of this.

"You know, Matthew found my sister and I not long after you disappeared. She looked a lot like you, my Arabella. The curly hair; the stubborn attitude. He abused her the moment he met us. He beat her black and blue, within an inch of her life. He warned me if we ever did what you did, he wouldn't let her live next time, and that I would be the one to do it.

"He then dropped her body at the doors of the hospital and left her there. I found out later that despite them getting her inside, she had died, but at that point it was too late for me to get away from him and the influence he held in the area.

"It was at that point I decided I wanted to learn as much about you as I could and that given then chance, I would find you and do to you what he did to her." Roy said, rubbing his hand along my thigh.

I knew that if I was going to escape this with as little harm done to me as possible, I needed to work out a way to get away from him. My earlier wriggling had loosened his grip on my nose enough that I was able to breathe again, but he still had a firm hold on me. I lashed out with my free arm, toward the table beside my bed. My hand connected with a container, sending it flying into the wall.

"Aww that's cute. Trying to get hold of something to attack me with, even though I am the one in control here", Roy chuckled.

I brought my right hand up to grip the wrist of the hand Roy had across my mouth and nose, digging my nails into the inside of his wrist. I knew it wasn't going to do much but it helped me feel a little more in control while I continued to scramble for something, anything, that might drawn attention or help me gain the upper hand.

"Here, let me get that for you", Roy sneered as he knocked the waer jug from the table, water flyng everywhere as is had no lid.

"Andy," I heard a voice, muffled and scratchy with the sound of having been sleeping with their mouth open. "Why am I covered in fruit? If you didn't want it you could have just said so. You didn't have to throw it at me. Andy?"

Roy froze when he realised Raven was on the floor beside my bed. His eyes widened with shock, his grip across my mouth and on my leg loosened enough for me to be able to roll to the far side of the bed and out of his grip. I made eye contact with Raven and the second he saw how terrified I was he was on his feet to see what had happened to cause it. He took one look at Roy and the anger he held in his eyes scared me. I didn't want him doing something he would regret later.

Roy, being the typical sidekick that he generally was, saw Raven and took off out of the room. Raven leapt up onto the bed, launching himself off the other side and out the door after Roy, I was frozen, hugging the side of the bed furthest from the door, my head turned, looking the direction they just ran. I wasn't able to move, frozen and confused about everything that had happened. It was only a few seconds later that I heard glass breaking. The sheer volume of glass I could hear crumbling suggested that someone had broken the large glass partition that separated the nurses station from the visitors lounge.

Hearing the glass break, I snapped out of my stupor, ripped the covers off, and jumped out of the bed. I ran straight for the bathroom, emptying the contents of my stomach as soon as I reached the toilet, further aggrevating my already damaged throat. Once I was sure nothing else was going to come up, I started tearing off my clothes until I was left standing in nothing other than my bra and underwear. I could feel Roy's hands pressed against me and needed it to stop. Turning the hot water on, I climbed into the shower and stood under the stream, scrubbing every part of my body that dirtbag touched.

I'm not sure how long I was there scrubbing at my skin, but at some point Axel barged in and found me in there. He quickly shut off the water and tried to get me to engage with him.

"Andy?" He asked, tapping my cheek lightly as I crumpled to my knees on the floor. "Andy? Alexandria! Come on Baby, you need to come back to us. We need you!"

Between the difficulty I was having breathing and the sobs that wouldn't stop, couldn't form an answer. I did manage to stop scrubbing at my now raw skin for long enough to ball my hands into fists, clutching Axel's shirt. He wrapped his arms around me, cocooning me with his warm, protective embrace. I lowered my face into his shoulder and continued to cry.

"It's okay Sweetie, I've got you. We are all here for you. Raven caught the guy and the others are detaining him while the get the glass out of Raven's arm. We aren't going anywhere." Axel continued whispering comforting words into my ear as he lifted me from the cold floor of the bathroom.

I felt a towel being wrapped around me and my body being dried off as best it can when you're wrapped around someone else. I heard someone else come into the room and ask how I was doing, but I couldn't tell who it was over the sound of my cries. Axel set me on my feet and finished drying me off before wrapping me in the towel. He grabbed the bag of clothes that Gabriel had left behind for me earlier and got me some fresh clothing before asking if I was ok to change or if I wanted some help.

Once I was in fresh clothes, I wandered back into the room and collected the blanket that I had discarded on the lounge earlier today and wrapped it around myself. I found out it had been Corey that had come in to see Axel while I was crying when he walked back into the room and came straight over to me. He wrapped his arms around me possessively, one arm wrapped around my shoulders, the other holding my head close to his chest. I felt myself melt into his embrace.

"Raven is all patched up. Marc and Brandon are with him and Roy. He worked security at the aquarium and was posing as a night guard here. That's how he managed to get into your room and so close to you without anyone stopping him. That wont happen again. Phil wants to move you to the room next to his office. He wants to use this distraction to bring forward the plan."

He continued on with more details, but I found myself unable to listen. I was exhausted and being in his embrace was lulling me back to sleep. I barely registered as he picked me up, bridal style, and carried me from the room.

A few days later, Phil was checking me out of the hospital and completing all the paperwork. I hadn't been left alone for longer than it took to use the bathroom since Roy's attack, but I definitely wasn't about to complain. In the time we had spent together since that night, we had spoken a few times about wanting to get to know each other properly, without all the chaos and madness that had been happening since we first met.

Nothing surprised me more than when they told me they each wanted to take me on a date, one on one, to get to know each other individually and have some fun away from all of the drama. Nothing could contain how excited hearing that made me.