Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Chapter Sixteen

Natsu's perspective
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All thoughts left once I realized it had to be Lucy screaming. It made everything in me freeze, and it felt like my breath left me, how could sweet, innocent, lovely Lucy be screaming with such pain. What could have possibly happened?
     I dropped everything and pounded on the door. When no one answered soon enough I turned around and leveled my body with the door, pulled back my foot, and slammed it as hard as possible on the door. It flew backwards and dis-hinged itself from the wall a bit. I pushed it away and ran up the steps. Looking around widely.
I don't know whether I should have been relieved or even more scared when Lucy screamed again, but it gave me the direction, and I knew where to go. I raced down the hall to the farthest door, and I heard struggling inside.
Slamming the door open and racing inside I didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this.
Lucy's dad-who I'd met quite a few times, and always thought was at least relatively nice-was hunched over a beaten up Lucy, who looked about five seconds from passing out, if not dying. He had his hands around her throat and I could just barley hear gasps and whimpers from Lucy. Her dad sat back and let Lucy go-who started to choke on air, desperately trying to get it in her lungs-and looked at me.
"You shouldn't be here" is all he said.
"What are you doing to Lucy!" I shouted. He stood up and I made brief eye contact with Lucy. Her hand reached towards me and her mouth opened just a bit, like she was trying to say something. But it got caught in her throat and I startled when her hand dropped and her eyes closed.
"Lucy!!" I tried to run to her, to grab her and save her. But her father stopped me.
"You should leave."
"No!! I need to help her, you hurt her!!"
"Go" he repeated.
And that's when my hand came flying to meet his face. My fist clenched so hard that he stumbled back and landed on his butt. I saw red dripping from his nose, but I didn't care. I just pull my hand back and hit him again. I quickly grabbed ahold of him and dragged him, he didn't put up much of a fight because he was so disoriented. I pulled him from the room and threw him into a different one.
For some reason most of the doors in this house had locks on the outside, so it was easy to click it into place and race back to Lucy.
      She was lying sprawled out on the floor, blood dripping from pretty much everywhere. I slammed to me knees beside her and stopped. What do I do? There's so much blood! Her nose was dripping blood, along with her mouth, her arm looked broken, and was thrown to the side of her body. Lucy had so many cuts which bled. Some way worse than others. But the worst part was the way that her chest didn't raise normally. There was this small hitch in her breathing every time she inhaled and exhaled. With her eyes closed and her skin paling from blood loss, she looked dead. And it scared me. A small puddle was forming underneath her and I started to pat her cheek. In all my panic I knew that she at least needed to be conscious.
      I pulled out my phone and called the police, finally remembering that they could help. They could get an ambulance here and Lucy would be ok. She'll be ok. Don't think about what if's.
      I talked to the dispatcher and he told me to try and get her awake, and that they'll be there in a bit. With him still on the line-telling me not to hang up, just in case-and Lucy silent and close to death, I realized through my panic I had begun to cry. Just a few tears tracking down my cheeks, but I couldn't bear the idea of Lucy being hurt this badly. I never would have thought that Lucy, who never really does any harm, would ever have this much harm happen to her.
      Lucy suddenly jolts, her eyes starting to crack open. "She's waking up" I tell Denis, the dispatcher.
"That's great, she might be disoriented, so make sure to keep her calm"
"Got it"
      I pulled Lucy into my lap and held her close, the phone tucked in between my chin and ear. She flinched again and turned to the side a bit, at first I was confused, but then anxiety pumped through my veins once again when she coughed up blood.