Hero (Tom Hiddleston)

3

Tom couldn't focus on anything he did for the rest of the week. The interviews, the press revolving around the still-recent release of Infinity War, the contracts to go through and roles to consider... none of it could earn his focus. All he could think about was Shae. It'd been Sunday night when they'd run into each other... or very early Monday morning technically... so he'd been thrown straight into the work week, and he knew he wasn't at his best. But he also knew that he needed to get his head back on and focus, because he was likely to never see her again.

He'd asked that, if at all possible when her safety was considered, they contact him if they found her and figured out what was going on. But they'd been straight with him... the chances of even being able to find her were very slim. He hadn't known what was going on, so it wasn't his fault, but if she was being trafficked, her pimp would have been extremely nervous at the attention they'd drawn to themselves, and it was likely that they'd move on to another city, probably another state.

Since he'd called so soon after it'd happened, the authorities had been able to jump straight onto social media and into the press and order everyone who had taken videos and pictures of the scene or even witnessed it to keep it quiet for the time being. They didn't explain why, but they simply said it was for the protection of the girl. Because if Shae's face ended up all over the Internet and she was a trafficked prostitute, it was very possible the people holding her would do a lot worse than move her to another state.

They weren't putting her name out for people to look for. They weren't issuing an Amber Alert. They were doing everything they could within their own forces, but nothing could touch the public eye. If it did, it would literally put Shae's life in danger.

But that everything wasn't much. Tom didn't even know her last name. The authorities had taken the pictures and videos of the nights for the files, but none of them had any kind of quality, and anyway, Shae had indeed had a lot of makeup on.

It was a hopeless situation, and Tom knew it. But he couldn't get her out of his head. And he couldn't shake the guilt away of what their scene may have caused her, even if he'd had no idea and was only trying to help. He should have been more careful. He should have thought it through.

But he hadn't, and know Shae was probably suffering because of it.

POV Change Sponsored by the Class of 2018 (Whoever is apart of said class, congrats!)

Shae was currently suffering through Spanish. She stared dully in front of her, trying to drone out her teacher's endless droning. English droning. Every few months, the woman decided that their class wasn't being productive enough, so she gave them a thirty-minute lecture about how to make more out of their time together.

Personally, Shae thought it might just boost productivity to skip the lecture and start speaking in Spanish again, but what did she know?

This was her most painful class... the one that always seemed to take ten times longer than the eighty-minute periods. The one that required the least amount of thought, the most boring one. All of those factors worked together to create an atmosphere where you had way too much time to think.

That was one of She's greatest fears anymore... being left to her own tortured thoughts. It was a big reason why music and movies were so freeing for her... they filled your mind when you had nothing else to think about.

Besides, the teacher, Ms. Wilson, really was awful. She spoke Spanish well, but that was just about the only thing she had going for her as a teacher. She hated her students, thus she hated her job. She didn't know how to command respect, so it always turned into yelling at the entire class for a tiny thing one student had done to tick her off. And yelling... yelling was hard for Shae to handle. It took her back to the nights when Garrett wasn't in and they were left to Oscar. The man did everything Garrett did to them behind closed doors, but lacking the disgusting, put-on gentleness Garrett treated them with. He screamed at them. He beat them just because he got enjoyment out of it. And he hated Shae more than anyone else.