Demons (hemmings au)

Fifteen

“Something bad happened, I knew I shouldn’t have let her go but she kept annoying me and I took her and then, and then…” he starts his story again, his voice trembling from the tears in his throat as the rest of the memories flood his mind. 

I sit in silence tears falling from my eyes already knowing where this story is heading. My hands have no feeling in them from how tightly Luke is still holding them but I don’t even notice, I am too focused on watching Luke’s face which is crumbling right in front of me. 

“Luke you don’t have to…” I start, I want to hear this but I don’t know if Luke can handle telling the story out loud right now. 

“Yes I do have to,” he answers, cutting me off and raising his voice. 

I lean back a tad bit, shocked by his outburst but his hard voice immediately softens. 

“I do have to tell you, you need to know what happened,” he whispers, biting his bottom lip as he looks at me pleading for understanding. I nod my head to tell him that it is okay to continue with his story. He takes a deep breath, not talking for several minutes as if trying to get all of his thoughts together. 

“At first it was okay, my friends came and picked us up and we rode to the house. When we went in we all stayed together, I told Claire that she couldn’t drink and she seemed okay with that, she stayed around me and my friend John. He was always her favorite, he was a good friend staying with us in a corner and joking around with Claire instead of doing his usual thing of dancing with random chicks,” Luke whispers, looking down at our entwined hands. I look down as well and see that his hands are trembling as he continues. 

“Claire was complaining about wanting to dance, and I started drinking not wanting to give in to her, but she was just so damn annoying. So finally, John said he would take her to the middle of the floor to dance. I figured she’d be okay, so I agreed just continuing to drink, I should have never drank that night. I should have been sober so I could have watched over her,” he sighs, still sticking things into the conversation blaming himself. 

“As I continued to drink I felt a buzz in my head, I figure I had drank about five beers by then so I wasn’t too bad. I remember listening distantly to the music so I could still kind of keep track of Claire, and after about ten songs I had an odd feeling in my gut like something was wrong. I ran out to the middle of the floor looking around at all the couples trying to find Claire and John in the midst of them but they were nowhere. Finally I saw John dancing with some small dark headed girl; I could tell by her figure that she was not Claire…” at this point he takes another minute of silence, trying to get his thoughts together once again. 

“I go up to him, already sobering up from the worry, and ask where Claire is and you know what he says, what my best friend says to me. He tells me that she was no fun, so he left her to get some. I wanted to punch him, just to kill him right there but I was too worried about Claire. I called her three times, three times before she answered Ellie. On the fourth call she finally picked up,” he murmurs, losing his voice as the sobbing takes over. 

After a few seconds he catches his breath, “she begged for me to help her, I could hear guys in the background so I could automatically tell what was going on. She begged me to come find her, and then it was as if I wasn’t even on the phone anymore; she was pleading with them to stop what they were doing. I don't even really remember what happened next, I think adrenaline took over. I ran upstairs breaking down doors until I found her in the last one surrounded by a group of guys. I tried, I promise I did, I tried to get them off of her.” 

“Her clothes were ripped off, her small hands trying to cover her body that had already been violated I’m sure. I wanted to kill all of them at the very instant she looked at me with those eyes, the eyes that will haunt me for the rest of my life like she had already died inside. I attacked them, but there were too many, they held me in the corner and…and they….they made me watch while they killed her,” he finishes, finally breaking down and leaning his head on my shoulder.