Flower ||| Ateez

35

Lily could hear a soft beeping coming from somewhere. She didn't like it, but she didn't know how to make it stop. She tried to lift her hand, but it felt so heavy.

She moaned and tried again. Then she felt someone hold her left hand, rubbing the back of it with their thumb.

Wooyoung? What's going on?

She tried to open her eyes. The light was so bright. Please, make the beeping stop.

"...ly....n you...me? Wa...ird..."

"Mmmm, Wooyoung?" She said, forcing the words out.

"No...rd....s....dy..."

"Where... am I?" She tried to open her eyes again. Everything was fuzzy. She blinked a few times, trying to remember what happened.

She looked around.

"Hello, Songbird."

The beeping got faster. She tried to push herself away from the man holding her hand, but an excruciating pain in her side stopped her.

It all came back.

The concert, the bus ride, Wooyoung's father, jumping from the bus, finding the boys, Jongho, Mingi!

"Calm down, you need to rest. Those boys hurt you for the last time." He said, reaching up to stroke her hair as the nurses ran in to check on her.

"H-help me." She said, looking at them.

"She's in shock, the drugs are wearing off."

"N-no. Please! H-help... me..." She said. Her eyelids grew heavy again as she felt a sedative coursing through her system.

The last thing she heard was her father hissing into her ear, threatening her friends if she didn't cooperate with him.

---

She awoke again to see her father still sitting next to her, watching her every move. He never left her side while she recovered. Wooyoung's father came to visit often and the two of them would have hushed conversations in the corner.

She wanted to know what had happened to the others. Was Jongho ok? Where was Wooyoung? What had happened after she was... Shot. She had been shot, and it hurt like hell.

The nurses claimed she was recovering well. They were prepared to release her in a day or two as long as her vitals remained normal.

Lily prayed they didn't. She never wanted to leave this place unless it was with her friends.

But her prayers weren't answered.

The hospital released her to her father after two days. She was too weak to try and fight him as he helped her into the car and buckled her in. He kept a hand on her thigh the entire drive, squeezing it possessively.

---

Ateez put out an official announcement stating that all future performances were placed on hold due to a family emergency of one of the members.

The manager had agreed to help them, to an extent. He gave them a time limit, however. If they couldn't get things resolved in the next month, he was disbanding the group.

The members had agreed, thanking him for his generosity.

They had a few guesses of where Lily could be but trying to find her was going to be harder than they thought it would be.

Plus, things were still tense with Yunho and the rest of the group, but he had offered Seonghwa a half apology. He told the other he understood why he did it, but no forgiveness was given.

---

Lily's head hurt. She groaned as she tried to rub it but found she couldn't lift her hands up. She heard the clinking of metal.

Groaning, she tried to open her eyes. Everything was fuzzy. She blinked a few times, trying to remember what had happened to her.

When she blinked the fog from her eyes, she looked around, not recognizing where she was, but she did realize she was in a cage. Her hands were chained to the floor and she immediately felt the collar around her neck. She was also hardly wearing anything.

The room itself looked like an office. A large one at that. There were a couple of couches on the back wall and a few nice leather chairs seated in front of a large desk.

She froze. Seated behind the desk, watching her, was her father. He sneered as she tried to cower in the corner of the cage, but the chains made that impossible. She was forced to stay kneeling and looking at him.

"How are you feeling, Songbird?" He stood up and started walking over to her. "I am very disappointed in you. After everything I've done for you, you run back to those boys. You just can't get enough, can you?" He knelt in front of her cage and reached in to grab her chin. "Tell me, how many times did you let them fuck you?"

Lily yanked her head back and tried to bite his fingers, but he was faster. He grabbed the chain of the collar and pulled her forward, slamming her head into the bars.

"Bitch. That's the last time you do that, do you understand?" He growled then reached forward to tighten the collar. She whimpered but stayed still, knowing he would go one more if she tried to pull away.

"Good girl." He stroked her hair. "Now, I obviously can't leave you alone. So, you will be by my side every second of every day." He purred, putting on a fake face of concern. "I hope you're ready."

He spoke the truth. The entire building was set up so if he didn't want to leave, they didn't have to. He had his main office and behind it there was a bedroom.

She slept in his bed every night. He would use her however much he wanted, then chain her hands to the headboard before falling asleep holding her to him.

When he had meetings, she was hidden underneath the desk, chained to the floor. He would stroke her, always having a hand on her somewhere, and if he was being particularly cruel, he would force her to take his length in her mouth. If she made any sound or stopped at any point, he would whip her at the end of the day.

He also found great joy in making sure her bullet wound didn't heal. He would constantly touch it and press it, relishing her screams of pain.

Wooyoung's father joined them several times, for meetings and other things...

The only thing that kept her going was thinking of her friends and of Wooyoung. She refused to let herself give up hope. Not this time.