Adopted By Brallon 2

Chapter 7

Pete still wouldn't leave my side. Like after he taught me a few things on the bass, he ended up passing out on the end of my bed. I allowed him to because I genuinely feel bad. He's blaming himself, I can tell. He feels guilty. Hell, those texts say it all. He thinks it's his fault for not following his gut feeling when I too ignored it. How would we have known? I just figured I was gonna have a bad day at school, never guessed kidnapping and torture could happen. Yet it did and no one can turn back time to change the events that had happened. It's the past and I'm gonna move forward, learn and grow from this experience.

As Pete's soft snores filled the room, I just stared up at the ceiling. Too afraid to sleep. I knew I would have dreams about it. About the torture, the fear, the cries. The pain. All of it would continue to haunt me for probably the rest of my life. When I eventually did fall asleep, I was proven correct. I had a nightmare. He had killed Melody and the cops just stood by and watched. They let her die. I woke up around 7am, drenched in sweat, tears rolling down my face and my heart feeling as though it would beat out of my chest. I got up, groaning at the pain. I feel even worse. I need to take my meds. I debated on waking Pete up to help me but he looked exhausted so I let him be, and slowly made my way downstairs. Once I finally had made it to the kitchen, I found a note. Looked like it was for one of the guys.

Bren and I headed down to the police station, we'll be back soon. Make sure Delilah takes her pills and eats. Most importantly make sure she at least has two glasses of water before we get back. Call if there's any issues

d.w

I place it back down and grab my pills. I had to take two different vitamins and then those pain meds. Plus my antidepressants. Fun. I drank a glass of water before getting another one to take my pills with. I then downed that one too. See easy. Joe ended up waking up before anyone, and was first to read the note. I explain that I did all except eat and he nodded tiredly and yawned. "Here want like, an apple or something?" He asks while picking it up and I didn't think much of it at first until it was in my hands. The feeling of it. It like sent me back and suddenly I couldn't fucking breathe.

"Wait, hey hey it's okay. Did I do something?" Joe asks, slightly panicked and I shake my head, dropping the apple, trying to calm myself and wipe away the tears. I could hear his voice, yelling. Flashes of him appeared in my vision and I scream. I didn't realize I had been crying until then. "Here, cmere, it's okay Lilah." Joe says softly, and I accept the hug, wrapping my arms around him. I tried to stop crying, but I couldn't stop it. An apple, a motherfucking apple caused this. I knew why though. They were a direct link to what happened there. It's the only thing he'd feed us. And bread. What if I can never eat either ever again? Fuck this sucks. I think the rest of the guys had walked in but I wasn't too sure. I couldn't think straight still and I still couldn't breathe.

I feel someone touch my back softly and I tense up, grabbing fistfulls of Joe's shirt, putting my face into his shoulder. "Hey, it's okay, it's only Patrick." I hear Joe say and I slowly let go of his shirt, and turn my head. Surely enough, a blurry worried looking Patrick was staring at me. I wipe my eyes and stumble a bit, grabbing the counter to steady myself and slowly sit down onto the ground, breathing in deeply. "What's wrong?" Patrick asks and I shrug shakily. "I-I don't.. I don't know? I took the apple off uncle Joe and I, everything came back to me. It felt like i was there again and i..He-he only fed us apples so I don't know if that had anything to do but I, I just broke down I'm sorry I didn't mean to." I say feeling myself getting teared up again.

"Ptsd?" I hear Pete say and I quickly shake my head. "No, no there's no way I have that, I'm fine. I'm perfectly okay. It's okay." I mumble wiping at my eyes. "Delilah it's perfectly normal for people who go through something as traumatic as you did to have it. It's not like it'll be a forever thing, some things just might trigger it. Someday you'll get better and grow from this and it won't affect you as much. But you're healing right now and these things take a while to heal from. This happening is normal, it's not fair but it's normal." Patrick says and I nod slowly and look over at the now slightly bruised apple that I dropped. "Apples of all things. Freaking apples." I mumble while staring at it, hatred in my heart. "Surprised I can drink water without having a fit." I mumble bitterly. "Let's be glad that you can." I hear Andy say and I nod.