Run

:4: MƠƦЄ ƬӇAƝ A ƑƦƖЄƝƊ

:4: More Than a Friend

“Camic!” Belle shouts, slowly getting back up off the bed.

“Woah, woah! Why are you calling him!” I fret, grabbing onto her arm and not letting her slip away from me.

“Because he’s best with this kind of stuff; he will know what’s wrong with you. I know nothing compared to him,” Belle responds, looking at me soundly. “I’ll just be out in the living room, Carnat-”

“No!” I half-shout, forcing her to sit back down on the bed. “You’re staying here with-” But before I can finish my sentence, Camic knocks lightly on the side of the door and walks into my room.  

He looks over to Belle who stays down beside me as I’d ordered. “I...heard you call me?”

“Yes, we don’t know what’s wrong with Carnate, it’s her sides and her neck…I know you know a lot about this kind of stuff.” Belle abruptly says.

“Well, you came to the right person.” Camic smiles down at me, but I don’t smile back one bit. The idea of Camic touching me isn’t pleasant and I hate Belle for calling him! “Can I have you sit up and show me where it hurts?” he asks, coming over to help.

I cautiously do as told, ignoring the help he tries to give me and show him the multiple bruise marks coating my side and neck. “What happened?” he asks me, carefully bringing up his hand and lingering a finger across the bruises. I flinch at first to the contact, but once Belle holds me steady, I calm down a bit.

“She was hurt; isn’t that enough?” Belle asks solemnly. Camic looks up to me slowly, his eyes sparkling in the lighted room and gives me the most caring look I’ve ever seen in my life! Not even my mother could have competed with it!

“I’ll make him regret what he did to you,” Camic softly swears to me, losing eye contact with me and cursing down at the floor.

“It’s alright…” I whisper, moving my hand over to his cheek. Immediately then, he looked up almost in shock, slowly adjusting his eyes to my hand. It’s then I ,too, realize what I had just done and quickly jerk my hand back under the covers. “What’s wrong with me?” I ask Camic, staring wide eyed at him from before.

“Nothing’s wrong with you, Carnate,” Camic replies looking back at me the same way, almost as if we were both in a trance or something.

“I mean…do I have any broken bones or anything?” Immediately after saying that, the trance is broken and Camic jerks back to life.

“Oh…oh sorry.” he hesitates, looking over to Belle sitting beside me and giving her a lopsided grin, before checking my side and neck some more. “I think you may have a fractured rib.” Camic tells me, moving his hand up to my collar and pressing down lightly.

I squeal out in pain at the littlest of touch and flinch back, afraid of him hurting me anymore. “I’m sorry,” he admits, retracting his hand away from me immediately. “I just need to check to make sure it really is a fracture.” I shake my head fast, not wanting him to do anything more at all. I don’t care, fracture or not, it will eventually heal. “Alright then…I’ll just get you some pain medicine.” Camic says, leaving the room fast.

“Carnate…you do know he really does care about you…right?” Belle says, making me look over to her immediately.

“You mean, Camic?” I ask, confused on who she's talking about.

“Yes. He’s always worried about your safety- that whole time we were apart, he never once stopped talking about you. He was concerned that you didn’t make it out of the war alive, since you kind of fell out of existence,” Belle tells me, tracing her hands along the bed sheets again. “He would sometimes walk over to my house just to fall onto the couch in tears.”

“Why was he so worried about me?” I ask, pushing my hair back behind my ear.

“In all honesty, all of us were. But for Camic…I think he might have a closer bond to you.”

“Closer bond?” I giggle a bit, sucking in the pain that comes along with it.

“I’m serious, Carnate. I really think he’s starting to like you more than a friend.” All was silent then, leaving only the quiet voices of Jess and Camic out in the kitchen. Camic…might like me more than a friend? As in a…girlfriend…as in he loves me? No, impossible. I couldn’t let it happen, not in a million years. “I could be wrong though,” Belle says again, bringing me out of my thoughts instantly.

“I hope so.”

--

I awake soundly to the voice of Belle and flutter my eyes open immediately, to see her in the doorway.

“Finally, you’re awake!” She impatiently exclaims, coming over to the rim of my bed and sitting down. “I was told to watch and be here when you woke back up.”

“Who told you that? Camic?” I ask her, knowing the answer already.

“Yeah, but he just wanted to make sure you would be alright while Jess and him were gone,” she replies as she reaches for a bottle of medications that I never once realized were placed on my nightstand.

“Where did they go?”

“To get wood for the furnace; it’s supposed to be cold today and he wanted to make sure you would be warm enough,” Belle replies, twisting the cap of the bottle and pouring out a single pill for me. “Here take this. I’ll go get some water,” she says, as she plops the pill into my hand and stands back up; leaving the room.

I swallow the pill within the second, gagging a bit from not having water to go down with it as well, but Belle comes back fast; shutting the door behind her and handing me the water. I gratefully chug all the water before moving to lie back down.  

“Thanks,” I tell her, adjusting where I lay.

“Camic told me it would be best if you lay on the side which is fractured; your left side,” Belle spoke, taking the empty glass of water from my hands and placing it on the nightstand beside me. I do as told for once and lay on my left side; groaning through the pain until I finally get used to it.

“Hey, one question,” I state, wondering randomly. “You told me before that Camic got his talent in the medical field from his mother…well where are Camic’s parents?” Belle had to think for a minute, but soon enough told me.

“They work at the cotton mill now and have long hours.” I nodded, not even really caring how random my thought process was just a minute ago-

Cutting me out of my thoughts, I hear many loud pounds on the front door, almost sounding as if whomever is behind the door would break it down easily, any second. The sudden sound makes Belle flinch back quickly, slamming into the nightstand and making the empty glass fall to the floor with a crash, sending glass shards flying every which way.

“Open up!” I hear a man yell from the other side of the front door, while Belle looks down at her legs; noticing the blood dripping slowly down and onto the floor.

“Oh God…” I whisper, as Belle looks over to me slowly with wide eyes. Immediately  though, I hear the front door slam open and boots tromp on into the house. “Common!” I urge quietly, pushing myself out of bed painfully and limping over to Belle standing there as still as could be. “We have to hide!” I whisper loudly, taking her hand and leading her over to the closet. “Get in!” I order, having her follow me inside the closet, closing the doors behind us soundly.   

“Search everywhere, she has to be in here!” I hear another man order, making me take a double take as to whose voice it was. It sounded almost like-- my father’s. It is! I’d remember that deep and raspy voice anywhere! Of course, though, this isn’t something good, and I then become more frightened than anything; immediately dropping dead silent.                                            

With the new silence echoing throughout my ear then, I start to hear the door to my room creak open slowly; sending me to look through the cracks of the closet quietly. My father comes into my vision then, his gruff, furious face turning every direction, stopping at the closet…