Metamorphosis (Breaking Free, book 2)

Chapter 15-Rosie

See Author's note at the end if you want information on my absence.

Time passed differently here. I hadn't noticed it at first, the way the days on Salvia's kitten-themed calendar were ticked off with a sparkly blue pen at the speed of light. When I was being fed through a tube, mealtimes all blurred into one. There wasn't any distinct marker of time except for that calendar. I'd thought it was just the trauma, or the lack of any entertainment beyond Bastien, who didn't count, that made it go by so fast.

When I was moved onto a mix of the tube and solid food, I noticed that the days didn't seem to add up. It was dinner-time well before it should've been, and night-time crept in soon after. Days blurred into mere hours and I wasn't sure if I was going crazy or if this place was even crazier than I originally thought it would be.

I asked Bastien about it sometime after the calendar changed from a fluffy white kitten hanging off a big, cursive November, to a calico on it's back holding up a large, blocky, April. He looked at me like I was crazy, one eyebrow quirked up. He called me an idiot, then promptly left muttering to himself under his breath. And I was the crazy one.

Throughout all of this, I hadn't seen the man who knew my mother, Gideon, since he'd stormed out of the clinic, his face pale. I tried not to think of him, or his connection to my mom, which no one had told me about, though it was clear from their tense smiles and hurried responses of "don't worry about it" or even better, no reply at all, that he was someone important. Someone they didn't want me to know about.

"Are you still alive?" Bastien asked, one bushy, dark eyebrow quirked. We'd been playing Uno for what felt like the last half-hour after dinner, but considering that the halls were dark and Bastien had just yawned for the fourth time in the last five minutes, I couldn't really be sure. Time and I haven't exactly gotten along as of late, what with the ominous kitten-calander and I being at odds with each other.

Shaking my head, I flashed a small smile at him and placed a draw four card down.

"Yup," I replied, flashing a wicked smile. Bastien cursed under his breath, glaring playfully at me. It was moments like these that I didn't necessarily mind Bastien. Sure, he was sarcastic and enjoyed teasing me and calling me names ( idiot was his favorite, crazy coming in a close second) but when he wasn't acting impish and actually bothered to have a decent conversation with me, he could make me laugh in a way I hadn't since before this whole crazy ordeal began.

We had an unspoken arrangement that brought our whole, strange relationship together. It had started when I had my first panic attack.

It stormed that night. The kind of storm that rattles the windows and shakes the house. Every clap of thunder was a man cracking down the door to my cell. Every shadow thrown by the lightning was the face of a man, grinning down at me with yellowing teeth and dark eyes. A predator in every sense of the word. I whimpered and cried, begging for someone to help me, for someone to stop him. Wheezing and choking on my sobs, I'dclutched my sheets, hiding my face from the horrors of my own mind.

One particularly loud bout of thunder sent me scrambling to a corner of the room, screaming and scratching at the skin on my neck. I needed to get him off. To get his fingers off of my throat. To erase the marks he made on me. To get rid of him entirely, like he was never there, to begin with. Like he never touched me.

Bastien heard me screaming and ran into my room, frenzied and half-asleep, waving a crossbow around the room. I knew the moment he saw me because the crossbow clattered to the floor, and he sunk to his knees in front of me. I'd kicked and screamed, clawing at him as he pulled me into his arms, hugging me tightly to his chest till my tears ran dry and I fell asleep. He was gone when I woke up.