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Chapter Eleven: Faint

Trigger warnings for this chapter:

• Mentions of abuse

• Mentions of domestic violence

• Descriptions of injuries caused by violence

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*Tuesday, January 21, 2020; time unknown | (flashback)*

*Linden's point of view*

I feel myself regain consciousness again, and I feel that I'm laying on top of someone.

How? What? Why? How am I not dead right now? I could have sworn that Ian had shot me earlier.

I open my eyes, only to see that everything's too blurry for me to try and figure out where I am, and my head starts pounding, at the same time.

I try to move, and as I'm trying to move, I feel someone's arm wrap around me.

"Don't move around too much, Linden. I don't want you to hurt yourself." They say. I recognize this voice anywhere. It belongs to none other than my evil fiance, Ian.

"Ian? Is that you?" I mumble, but loud enough for him to hear me.

I try to move my left arm, and I hiss in pain as I feel a jolt of pain shoot through it.

"Ian, what the hell? What did you do to me? How am I still alive right now?"

Ian sits up, and once he's up, he helps me sit up. He stares at me with zero emotion.

"When I shot you earlier, I shot you in the shoulder, and I shot you in a few more places, so that you wouldn't be able to fight me." He explains.

I look at him with a "pissed off, but also extremely shocked and appalled" kind of look, and he just keeps staring at me.

I look at my arms, and I see that they're bandaged up, along with most of the upper half of my body, but I'm still kind of bleeding in a few spots.

"Wait, Ian, you bandaged me up?"

He nods his head.

"Yeah. For a second, I thought that you weren't going to make it, but..."

I subtly roll my eyes at him. He fucking shot and almost killed me, and he's acting like the fact that I almost died is this cute, sweet, and funny little thing? That dick.

I take a deep breath.

"Ian, why did you shoot me? Is it because I told you to?"

He looks at me with a blank expression.

"I don't know why I shot you, Linden."

"Damn it, I never should have told you to do that. I don't even know why I even thought about telling you to do that to me, that was so stupid of me."

"But then again, I probably did right by telling you to shoot me. I can't do anything right, and I've always been such a disappointment to everyone. You should have just let me bleed to death, it's what I deserve." I say, as tears start to fall from my eyes.

"Don't talk like that, Linden. You're right, I shouldn't have done that to you. Also, you're none of those things that you say that you are, and if any of those things were true, then I wouldn't be marrying you."

"I don't believe you, Ian. You're one of the main people who tell me that I'm not good enough, and on top of that, we both know that you wouldn't be my fiance if Rodney didn't rope me into this arranged marriage." I reply. "Even if we actually made the choice to get married, then you're still failing as a fiance. A good fiance doesn't control or abuse their significant other."