39: Clipped Wings

Quiet, almost dead of night. It's been an hour since Caven's left you alone and two hours since the Ackermans galloped away in Kenny's shitty car to wreak havoc elsewhere. It's time to get started and make your escape.

You're on the ground, removing each nut from the chair's bolts one at a time. You unscrew each and gingerly set it on the ground, avoiding even the slightest of sounds. It takes ages, but eventually the chair is free and moved to the window.

You fasten the buttons on the jacket Levi provided you—it's been a good deterrent against the cold, admittedly—before climbing up the chair and taking your screwdriver to the loose screws. They come out ever so carefully until the hinges are detached and the pane is free from its frame. You climb down and set the glass on your mattress, still as stealthy as ever, before getting ready to slip out of the window.

Now's the time. Levi's car should be in the front of the shop, his keys inside. Get to the car, and you're free. After days of wallowing in this hell, you'll finally experience a glimpse of heaven.

The climb up to the window is a little awkward. It's situated just above your head, in reach but not convenient, so it takes a bit of effort to heave your body into the elevated hole. Going headfirst, you successfully shove half your body into the outdoors and scan your new landscape.

An exterior electrical box is your closest footstep, though the metal rectangle bolted to the wall might not hold much weight. Without kicking your heels against anything, you move to rest your hips on the window frame before getting one leg outside. The other follows, and through a painful test of your strength you successfully get one foot down to that box.

Feeling the weak shelf bend under your weight, you pull yourself off the window and drop to the ground, landing with solid thuds on the coarse gravel.

Glancing back, you can only hope Caven is oblivious. There's no going back now.

The air is still right now, the sky clear. Beautiful stars glimmer overhead, allowed to twinkle brightly on the moonless night. It's peaceful, albeit too quiet. Nature isn't kind enough to save this tranquil for a safer time; it seems it would rather offer you no sounds of wind or storm to creep under.

On your own, you hug the building's wall and tiptoe across the gravel, watching every single step and moving at a snail's pace. You're anxious to go, but you must be patient and cautious. The layer of snow beneath you is soft, just enough to cushion your feet without crunching between you. Leaving footprints, you skirt the shop and scatter your eyes everywhere as you move.

Around the corner, you see the parking lot. You see Levi's car. You see your freedom. At long last, it's time to go.

You start daydreaming as you watch your slow steps. Soon you'll be in his apartment: alone, maybe, but you'll take a thorough shower and bundle up in his living room until he comes back for you. He must have some tea somewhere, which'd be quite welcome after this nightmare. A thick blanket, a movie, some sweets—anything to remind you your life is allowed to be normal and it will be from now on.

Once you're in the car. That's all it takes.

Out in the open, you feel exposed to invisible watchers as you leave the shadow of the shop and cross to his car. The windows of the shop are still covered, like closed eyes, and Caven behind must not notice a thing. You'll make it.

The emergence of two faint beams of light is all your reflexes need to throw your body behind his car, concealing yourself from the distant vehicle. Enemy or not, you can't take the chance. You just need that anonymous driver to pass you, then you'll get in Levi's sedan.

But the pair of lights don't zoom by as quickly as you'd like. They don't at all, truthfully. They slow, their beams flooding across the lot, as the vehicle housing them pulls into the same lot you occupy.

As it does, you hear the growl of an old car you're too familiar with. Your sweat breaks instantly. Holding your breath, you stay well out of sight and watch the light move under and around your hiding spot like the beam of a sinister watchtower.

That godforsaken car stops, distanced from you, and its engine is shut off. Left as a dead beast, its doors squeak out a sad whine as its occupants step out.

Your heart could run right out of your chest. Swallowing nothing down a dry throat, you ball up more and sink teeth into a quivering lip. Levi didn't stall successfully, Kenny is back way too soon. Your chances of success are thinning.

"What's wrong?" Kenny's voice. Gruff. Cocky. As full of arrogance as ever. "You got awfully quiet."

"Nothing." Levi. Timid. Furious, but biting his tongue.

He must see his car, still in the lot and not manned by his escapee. He must realize the plan has failed. He must wonder where you are now, how far along you made it, and why you weren't able to escape sooner.

"You sure had a lot to say on the way back. Did something here shut you up?"

"I said it was nothing." Levi huffs in annoyance, or perhaps in despair. He's as trapped as you are. "Just let me go home. It's damn late."

"Mm, not yet." Kenny takes a few lazy steps in the direction of the shop, his shoes dragging. "I need you to retrieve her for me."

There's a pause. "Who?" Levi asks.

"Your pet, dumbass. Who else?"

"Why?" Playing dumb, Levi follows at a distance. "She's just in her room right now. Did you want her to come out here with us?"

"She's not in her room. You know where she is."

Your stomach drops, weighing in your body like lead. Tears already threaten your water line as a devastating fist of horror crushes your dwindling hope. He knows, somehow. He's already aware of your hiding spot as if you had a spotlight on your trembling body.

"The hell do you mean? She's been in her room since—"

"I don't have time for this, Levi." Kenny's direction changes, coming to the hood of Levi's car. "Come retrieve her. I don't want to be in charge of handling your property."

When he circles it, and subsequently spots you, bile builds in your throat. With a blank mind, you lift teary eyes up Kenny's frame until you witness his haughty smirk.

You want to cry. You want to scream. To lunge. Fight.

You do nothing. Huddled against Levi's car, you can only stare and tremble.

Kenny scratches his jawline as his eyes trace the faint trail of footprints you left in the snow. They're only obvious to someone with perception as keen as his. "You can drop the act, runt. Come retrieve her and let's go back inside."

"You—" Levi's quick to join his uncle's side and spot his intern. "F-fuck. Kenny, do not—"

"Pick her up," Kenny demands. "There's no way she's going to come willingly. Get her off the ground and let's get her back in her room."

Your head shakes like your subconscious is taking over you to defend you. I will not, your aura says, even though your tongue cannot move.

Levi, too, is frozen, horrified to see his intern so far away from her goal. Every muscle in his frame is tensed, his whole body about to snap. He grinds his teeth into dust and transforms his hopelessness into anger as he glares at his uncle's victim. He's failed, and he hates it.

"Levi," Kenny grunts, and his nephew steps forward.

You shimmy back, a mechanical reflex initiated by Levi's advancement. Bare hands push into the snow carpet and inch your body away, attempting the slowest escape humanly possible.

Levi is before you, kneeling with hands on your shoulders. He holds you still.

Gluing your eyes to him, you wordlessly plea for his help. Spare me, your eyes beg, fearing your mentor especially when he is puppeteered by his uncle.

His expression shifts to one of defeat. He can't loosen his grip, but his brow inverts to a worried tent as he attempts to slacken his lockjaw.

He's not angry at you. He does not even want to take you back to the dungeon where you'll be tortured simply because he cares about you. The only promise in his eyes is protection, even in a situation where all odds are stacked against him.

"Kenny," he whispers, shielding your body and peeking at his uncle over his shoulder. "Don't do this. Just let her go."

Kenny's nose wrinkles as if Levi's plea is a bad stench. He shakes his head, his brow sinking down his forehead. "It'd be damn stupid to lose my leverage against you. Bring her back."

Levi comes closer, hands placing themselves on your waist and back as if they're finding the best hold on a rock wall. Clutching you, he steels his muscles and swallows hard.

"I cannot keep putting her through this." Levi shuffles his words out, wavering between fear and bravery.

"Yes, you can. You've done worse. Hurry up—it's getting cold out here."

Like clinging to his mother, Levi tucks his head into your shoulder before firing back at his bully. "I'll stay with you, Kenny. Let her take my car and go home."

"No." Kenny buries his hand in his trenchcoat, searching for something. "You're as good at slipping away as you are at lying. We're bringing her back inside. This is your last warning."

"You don't need her anymore—"

Your ears split apart under the piercing ring of a gunshot, convincing you that you're already dead before any other input graces you. Nothing is heard for centuries, your hearing rendered useless as your other senses piece themselves back together.

There is pain, absolutely. There is no warmth from flowing blood, suggesting whatever wound you have is not a puncture in the skin. The pain is not a bullet hole; it is the crushing of your arms, ribcage, back. It is your mentor constricting your frame with iron arms that have been petrified with terror. His grip is meant to shield you, but his expression of fear crushes you.

The first image you register is the splatter of disturbed snow beside you, the remnant of where a bullet hit the earth. It tells you that the bullet is not in your body, nor Levi's. It's likely littered somewhere in the lot, nestled in snow far away from its targets.

When you follow its trajectory up to the gun that fired it, your vision grows blurry. Tears cluster on your waterline, your eyes glossy and your eyelashes wet. You cannot breathe.

Kenny shifts his aim over an inch, redirecting from his warning to his actual target. "Next one's through her skull. Let's go."

Wordless, with a rhythm reaching hyperventilation, Levi jams an arm under your knees.

He's going to pick you up.

"N-no." Yanked back to life, your eyes go wide as you paw at the ground. Leaving the earth means returning inside; your conscious and subconscious merge together to prevent that. "No!"

"Come on," Levi whispers, his throat choked. "He'll hurt you. Don't fight."

"Stop!" you screech, punting hands into Levi's chest. "Please don't! I don't want—"

"Please be quiet." Levi's voice is frail, about to shatter. He sucks back the threat of tears and picks you up off the ground. "I don't want him to hurt you. Please."

You might as well still be deaf from the gunshot. Every limb is frenzied, writhing in his grasp and making his efforts doubly more challenging. "Let me go! I can't go back!"

"You will die if you don't." He pins your skull against his chest with his chest, hissing every scared warning as he stomps past his uncle. "Bear with me—"

"N-no more. Let me go—please—"

Levi shoulders the front door open, fitting his body and yours between the shelves with Kenny following behind.

You hate the sound of those windchimes. The smell of smoke swirling in the yellowed air, the squeaking of shoes against the linoleum floor—all of it is horrible. Your fight heightens.

Vases clatter off shelves as your feet slap against them, shattering on the floor. Levi dodges them, Kenny steps on their shards.

"Levi, please don't do this." You're employing every emotional tactic to seek freedom, taking your mentor's heartstrings and yanking on them. "Please—I can't go back in there—"

"Stop fighting," he snarls, though it's laced with fright to resemble a plea.

He passes Caven behind the counter and stumbles into the backroom, beelining to your room. You want to throw up just from the sight of it.

"No—"

"Come on." Levi's inside, and not a second later Kenny storms in beside him and evaluates the scene of your escape. Loose chair, displaced window. He glares at the sight.

"Sneaky rat," Kenny sighs. He takes the chair and leaves the room, slamming the door shut as he goes. The bolt slides into place.

"F-fuck." You cry so hard it hurts. You clench fists into Levi's shirt and thrash in his arms. "Why? Why, Levi?!"

"You know why." Exhausting his energy, Levi kicks the window pane off your bed before pulling both bodies onto the mattress, holding your squirming frame against his chest. "Please. I had to do this. I had to."

You cough up bile when his arms constrict around your waist, strangling your stomach. "I—kh—Levi—"

"Just hold still," he shushes, burying quivering lips in the crook of your neck. "Please. I won't let him hurt you. Just hold still and lay with me."

"No—no!" This is not the situation you want. This is not the time to cuddle Professor Levi. It never will be right until you're miles away from Kenny and safe.

"I won't let go. I need you to stay with me or he'll hurt you." Indeed, he braces a forearm across your chest and throws a firm calf over yours. Binding you in his limbs, he transforms himself into a straitjacket and continues his murmured begging. "It's to keep you safe. I don't want to do this—please understand that it is to keep you safe."

Whether or not he's right, that does not reduce the hatred of your prison. The fact that freedom is ripped from your grasp and you're shoved back into this shithole is enough to stoke your rage.

"Why?" you whimper, your rationality barely able to remind you of the answer to that question.

"I want to keep you safe. All I want is to keep you safe."

"It is not safe here." You slam palms into his seatbelting forearm and push. "This is not safety, Levi!"

"It's the best I can do."

"It's horrible! I fucking hate you, Levi!"

"No." His grip somehow grows even tighter. Your bones might crack under his strength. "Don't hate me."

Fingernails dig into his hands, scratching harshly enough to draw a sliver of blood. "Do you expect me to like you for this?! For anything you've ever done?!"

"No. No, I don't." His forehead bores into your shoulder, his words muffled between your bodies. "But please—don't hate me. I will have nobody left if you hate me."

Those words would spur sympathy if they weren't aimed at your walls of bitter hostility. "Why is that my responsibility? I'm supposed to fawn over you when I end up in situations like this?!"

"Please," he gasps. "Don't hate me. I need you."

"You have me," you spit. "Whether or not I want it, you fucking have me. I can't fucking move an inch—are you not happy?"

"Stop it." His voice cracks, splintering apart with grief, and he sniffs back the first of small, pained tears. "Please."

He sounds identical to you. He's down to the level you've been in many times prior, begging for torture to stop and for mercy to be given. He overpowers you and pins you against him, but he can't take your brutal psychological torment. There are only so many fields in which he is strong.

Your screaming stops, overrun by tears. Your hands hug your face, wiping off the cascades and making up for the history of noise with a pathetic attempt to muffle your sobs. He harmonizes with you, weeping as silently as he can with wet eyes buried in your back.

His grip doesn't relax a hair and eventually your physical rebellion slows to a halt. You don't fight anymore, only trembling helplessly in his harsh embrace. He constricts like a venus flytrap, consuming the insect trapped within.