Trapped

"They can't know"

It felt like time was passing by so slow as I waited for him to come back. "How much longer is he going to take?" I thought to myself impatiently. I walked over to the window and stood still looking out at the world. "It's so much different than the city, wherever we are. The snow is quite beautiful, actually. The way it glows from the sunshine, so perfectly placed on every leaf, every tree branch, even on the mountain just beyond the heap of more trees and the snow-covered field." I thought on so as to try and distract my brain from thinking too much more or counting the seconds. Two light knocks came finally. My gaze shot over to door, feeling anxious wondering if it might be someone besides Danny but excited at the thought that he might finally be back and I won't have to kill myself by thinking so much. Slowly, in walked Danny and just behind him was a small framed girl, probably no more than 19 years old. Her face was covered in a galaxy of light brown freckles. She has dirty blonde hair falling just below her shoulders and amber colored eyes. She stood only about an inch shorter than me at 5'4 "and was holding a bag in her hands filled with different items. "This is my sister, Tara." Danny said as he gestured his hand towards her. "And Tara, this is Alethea." He continued to say, now looking at her and gesturing towards me with his hand. "Hi alethia, it's nice to meet you." She said with a genuinely kind smile, her voice sounding just as small and kind as she looked. My first reaction was to smile back at her. The kindness that radiated from her made me feel safe. It's a similar feeling to what I've felt from Danny. "I brought you some clothes and hygiene products as well as a few other things I thought you might like," she explained. After holding the bag out to me, she continued, "Go ahead and get changed and freshen up, and then we will go down to meet the others. The guys weren't quite sure how things were going to go with you and weren't sure if you would be ready to meet everyone so soon, but Danny says he thinks you might do better not being stuck in this room and I agreed. I can't imagine what you must be thinking or what you're feeling right now. We can take things as slow as you need them, but do you feel up to meeting everyone?" She said empathetically. I processed what she was saying, and I cant say that I feel ready to go meet everyone else who had a hand in kidnapping me and the guy Eli who doesn't sound like he's the biggest fan of mine, but, all things considered, I suppose I will have to meet them eventually anyways and I just might go insane if I'm stuck in this room much longer. So I nodded and hesistently said, "Yes, please, I really would rather not be stuck up here any longer." Her and Danny exchanged a glance and smile as if they were communicating without words and then turned their smiles in my direction. "Okay, we will be waiting just outside in the hall. Take however much time you need, no rush, just open the door when you're ready." Tara finished saying, and with that, they both stepped out into the hall. I sat the bag on the bed and began to pull out its belongings one by one. The first thing I pulled out was a dark red tank top with lace trimming on the top and bottom. "Its so cute," I thought as I flipped it backwards and then back to the front again, "but if I wear just this then all the bruises on my arms will show, and I'd rather them not see all the bruises. I'm not even sure if the ones on my neck are still hidden or not, but hopefully, the cover up held up okay. Maybe there's a different shirt or something in here, " I continued on. Next in the bag, there was a heavier black off the shoulder shirt that had long sleeves. "This will have to do for now, I guess." I thought and let out a quiet sigh. In the rest of the bag were things like deodorant, a brush, a few hair ties, a pair of jeans, and she even put in a compact mirror with a cream based cover up and a few other make up items. "It's been so long since I wore anything like this, Michael never let me wear anything like this." I thought, not realizing a smile had grown on my face. The thought of Michael quickly caused it to fade, but in some strange way, seeing everything made me feel excited. I changed my clothes, applied the cover up to all the spots where my bruises were, to freshen up the already existing make up that thankfully hadn't faded enough to see anything, put the cover up in my pocket just incase I needed to add some more later, then I put on some of the make up Tara gave me, and brushed my hair. It feels nice getting a little more dressed up like this. It feels so much more comfortable for me. I placed everything back in the bag, sat it on the nightstand, and walked over to the door, slowly opening it. Danny and Tara were standing out there as promised. Tara smiled at me again, not saying anything. "You look gorgeous!" Danny said, looking as though the words escaped his lips before they were filtered through his brain. "Thank you." I said simply. "Okay, just follow us, Alethia." Tara giggled out, interrupting. We made our way down a long hall filled with doors and a couple of other halls that lead off into other directions, leaving my mind to wonder. Soon enough, we reached a stair case that led us down and then turned around to lead us the rest of the way down. 5 guys were hanging out in different areas of what looked to be a living room that tied into an open kitchen space. The blonde guy who was with Danny and Eli when they took me was standing next to a guy with black shaggy hair, not quite as long as Danny's but far from the buzz cut Eli sported. He has lighter brown eyes and looks like he's around 6'2, with wide set shoulders and an over all muscular build along with a few tattoos creeping out from his shirt by his collar bone and onto his hand that I can't quite make out. Eli was sitting on a bar stool by the kitchen island just behind the couch watching the livingroom TV, a few feet from two guys who are standing up, and then there were two guys sitting on the couch also watching tv, both of them looked almost like the same person besides a slight difference in muscle mass and a slight difference in hair length, "they must be twins or something" I thought to myself. They both looked lengthy and like they would stand just a little taller than Danny at maybe 5'11 or 6 feet. Dark brown hair that's faded on the sides and longer on top. The slightest 5'o'clock shadow creeping in on both of their faces and medium blue eyes with what looks to be darker blue tracing the outer circle. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Tara ran over to the blonde guy happily as she loudly called out, "Ty, you're back! I missed you." As she hugged him tightly. There was a considerable height difference between the two of them. Ty looked happy to see her too and turned into her to hug her back. Her running up to Ty had caught everyone's attention and sent their eyes all on me and Danny, or maybe just me. Eli suddenly jumped up from the bar stool, accidentally knocking it down as he so angrily tried making his way over to me before Ty grabbed him tightly and was holding him back. It appeared to be a bit of a struggle, but he somehow managed to stop him successfully from getting any closer. "My brother getting hurt was all your fault!" He yelled and pointed my direction. I stood there unsure of what to say or do. "That's enough, Eli." The guy with black hair said calmly. "If you wouldn't have interrupted and been nosey, then it would've never happened! We should just let them kill you!" Eli continued to yell out angrily as he tried to push past Ty to get to me. I stood there stunned and scared. "That's enough, Eli!" The black hair guy yelled out now, and with one quick motion, he lifted his left leg up and effortlessly kicked Eli to the ground. With Eli's anger now shifted towards him, he continued on. He halfway sat back up and looked towards him. "One hundred years Zane, one hundred years! That's how long it's been since someone from the civilian population has caught any of us or seen any of the creatures or any of it at all. We've kept it a secret for one hundred years and leave it to one stupid nosey person to come along and ruin that and cause my brother to get hurt and end up in the hospital all in one fell swoop. She shouldn't have even been able to go down that road and see us! We should just tell the board about her and let them follow their protocols." He said in a frustrated tone. "Dont be stupid, you know we can't do that. The last time that happened..." Zane started to say and paused, glancing over at me, and then he continued. "Well, you know what happened last time, but now she knows way more than me, and Danny was going to tell her because of your big mouth." The realization hit Eli like a ton of bricks and was written all over his face. "Now we're going to just have to tell her everything, I suppose." Zane said as if speaking to himself. Eli stood up finally, and Ty prepared for the possibility of having to block him again. "Well, why didn't you guys tell me that you were going to bring her down here, at least? It's not like I cared to meet her, I could have left. I want no part in any of this, if you all want to get in trouble by the board then i'm going to just let this play out and afterwards I will just laugh and tell you all I told you so." Eli said as he walked back over to his bar stool and picked it back up so he could sit back down on It. "No one knew but me, Danny, and Tara. Ty, grey, and blayke were just as much in the dark on that part as you were Eli. What would have knowing changed for you anyway?" Zane said point blank. Eli looked annoyed, and with that, he said, "Yeah, whatever man," and got up and walked out of the room, somewhere down a hallway on the other side of the room. The room was quiet for a minute before Danny broke the silence to say, "Well, that went better than I had imagined it was going to." Ending with a laugh and a smirk. Zane rolled his eyes at the comment but smiled back at him, and ty joined in too. "Yeah, I didn't think he was going to drop it so easily." Zane replied finally. "Me either." Ty added. The slightly more muscular twin jumped into the conversation as well, "he is right about one thing though. How are we going to keep this from the board?" The other twin nodded in agreement. "We will have to just figure out how to stop them from finding out Greyson. They can't know." Danny replied. Tara nodded, and Ty followed her in nodding. The other twin, who I assume is blayke, chimed in finally, "Then it's settled. We have to tell her everything."