After the angry stare down between Noah and Aiden, we'd walked over to them - well Nina and Kayla practically jumped into the arms whilst me and Noah were walking more hesitantly. We finally reached the glowering Aiden who shot Noah a glare and stepped to one side, expecting me to step past him.

I turned to Noah.

What the hell was Aiden going to do?

I've seen him nearly beat a man to death - he won't do that of course, but I don't want him to hurt Noah. I glared at Aiden, squeezing Noah's arm lightly and shooting him a small, thankful smile. Noah caught my eye and nodded slightly, smiling to show he was okay. At this, Aiden made an impatient noise and I nervously stepped past him, into the open patio doors.

"April! Make sure to get those cuts checked out." I heard Noah call from behind me.

I was about to protest when several hands pushing me further into the doorway, when I was spun around by Emma who looked angry and disappointed all at once.

"We thought you were dead. Once we found out that you escaped with Nina and Kayla, we knew that as soon as you stepped foot into those woods, you were vulnerable. You don't understand how worried we were. You broke the deal." Emma whispered angrily, aware that Nina and Kayla were currently sitting at the table, naive.

I was lost for words.

You will not feel anything for these people, April Evans. Anything. They kidnapped you. You had every right to escape. But now I'd gone and broken the deal meaning all conditions had gone out of the window as well. Damn it.

"Oh save it." I managed to make myself angry enough to snap. "I - I'm - I mean... I'm not going to be your obedient little lap dog. You haven't put yourself in my shoes - I was kidnapped. I'm here against my will. It's natural human instinct to escape." I looked away from her. "I don't want to be here. I don't know you people and truthfully, I don't want to know you. I want to go home. Hurt me if you want, but let them," I nodded towards my friends. "Go."

After a few terse moments, I heard her sharp intake of breath. Then, she exhaled and placed two hands on my shoulders. "I understand. I'm sorry. And for the record, none of us will ever hurt you. I swear my life on it. Anyone who hurts you will face me, okay?" I don't know why her words made my heart squeeze quite so much as it did, but I forced down my smile and nodded.

My knees and elbows were stinging and my head felt numb but I blocked it out. I craned my neck around to catch a glimpse of what was going on with Noah and Aiden, but as soon as I turned, Daniel and Beau immediately blocked my view. I glared at them, my blood boiling. I was so angry we were caught. So damn angry. A few moments later the door opened and Aiden stormed in.

He pushed past Daniel and Beau and gripped my shoulder, spinning me around dizzily and marching me out of the room without a single word. I was about to protest until I saw the look of determination on his face and knew it would be no use.

"Ouch," I muttered under my breath. It was killing my knees to walk.

At this, Aiden slowed down slightly. He released my shoulders and held my wrist instead, his cold fingers feeling like ice on my burning skin. He was walking quickly and I was struggling to keep up, more so now that I was bruised and filthy.

"Hey, stop, let go." I mumbled, my eyes stinging.

I heard him sigh and he released me completely and instead, walked besides me, close enough for our arms to brush as we walked. We reached the top floor and Aiden pulled me into a room at the end of the corridor.

Once we went inside, the room I saw was mostly black. A king sized bed was suspended in the middle of the room, on what looked like clouds of an ebony night. The satin sheets were strewn off, the curtains wavering in the wind, patches of sunlight dancing across the room, looking lonely in such a dark paradise. A bottle of alcohol lay discarded on the floor, but Aiden kicked past it and sat me on the bed. I could only assume this was his room.

It was exactly like him.

Dark.

Cold.

Empty.

He hadn't said a word. I sunk into his sheets, glad to be finally resting my legs. Suddenly, I felt a piece of material being thrown at my face and I clutched whatever he had thrown at me, staring at it as though it was an alien artefact. It was a pair of dark basketball shorts and an over-sized t-shirt. I looked up at him in shock.

"Put them on," he ordered.

"W- what?" I stuttered.

"Do you want to clean up your cuts or not? You can't do that in jeans can you, now?" He snapped, scowling. He was willing to help me? I walked into the open door that led to the bathroom.

I shut the door quickly, leaning against it once it was shut, breathing unevenly. Every fibre in my body felt alive, my brain suddenly more alert as I assessed my situation. As strange and frightening as it was, I changed into the clothes, glad to have stripped off my own dirty, ripped ones.

They felt weird because they weren't my own and also because they were men's clothing - they were so airy and loose. I did the drawstring tight so that the shorts wouldn't fall off, although I was still careful to hold them up. The blood on my knees and elbows was dry now, but I was careful nonetheless. I opened the door and peered out. Aiden was standing at the balcony window. I couldn't see his expression but he must have heard me because he turned around and began walking towards the bathroom in long strides.

He side-stepped me and reached up into a cupboard above the sink, swiftly pulling out a first aid box and setting it down on the counter. His eyes were a viscous slit and his jaw looked worse than ever. He twitched his head, almost imperceptibly, indicating for me to follow.

"Get up." He looked pointedly to the sink.

I walked over to the sink top space silently, complacently and struggled to get on without scraping my knees too much. Aiden let out a sigh before lifting me up and placing me on the counter lightly, the bodily contact unfamiliar and yet strangely comforting.

I blinked a couple of times, forcing the tingles shooting up my arms to stop so I could focus on the sight in front of me. Aiden's brow was furrowed as he tried to peel open the packet of wipes, his teeth scraping against his bottom lip in concentration.

Why was he being so nice? Is this the calm before the storm? He pulled out the disinfectant wipes and dabbed it on my knee first. I flinched but bit my tongue and looked away from him, determined not to show any signs of hurt.

He was surprisingly gentle when cleaning my cuts and we stayed in silence the whole time apart from when he told me to hold out my arms so he could clean my elbows.

"Aiden? You don't have to do this, you know." I trailed off when he glared up at me.

"I'm cleaning it up for you. Do you have a problem with that?" I mentally face palmed myself and fell silent. After a few moments of awkwardness, Aiden broke it tersely.

"Why did you try to escape?" He said lowly.

"I saw a good opportunity. I took it. I just want to go home, and I'm not going to apologize for doing something reasonable."

He sighed angrily and ran a hand through his hair. "I know that you don't want to be here or do this, but you have to. I can't say any more - you - you just can't leave. It's not physically or psychologically possible," he said firmly. "And you broke the deal meaning all previous conditions are off." He finished with a final, bitter swipe of disinfectant. I bit down on my lip to stop myself from crying out.

"Please don't call of the deal. I'll stick to it, I promise." I said slowly, my pitch rising. He pinched the place between his eyes and sighed angrily. Then, he suddenly held me by my shoulders, his fingers relaxing my tensed muscles.

"Don't do that. The deal's off. Don't try to escape again or I will hurt your friends. And I'll start with Nina. Just - just don't push me to do that. Please." He looked so young in that moment that I forgot to breathe for a moment.

"Aiden..." I gave him my best I-will-not-break-the-deal-again face.

He stared at me for a few moments before finally relenting and nodding slightly at me. Does that mean no-one gets hurt now? "And April - how - how do you know that guy from the woods?" His gaze flickered back to me. I got the feeling he didn't like Noah very much.

"Noah? He was at the party. When we were lost in the woods and running from this freaking wild animal. He found us and brought us back to the house," unfortunately I said in my head at the end. groaned and let his head drop into his hands. "Is something wrong?"

"Stay away from him - please. He's unpredictable. He's - he's.. He'll hurt you.." He couldn't even finish his sentence. I didn't reply, fuming that I was going to have to sacrifice my friendship with the only decently kind person around here.

"Aiden, Noah is the only nice person I've met since I was kidnapped. I know that you're not meant to meet nice people during a damn kidnapping, but I did. He was kind and friendly - I don't think he wants to hurt me. He doesn't even know me." I snapped back.

"April, please -" I paused, surprised at his tone. "Stay away from him." I took a sharp intake of breath at this sudden gentleness. "I haven't hurt you so far, and I don't intend to. So trust me on this?" He was right, I thought in surprise. He hadn't actually physically hurt me - he'd even stopped me from being raped. He'd only hurt my life.

After a few moments of glaring into his beautifully tortured expression, I nodded slightly. He gave me a small, pained smile and nodded at me to signal that he was done and I jumped off the counter, holding up the shorts as I did so. He handed me a pill and informed me that it was for my headache that would probably come mid-evening.

This was the first time I'd seen Aiden act relatively human meaning he wasn't all bad, I guess. He was breathing hard as he leaned against the counter, and hadn't said a word since I'd agreed to stay away from Noah. I

"Thank you Aiden. For helping me. I know the deal's.... well, a little bit cracked in places, but it's nothing some super glue can't fix," I joked. He didn't laugh. "But I won't break it again, I swear. And - and I would put some aloe vera and ice on your jaw to help the bruising go down," I said gently. "I'll wash your clothes and return them to you as well... Thank you." I added, and with that I quickly ran out of the room and down the corridor, into my own room, slamming the door shut and leaning against it, breathing heavily as I slid down to the floor.

Noah helped me escape from those woods - Aiden's telling me not to trust him and to stay away from him, even though Aiden's a jerk. But then again, Aiden helped me clean up my wounds. It makes me think he's bi-polar - how can I trust him when he's both sweet and sour. Emma and the boys are angry with me, I'm lying to my friends, I want to go home, I miss school (which is pretty surprising) and I'm pretty sure I'm going through a mid-life crisis even though I'm only 17.

What to do now?