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Hi there ^^' *cough*

• Some of you wanted an update, so this one is PACKED just for YOU.

• Some of you wanted me to save you—

I summoned them for you.

The doors of the front of the house shut faintly from afar and left a ringing echo in the night.

His kiss was gentle. His free arm propped on the ground next to my head to hold his body over mine, while the arm that was cuffed with mine cupped the side of my face and caressed it. Our heads tilted and we followed in the rhythm with our pacing hearts, unsure of anything. My free hand pushed at his chest as his lips pressed on mine and relaxed. Eyes closed, I slowly found the courage to open them slowly and glance up at him. We slowed down our pace and his thumb stopped stroking the side of my face.

I felt my own chest rising and falling to catch my breath as our lips separated. His mouth was parted slightly and he looked down so that I couldn't see his expression, breathing slowly in and out while still laying over me. The faint taste of wine and honey lingered on my lips and I shut them firmly, embarrassed. I heard the man above me regain his breath and he began lifting up his head. Our eyes met.

Something flashed across his eyes and my bewildered expression turned concerned for a split second as I eyed him carefully. It was hard to make out much however, it being dark outside. I had forgotten how blue his eyes were. He kept staring at me like he had forgotten what we were doing and where we were, a soft look pastured on his face before it scrunched up gradually into a frown. But it was a curious, confused frown, like... what had I just done?

He didn't seem to have any plans of shifting his body soon and things started becoming a little awkward on my end. I blinked up at him and he didn't bulge. So I tried pushing his body up, but that didn't work. I forgot we were handcuffed as well.

"Carter..." I chimed up softly, a curious look at his face, "Hey, earth to Carter."

The man's eyes fluttered to life and he breathed out a long, awkward sigh. Liam turned his head to me and I could see he had snapped out of whatever he was thinking.

"Oops," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing."

He pushed up his propped arm and guided me to sit up. I took his hand and the both of us got up together, dusting ourselves of dirt. I finished and looked up, only to realize he was still dusting his sleeve off with his right hand, while his left hand remained holding onto my arm.

Eyeing his touch curiously, I tilted my head and got his attention as he met my eyes with a questioning stare back and arched brows.

"Hey, what's wrong with you?" I laughed softly, searching his face for signs of something actually wrong, "I was embarrassed out of my mind but I can't think about that now with you acting all strange on me, Carter."

He shifted his weight on one leg and reached his hand up, suspending it in the air for a moment, before I was met with a sharp, flick on the forehead.

"You're the one that's strange," he breathed out, shaking his head at me teasingly as I glared at him.

"And why is that?"

"Why would you be embarrassed? It's not like it's our..." his voice faded away, uninterested to finish.

My eyes narrowed in confusion as the man began looking for the little girl protected underneath his suit jacket. We walked for a good few seconds before I spoke up.

"Hold up, Carte-"

"Ash, you awake sunshine?" Liam called out to the child. We squatted and he lifted the suit, revealing the girl silently sleeping on the ground. Watching over her, Liam began, "We have to go back in. They're going to start getting suspicious."

"That kiss lasted like 10 seconds!" I defended, "It wasn't that long? We don't need to go in with her."

"-Lennon," Liam tested me, turning to face my form as we locked eyes, "It was a minute." He slightly folded in his lips innocently before releasing them. I raised my eyebrows and glanced at our hands where the watch wrapped around Liam's wrist with an uninterested expression.

I suddenly remembered what I wanted to confront him about. "Wait, just back then-"

*Ring..... Ring....*

Our eyes frowned in unison and I soon recognized it as my phone making the faint noise. Liam's eyes traveled to my hand that had taken out the phone and I held up a hand to tell him to pause everything and keep quiet.

"Who is this?" I spoke carefully to my phone.

"Jamie."

"Axel," I frowned, meeting eyes with Liam, "What's wrong?"

"There's nothing wrong," Axel voice warmed the air surrounding our bodies, "You're free, James."

I tilted my head in confusion. "Free?" I croaked, finding the word strange.

"We got the password from Charles," the man continued earnestly, "It was ''"

"What?" Liam mouthed next to me, stroking the little girl on the ground as she slept. I shook my head at him to indicate that I didn't know either.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Nothing, it was bullshit," Axel flat-out growled in an irritated tone, muttering curse words in the background, "It took the agents all day just to get him to spill some random crap."

"I doubt-"

"-Oh yeah!" Axel suddenly remembered what the purpose of the call was, "Good news. The cuffs are going off right after this call. Bad news..."

"I'm concerned that you are pausing at this one, Axel," I sighed, "Hurry. I've been through enough."

"In four hours, it was set to self-destruct originally. If we want to be sure that it doesn't, you guys have to come into contact again and allow the cuffs to lock once more. One of you will have the cuffs hanging on for safety so that it doesn't blow up while you two are apart, dunno which one. It's a risk, we don't know if coming back together will make it explode, we're not sure if not coming back together is the better option either. Charles spilled all he knew and the lot of them know nothing more than what they inputted into the device. We don't know if someone else got their hands on it in the past before we did and added their own algorithms."

"So risk it and be careful," I concluded, looking over to see that Liam had heard the situation.

"Y'all good though... right?" The man's tone changed a bit in concern, "You're acquaintances now? Partners? Figured things out?"

"What are you rambling on about?" I let out a soft chuckle, quieting down afterwards.

"Hey you." Axel's voice directed at Liam, "Carter. You... if you want to keep your head you better be the one picking up the phone telling me everything's fine after four hours. I want to hear it directly from you. And don't you even think about... don't you dare... turn your back on my girl."

Liam's face was unreadable as he eyed the phone with a frown. "... Of course."

"Axel stop," I shushed him, "Nothing's going to happen. Don't call me until it's time, alright? Take care."

"James."

"What?" I mocked his tone, smiling slightly.

"I love you," the man stated all of a sudden, "you know that right?"

"I... know," I looked at the phone skeptically.

"No matter what happens I always love you."

"Axel?" My voice wavered a bit, "You're scaring me."

"There's too little time in this world," he muttered, "We couldn't properly welcome you back at all. And you've had other things on your plate. Welcome back to the R.U, Jamie."

Instead of asking what he meant, I decided there'd be time for questions later. "Thank you."

The call ended.

I frowned as my cell turned off and I began placing it back into my pockets. I felt Liam begin picking the girl up quietly as my arm was pulled slightly forward. Just a moment after she was in the air and safely in his arms, we heard the sound of the cuffs unlocking faintly.

While Liam's arm rose in the air after being freed, mine was weighed down by the addition of the other loop of the handcuff. So it turned out I was the one with the cuff on her wrist.

We stayed there in silence for a moment examining ourselves.

"We're free..." Liam commented dazed, eyeing the bruises on his wrists. When his eyes traveled to my wrist, I also took a glance and decided to stop looking and closed my eyes.

"One of us," I forced a smile at him, "But yeah.. we're not stuck together anymore."

We heard banging noises of chairs being pulled and tables being moved, and things crashing to the ground from inside the house. My head snapped to the house and my eyes narrowed in question.

"What...?"

"They're probably," Liam spoke up, running a hand through his hair while the other held onto the little girl now that his hands were free, "Being adults."

"Aren't we adults?" I asked skeptically, raising my eyebrows at him, "Why do I always feel like I'm missing out on something..."

"Lennon," Liam sighed, looking straight in my eyes, "The moment we chose to be who we are today, our inner child has died. We've seen and done so much up to now. When have we ever had a proper childhood? If we haven't ever gotten a proper childhood, how could we have stayed a child for long? I say we became adults long before many others."

He stepped forward and I received the little girl into my arms. "Watch over her, hmm?" he asked me with raised brows, "I'll be busy."

My own brows raised, "Carter, you can't possibly, actually.. do it with her..?"

"'Just fuckboys trying to get some,'" the man winked, "Let me handle it. Don't expose yourself. Don't come near her door either. You're really too innocent for this world."

"Excuse you?"

"You are."

He then grabbed my shoulders softly and pulled me upright so that my face turned to him.

"I'm counting on you, Jamie."

-

The four year old stirred the moment we walked back into the house. I would have too. Rosella and Ben were having a session right smack in the middle of the living room, lights off.

I gave a concern look towards Liam before he nodded at me and proceeded to the scene to alert the couple that he was back. The little girl Ash was tucked in my arms underneath Liam's suit jacket that he told me to keep hold of. If Rosella or Ben saw the child, I fear we'd have no plausible explanations for why we dug her back up.

Liam told me about the basic structure of the house beforehand outside so I crept out of the main room and ventured into the dark hallways, meeting many doors on either sides on my way to the very end.

Ash's room was a medium-sized cupboard. There was hardly any space to move around in, but its size resembled a small-built room. She slept on a worn-out cardboard box with an old leather purse as her pillow. The curtains of some ancient window served as her thin blanket.

"Oh my god..." I mumbled to myself as I took a look around, "Why did they even have kids?"

I shut the door and gently placed Ash down in her 'bed,' using Liam's suit jacket to serve as her new blanket instead.

I softly shook the girl awake so that she could get some food in her stomach. Ash's eyes fluttered open upon the smell of the bundled food I received from Liam.

"Hey, sweetie," I smiled as she looked up at me with tired eyes.

"Say, are you allergic to anything?"

"Mmm, peanuts," she murmured back, rubbing her eyes so that they opened wider as she became more awake.

"None here," I checked the food. "Then," I placed the pile of food on the napkin in her lap and her eyes lit up, "It's all yours. Eat slowly."

It was a long while of me watching her eat and her just sitting there eating. I glanced around the room once in a while on instinct to surveillance the area, and my ears perked to any sounds coming down the hall, which there were none.

"What is these?" Ash spoke up all of a sudden as she pointed to a small, circular hard piece of food while still chewing down cornbread.

My brows rose curiously and I looked at what she was pointing to.

"Peppermint," I popped, reaching for it to open the candy, "It comes last. Dessert. You can't have it before eating or while you're eating."

"Why?" she tilted her head to the side as she eyed the candy curiously, a smile forming on her face upon smelling how good it was.

"Because it's rule number one," I side-smiled at her, giving her some things to remember as a child, "Eat peppermint last."

"Eat paperme last," she recited after me, giggling, "It sounds weird, Mama."

My eyes softened at the child feeling better, but then they soon widened a bit as I heard what she called me. "'Mama?'" I repeated the term to her, to which the little girl nodded, "I'm not..."

"Mama said to call every girl in the house 'Mama.' That's respectful. Mama said if Ash don't refer to her as Mama then Ash will be punished for being bad."

That's cause the only female in the house was Rosella at the time.

"How about 'Anne,'" I suggested softly to her, "My name is 'Anne.'"

"..." the girl looked conflicted. She was scared to call me something other than her mother's title. But I will not, and I mean will not, be called the same thing as that nasty woman.

"An-ne?" (And-neh) Ash soon spoke up again, "An...na?" (And-na)

"Ana?" (On-na) I asked, not sure if that's what she said.

"... Ana," Ash exclaimed, grinning, "Ana."

I stared at her finally being able to call me something other than 'Mama.' The reason why she chose to go with 'Ana' may just be because it sounds faguely similar to 'Mama' and if she's ever questioned, she can just make it seem like they heard it wrong.

I seriously, have too many names.

More time passed and Ash soon finished all of her food. She drifted off into sleep and I did my best to tuck her in in her situation. I sighed out as I took a seat in another box next to where Ash was sleeping and I examined her wounds. The blood on the pillowcase that was her dress came from the cuts across her stomach because she complained about it hurting.

I shook my head in disbelief and hung my head low, peeping at my right wrist once in a while with the cuffs still on.

Truth was, I was afraid.

Not that the cuffs may blow up, but the fact of whether or not Liam would come back. I heard his hesitation while talking to Axel, and saw the glint of happiness through his eyes when the cuffs broke off of him.

Would he come back though? Was there a good reason to? Here now the man was free and coming back could mean we'd blow up together. He could ditch the place and leave me to deal with the situation by myself.

What would guarantee he'd come back? He didn't know me. We hardly ever got along anyway. There's always bickering and uncertainties surrounding us.

Then there's the frustrating couple and the way they treat their child, and my own situation where I could possibly end up being blown-up tonight and never see my team again.

I hung my head low and for the first time in years... I cried in silence.

-

Deep into the night there came footsteps that made faint creaks in the floor as it became clearer and closer with each step. Just as the door crept open to reveal a dark face, chills ran down my spine and my eyes slowly opened in alert. My body was in a sitting position, leaning into the side of the box that Ash was on as I laid my head and arms next to her and rested my head there.

The door was behind me. I heard low breathing and the moment that the person walked in and the door closed, I was fully awake with silent attempts to keep my breathing down.

"Where's the little Ash," the male's voice hummed softly to himself. There was a long pause before I could mentally picture his eyes finding our location in the dark and locking into our positions, possibly even a smile creeping on his face.

My chest tightened when I realized it wasn't Liam coming back.

It was Ben coming in.

He crept closer and closer, until I could feel him leaning down over me to try and find the child hidden underneath the jacket. I felt a hand reach over my head and it gently stroked the side of my face. My teeth gritted at what happened next.

The girl was yanked from her bed by one arm with a snap in the air so that she stood on the box. Ash let out a whimper as she was just woken up and squinted her eyes in pain, trained not to make much sound and oppose. Ben had a dog whip and the moment that that rope slashed through the air, I jumped up and protected the child's body. My eyes stung at the amount of force he was planning to use on the girl when she wasn't even awake. He was crazy. She would have died.

The whip finished vibrating against my flesh and I muffled a grunt wanting to escape my lips. I breathed out once inaudibly before turning to face the man, who was looking at me with interest.

"What brings you here, Ben," I breathed out faintly, forcing a smile on my face as the darkness hid the frown that appeared.

"Hmph," the man chuckled, his low tone irritating my ears, "I knew I heard a wretch breathing when she should have been dead." He inched forward to me and tried to rip Ash away from me, but I shifted my body just in time and I winced as Ash's body slammed into mine while he tried pulling her to him.

"Don't, she's not worth it, she'll die off eventually with no food," I tried, urging the girl to scoot further away with my hands behind my back.

"It's been too long," Ben growled in my face, "Get out of my face before you regret it."

Son of a bitch, you wish.

"No." I countered back, "She stays here. She's not— don't touch her!"

He whipped the rope around my body so that both Ash and I were hit on our sides. As I fell on the bed to serve as a barrier between the girl and Ben once again, I heard the child finally giving in and she started crying as her earlier wounds were aggravated. I gasped out silently as he grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked it up, my ponytail falling apart as all of my hair came cascading down to my shoulders and back. Sweat formed on the side of my face as I endured more hits and soon punches. When Ben managed to land another blow on Ash and she coughed up blood, I used the rest of the energy left in me to push him off of us.