"You can't understand how long I've wanted to do that for..." He whispered so quietly I questioned whether he'd even spoken. I blinked, breaking that charge between our eyes, our heads were still only inches apart, I could feel his breath on my face and I'm sure he could feel mine on his.

I shook my head and stood up. What the fuck had just happened? I walked over to the sink, just to get some thinking distance and some literal distance. How does one go from one extreme to the other? He must have hated me at some point and now we've kissed...what?

"Did I do something wrong?" The innocence of the question made that achy feeling in my heart reappear. I dropped my head and turned around to face him, he was standing right behind me, I hadn't heard him move and so his closeness startled me. He looked at me with a question mark expression, those chocolate eyes trying to fathom my thoughts.

I didn't have the heart to tell him it was wrong.

"No, it's fine" I smiled weakly, Mike's face coming into my head. In my defence though, I didn't even know what Mike and I were, were we official? I had no clue.

I looked down awkwardly not knowing where to put myself.

"I'm gonna go see where Mike's got to" I spoke nervously and stepped around him, he followed me with his eyes until I was completely out of his peripheral vision. He didn't turn around or anything, he just kept his head faced forward and his back to me. I glanced back as I left the room with a sigh.

"Hey beautiful" Mike said cheerfully as he began descending the stairs as I was already half way up them.

"Oh hi" I smiled as genuinely as I could manage to.

"Everything okay?" He asked, lugging down two big duffel bags. I turned and headed back down the stairs so he could get down them too.

"Yeah" I smiled as he reached the bottom and he kissed my nose.

"Take these into the kitchen and I'll just go grab the other bag" he passed me the bags, they were fucking heavy.

"How much stuff does one guy need?" I scoffed disbelieving.

"I packed enough for the both of us!" He retorted holding his hand on his heart and acting like I'd hurt his feelings. "And some of Vic's stuff is in here too" he turned and jogged back up the stairs.

I put the bags on the floor and decided to drag them to the kitchen because they were too damn heavy to carry. I got through the door and Vic looked at me wide-eyed, I dragged them all the way to the back door and leant against the wall out of breath and sweaty. I did my best not to look at Vic but I couldn't help it, I had to. I looked up at him and his eyebrows were furrowed.

"Are they heavy?" He asked

"No, it's actually empty I'm just dragging it for dramatic effect" I replied sarcastically, his frown deepened further as if he couldn't quite comprehend why I'd enjoy that. "Yes, yeah they're heavy" I confirmed. The fact he didn't understand sarcasm made him all the more endearing.

"Um guys, we have a problem" Mike said stepping into the kitchen. We both looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to explain. He just shut the kitchen door tightly and whispered something, I was about to ask him to repeat it when the front door slammed.

Oh fuck!

My heart was in my throat and my stomach was in my ass. Why did we have such awful timing? Mike flicked off the light switch—this house is usually flooded in darkness so it'd be suspicious if the ogre came in and saw the kitchen light on—it took longer than normal for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

"Get out, Leda, get Vic and get out" Mike whispered.

But I couldn't move. I was trembling at the sound of his boots on the wood flooring, the ever familiar sound of torture.

"Leda, get the fuck out of here!" Mike whisper shouted and I felt someone grip my hand, I was terrified, I tried my best to see who it was but I couldn't see.

"Vic just pick her up and take her out of here, please. I'll get the bags. Go!" Someone scooped me up but my mind was somewhere else, some place dark, I swallowed and fought back tears. We got outside where it was much lighter and I realized it was Vic who was carrying me, he held me for a long moment before putting me on my feet. My stomach did a little flip.

"Come, we have to get out of sight before he realizes I'm gone" his voice was so even, as if nothing could possibly scare him off, but looking down at his trembling hands, I knew he was as scared as I was.

"But-" I began to protest, thinking of Mike and if he was going to get out when Mike quickly exited the back door, holding three duffel bags and a ridiculous grin on his face. I hadn't even realized I'd been holding my breath until all the air in my lungs left me in a hurry. Mike passed the lightest bag to me and then another to Vic so the load was evenly distributed between us.

"Right, the car is-" Mike began

"Vic!" The ogre shouted, my heart sank even further (if that was even possible.)

"Time to go!" Mike laughed and pushed me down the back yard towards the street. We heard some breaking noises and a growl come from inside the house, Vic was stood there motionlessly, I ran back for him and grabbed his hand.

"Dude, come on!" I urged trying to pull him along but he stood still. "Vic!" He blinked a couple of times and looked at me, it seemed he'd been somewhere else in his head.

"Guys come on!" Mike hissed already almost on the street, I pulled Vic's hand once more and this time he followed me, jogging down the yard and out onto the street. We didn't stop and walk to the car, we didn't dare risk anything so we ran all the way to the car. Once we reached it I was out of breath.

"Shotgun!" I called and Mike laughed and shook his head as if calling shotgun was the most ridiculous thing to do in this situation but it also gave a sense of normalcy in contrast to all of the drama which is why I think he smiled. We all climbed into the car, putting our bags down by our feet instead of in the trunk, except Mike, he put his bag by my feet because of the obvious—it'd get in the way of the pedals.

Mike slammed his foot on the gas and we sped off, I couldn't help but grin widely, this sense of freedom was even more beautiful than the first because we were all here, Vic was here, no one had gotten left behind. The three musketeers.

"What now?" Vic asked quietly. Mike looked at me as if I had the answer, I blinked and shrugged, we didn't have much money, or food or really anything at all, no place to go, no shelter. We didn't really think this through.

"We could go to my parents house" I suggested even though I hadn't even spoken to my mom since she found out my profession (if you could call it that) and told me she never wanted to talk to me again.

"Really?"

"I don't see why not" I lied, praying that once we arrived there she'd welcome us with open arms and all would be forgotten. I was so naïve.

"Where does she live?" Mike asked

"Baltimore"

"That's like over three hours away!" He gasped, probably not wanting to drive so far.

"I know, wake me up in just over three hours will you? Thanks" I smirked and closed my eyes. I heard him laugh and could picture him shaking his head at me.

I couldn't pretend my stomach wasn't in knots at the idea of just turning up at my mothers house after all that had gone on between us.

But Vic's and Mike's presence made me feel a lot better, I knew they'd not let anything bad happen to me.

Speaking of Vic, I was at a crossroad... Do I tell Mike about the kiss or do I keep it to myself?

Notes

Uh-oh. So, what should Leda do?

Tell me what you think is going to happen

And what you want to happen :)