Page 7 of The Lost Ones

I burst out laughing. Hunter? She's seriously into Hunter? I mean I can't blame her at all, he is gorgeous but from the little I know about him she would be the last person he would be into. I get the feeling that he doesn't like fake. He also probably wouldn’t like that it’s the first day and some random is staking her claim on him.

"Have at it." I say still chuckling as I walk away to my next class.

The rest of the afternoon goes by quickly and I try to avoid the guys as much as possible. I need to get my thoughts in line and decide whether I want to try and pursue a friendship with them or if it would be better if I kept them out of my life.

Safer.

I also have to come to terms with the fact that I am extremely attracted to all five of them. I know that they would never reciprocate my feelings, I'm just a boring, broken girl. Although it’s not conventional to have such strong feelings towards five different guys at the same time, but for some reason it doesn't feel wrong.

Which means I also need to think about whether I can put my feelings aside to pursue a friendship with them. I'm so tired of being alone.

I walk briskly home praying my mother isn't in one of her moods and I can just slip past her and up to my room to get on with my homework. I listen at the door before I make my way in. If there's crashing and the sound of glass breaking then I'll just go for a walk down to the park, do my homework there and come back in a few hours.

Fortunately, it's silent so I carefully make my way through the door trying to avoid the glass still on the floor from the bottle she threw this morning. I silently creep up to her partially closed door, look through the small sliver of space to see her drinking and watching some sitcom about housewives.

I make my way silently up the stairs to drop my bags in my room and then, just as quietly, go back down and clean the broken glass up from by the door. She will never clean it up herself even though she's the one that made the mess but if I leave it, she'll use it as an excuse to use me as a punching bag. Not that she ever really needs an excuse. I'm really hoping she will just leave me alone tonight. After the day I have had, although good because of meeting the guys, I just need some time to decompress.

After it’s all cleaned up, I go back up to my room and start on myhomework. It doesn't take me long to finish and I'm soon going through my bedtime routine, having a shower and getting into my pyjamas before I climb under my comforter feeling thankful that my mother hasn't called for me.

It's never good for her to call for me.

I need to figure out what I'm going to do about the guys. If I'm being completely honest with myself there's not really much I need to think about. I don't want to be on my own anymore, I don't want to have to deal with my mother and the potential threat from my dick of an ex by myself.

I don’t want to drag them into my mess and I want to avoid telling them too much about myself for as long as possible, but I want the potential to have the support of another person, or in this case five people. I've only known them for a day and in that time I've barely had any sort of conversation with them. I feel inexplicably drawn to them for whatever reason and that makes me want to get to know them and, as scary as it is to me, I want them to get to know me too.

My thoughts are drawn to my new Imprint Tattoo. I briefly consider that maybe the guys are the reason for it but immediately dismiss the idea as improbable at best and downright ridiculous at worst. It can't be about all five of them, that would be impossible and I'm not that fortunate anyway. Which makes me wonder what on earth this Imprint Tattoo could mean.

I try to think more about the reason behind my new tattoo, but my thoughts keep circling back to Jax, Hunter, Kai, Levi and Maverick. I can't help but once again think that everything is about to change, I just hope it's for the better and not the worse.

I'm hoping my luck is going to change. Finally, coming to a decision, I decide that starting tomorrow I'm going to let them in a little bit. I'm not going to run away and I'm at least going to try not to be too weird, although at this point in my life the weird is now ingrained pretty damn deep so that might be a losing battle.

I'll just have to aim for not awkward instead. I fall asleep thinking about the guys with a slight smile on my face.

Unfortunately, because I was so distracted by my thoughts of them when I first came upstairs, I forgot to lock my door and my mother uses it to her advantage in the early morning hours, crashing her waythrough the door. I shoot up in bed as soon as I feel the air shift. I briefly curse myself for being so fucking stupid, as my mom comes flying towards me, her fists already swinging.

I try to scoot away from her, but my legs are too tangled up in my comforter. Unable to escape I try to minimise the damage she will cause by curling up into a ball and trying my hardest to protect my head. I have no idea what set her off this time but I'm praying she burns out of energy quickly.

She lands a hard blow on my already bruised ribs and I hear a sickeningcrack, I choke down a sob not wanting to encourage her further. After one last blow, this one glancing off my shoulder, she's finally had enough and stumbles her way back out of my room and down the stairs.

I lay there for a while trying to gather up my strength before slowly, and incredibly painfully, make my way over to the door shutting and locking it. I grab some bandages from my emergency kit before remembering that I recently read online that you shouldn’t wrap ribs if they’re broken as it can cause pneumonia. So instead I take out an ice pack, squeezing and shaking it to activate it and gently press it against my ribs whilst taking as deep breaths as I can manage and then taking a couple of painkillers.

A glance at my alarm clock shows me it's about three in the morning. I don't have to be up for school until seven and although I really shouldn't go in like this, it would be worse to stay at home where she can get to me.

I need a couple more hours of sleep, I just want to escape for a bit. I carefully lay down on my bed trying my hardest to find a somewhat comfortable position to sleep in. Most of the blows were on my stomach and ribs but she did land one on my shoulder that I know is going to leave a nasty bruise.

After what feels like hours of uncomfortable and incredibly painful shifting, but is probably only a couple of minutes, I finally give up trying to be comfortable and just try to sleep.

I'm miserable.

I start thinking about the guys and a sense of peace flows through me, taking away a small portion of the pain. I realise that the guys have already become my happy place, which is a pretty terrifying thought actually but I’m too tired to focus on that right now. Once again, I fall asleep with a tiny smile on my face, thinking about my guys.

The Guys

We’re all sitting around the living room of our shared house, talking about Sage. She is so beautiful and although we didn’t spend much time with her, we can see a fire in her that’s currently trying to break free of the dark shadows that are trying to smother it. You can easily see the shadows that torment her dancing in her beautiful grey eyes. After all, like recognises like.

None of us have perfect backgrounds.

We all want to help her but we also know that we can be a bit overwhelming, even more so to her because she seems so wary to begin with. Even Hunter seems taken with her and even has a small smile on his face whilst we are talking about her.