My head feels like someone has built a wall on top of it, the weight of a full house pushing down on my fragile skull. I try to open my eyes, but they won't listen to my brain's commands, ignoring my plea to understand why my head feels so heavy and pain-filled. I can feel every limb in my body pulsating with pain and aches of which I have never felt before. Every inch of my body feeling bruised and damaged.
"Eva?" a soft voice says gently, trying to pull me out of my sickened state. I try to open my eyes, but my right eye seems to be held shut by something, not allowing me to open it, and the more I try, the harder it hurts.
I groan in pain as I try to lift myself up on the bed, trying to get my head out from under this weight that is crushing my brain.
"Eva, you need to take it slow, you're in pretty bad shape," the voice urges quietly. I am thankful for their hushed tone otherwise I am sure my head would be ringing right now.
"Where am I? Why can't I open my eye? Why does everything hurt so bad?" my questions come out hoarse from my dry throat, but I can feel the panic rising in my own voice as I try to sit up again, causing a sharp pain to shoot through my ribs. A gentle hand on my shoulder pushes me back down on the bed, preventing me from causing any more damage.
"Stop trying to get up or you're just going to hurt yourself more. You need to rest and heal," the voice demands a lot less gentle than they did before. Slowly I gain the ability to open my left eye, my right still not willing to open and it hurts too much to try any more. The bright light of the morning sun makes my head and eye sting, causing to me to wince and close them again.
"Eva?" the quiet voice from my left catches my attention again. I turn my head to face them, and am shocked to notice Jayson sitting at my side on a wooden chair, holding onto my left hand, rubbing his thumb soothingly across it.
"Eva, what did he do to you?" his words don't fully reach me. I'm still shocked at seeing him sat beside me, worry written across his face as he stares back at me.
"What happened?" I tear my gaze away from his hypnotic blue ones, and finally noticing where I am. I'm led in a huge bed that is placed in the corner of the room with red silk bedding, the walls painted a light grey. Opposite to where I am led there is a large floor length window, with a balcony attached where a wicker chair sits facing the lake.
"I don't know that Eva, you need to tell me what happened, what did he do to you?" the seriousness of his tone catches my attention from looking around the room, confused as to where I am.
"We trained," I answer back absentmindedly, trying to get my mind to focus on anything other than the searing pain shooting through my body.
"No, don't bullshit me Eva," he snatches his hand from mine, causing a flash of fire to rise up my arm, making me wish that his hand was back on mine, keeping the fire and pain away.
"I told you that you shouldn't have gone, I knew that this would happen, I fucking knew I should have followed you to make sure he didn't hurt you," as he finishes his rant, he pushes himself out of the chair with so much force that it slams across the floor, making me wince and turn my head away from his anger.
"Please-"
"No don't even give me some fucking lame ass excuse, I don't want to hear you defend that fucked up bastard after what he has done to your face," I don't have the energy to turn my head to look at him, but I can hear his footsteps pacing around the room, the loud bangs echoing through my ears.
"Jay-"
"I mean what were you thinking? Are you that weak that you can't even protect yourself against your own father? That you can't stop him from abusing you like this?! Are you really telling me that one of the best students in our entire school can't even defend herself?!" with each question he gets louder, by then end of it he is full on shouting at me, but I still can't bring myself to look at him, either from the pain or humiliation I'm not sure.
"Please stop shouting," my voice comes out small and quiet, I am unsure that he actually hears me, but the sounds of his pacing stops, allowing my head to stop spinning for a few seconds.
"Is that all you have to say? You're not even going to explain what the fuck happened? What the fuck were you thinking letting him touch you like this?!" his voice never goes lower than shouting, his rage at the situation I have put myself in clearly coming through his words. "Answer me damn it!"
"Stop! Just stop! Stop shouting at me!" the pain, the aching and the shouting is just too much. My head won't stop spinning between the angry glare Jayson keeps throwing at me, the pounding of my brain trying to escape my skull, and the pain that is pulsing throughout my body. I close my good eye, trying to reign in the pain, to try and clear my head enough so that I can concentrate on controlling the situation.
"Jay, what the fuck are you doing?" Blaise's voice suddenly rings through my ears, making my head swim even more.
"Leave Blaise, this is between Eva and I," Jay bites through gritted teeth at his best friend, but I can still feel his eyes boring into mine, never losing their unwavering glare as they try to draw the answers out silently.
"Look at her Jay, she can barely open her eyes let alone answer your questions. You need to give her time to rest and shouting at her is not going to help," Blaise's voice is calm and hushed, which I am thankful for as it allows me more time to try and control the aching pains shooting through my head.
"Thank you, Blaise," I whisper quietly, not even sure if he actually heard me or not as my eyes are stilled closed, but I'm sure he did.
"Do you think I could have some water please?" the dryness of my throat and the shouting a second ago has made my voice come out hoarse and shaky.
"I'll go grab you some," I hear Millard mumble under his breath and then the sound of his footsteps leaving the room. I sigh knowing that there will be some peace and quiet for a little while whilst he is gone. For the first time since waking up, I admire how comfy the bed I am lying in is. I snuggle against the pillow, still keeping my eye close, and I know I could easily fall back asleep in this bed.
"You know, he does mean well, just, sometimes he doesn't know how to voice how he truly feels," Blaise's voice breaks me out of my relaxed state, making me jump a little as I completely forgot he was still here. I open my good eye to look at him as he walks closer to the bed, his footsteps a lot quieter than what Millard's were a few minutes ago, which I am thankful for.
"I didn't realise he could feel anything," I choke out, closing my eyes again and Blaise takes a seat in the chair next to the bed.
"All night Jayson was worried about you, he kept saying that it would be his fault if you got seriously hurt, the he would kill your dad if he hurt you too bad. He never slept, he stayed awake all night waiting for you to come home," why would Millard do that? Why would he stress himself out over me when he hates me? I know he's never cared about me before so why does now make any difference?
"When he finally saw you walking up the drive at 5 this morning, he almost lost it. I mean you looked like you should have been dead Eva. You had cuts openly bleeding across your stomach and arms, your eye was swollen shut, it was the deepest shade of purple I have ever seen, it was basically Black, and you could barely walk. When you fell into his arms, well, I've never seen him be so gentle with someone, he carried you up the stairs like you were a diamond and the smallest of knocks would shatter you," Blaise continues with his account of last night, but I just can't believe it. Millard is not gentle, he does not take care of people, let alone me.
"He took you to his room and instructed that no one was allowed to come to your floor under no circumstances. We were not allowed to make any noise, we were not allowed to ask questions, we just had to leave you guys alone. So, I don't know what happen when he brought you in here, but by the looks of it, he stitched you up quite nicely," for the first time since I woke up, I look down at my body and see multiple bandages wrapped around my torso and arms. As well as some kind of cream covering every bruise that can be seen on my body. Millard must have taken my hoodie off to get a better look at my wounds. The thought makes my cheeks flame, he basically saw me naked in only my shorts and sports bra.
"Why would he do this? We are supposed to hate each other, not take care of each other," I voice my confusion to Blaise, something I didn't think I would ever do, but something about him makes feel like I can trust him. Before Blaise is able to answer, the door opens suddenly, making me jump in my spot and Blaise to stand up quickly, moving away from the bed.
Millard stands in the doorway looking between the two of us, a suspicious glare obvious on his face. Blaise clears his throat and quietly excuses himself from the room, squeezing past Millard as he continues to stand in the way of the door. He turns his scrutinising gaze back to me as he makes his way over to the bed, placing a cup of water in my hand and jug on the bedside table.
"What was that about?" Millard asks as I down my first glass of water. I have never tasted water so crisp before, and my body can't get enough, I am sure that I will need another jug soon.
"Blaise was just telling me about what happened when I got back to the house because I couldn't remember," I state simply, taking another glass of water eagerly from his hands.
"And what did he tell you?" the suspicion is clear in his voice, but he patiently waits for me to finish my glass of water.
"He just said that you carried me up here and took care of my injuries, and I am very grateful, you didn't have to do that," I look up at him as he fills my glass again, and I can see how tired and warn out he is. He has bags under his eyes, I'm sure they are just as deep a purple as my eye is, and his hair is sticking up in every direction, which is probably from the stress of me not coming back until late. He doesn't look like the frightening and threatening Jayson Millard that I am used to dealing with, he looks beaten down and lost.
"Can you please tell me what happened last night?" he slumps down into the chair after handing me my glass, running his hand through his hair, clearly frustrated that he hasn't been able to find out what happened. Does he really care though? I mean, he did patch me up, and took care of me whilst I was unconscious.
"I was ten minutes late to our session. He was already so mad about the bet," I sigh deeply as I think about last night, "I had to run twenty laps around the school to start off with,"
"He made you run laps around the whole school?" Jayson's mouth drops a little at this, his eyes widening as he thinks it over. I can understand the shock. Our school spans over one hundred acres; it has six buildings, three of them are the houses, two of them are the school buildings, the last one is the principal's quarters, which spans over at least 15 acres itself. The grounds have a tennis court, a basketball court, a football field, a running track, a fencing arena, a boxing ring, martial arts combat area, sword fighting arena and blacksmiths cabin, I could go on for a month about what the school has. We are one of the most prestigious schools in the country, only the riches of the rich can attend; and even then, if they do not have the talent, then they are kicked out.
"Then we moved onto boxing, but I wasn't allowed a head guard or gloves. He said that in the real world I wouldn't be given such luxuries as having a head guard," I look down at my hands, a feeling of shame suddenly rushing though me.
"I'm guessing that's how you got that black eye?" I nod slowly at his question, still not looking up at him. "Then what happened?" he sighs deeply, his voice strained with frustration.
"Then we moved onto sword fighting. He gave me a blunt sword that we usually use for training, but his was newly sharpened," I whisper the last part, closing my eyes tightly as the memories come back. It's not the first time that my father and I have trained with swords; and it's not the first time that I have been cut up from it. However, it is the first time that he has had a sharpened sword and I haven't. Usually we would both have blunt swords, so that neither of us would be too badly injured, just a few shallow grazes, but he wanted to hurt me last night. He wanted me to remember his threat.
"And you let him do this to you?" I can hear in his voice that he is trying hard not to shout, but I know that he starting to lose his temper again.
"You don't understand what my father is like. He is brutal, heartless, he wouldn't care if I went against him, refused to do what he asks me to. He would just come at me twice as hard. It's easier to just go along with what he wants; its safer for me that way," I fiddle with the cup of water in my hand, making the water slosh from side to side, but I have lost my appetite for the drink now.
"Is it always like this? Your sessions?" I pull my eyes away from the cup, and meet Jayson's glare, his look of uncontrolled rage coming back, but he is trying hard to keep it in; to keep his voice low. He is leaning forward in the chair, his body rigid and his hands clenched on his knees.
"It has never been like this before," I whisper, looking back down at my water.
"Does anyone from Zeus know about this?" I quickly shake my head, my eyes searching for his in a panic.
"No, no one knows about this. I usually manage to hide the evidence by the time anyone wakes up. You aren't going to tell anyone are you?" the panic is clear in my voice, and I know he can sense it by the way that his eyebrow looks up in question.
"I should call the school board and the police, Eva," his eyes flash with a look of warning, challenging me to go against him. I quickly place my glass on the table beside the bed, next to the jug and turn back around to Jay, pushing the covers down and puling my legs off of the bed, standing up in front of a shocked Jayson, who is still sat in the chair. I wobble on my feet for a second, my head going dizzy at my sudden actions. Jay quickly gets up from the chair, holding onto my shoulders to keep my steady.
"What do you think you are doing? You need to rest," his tone is scolding and for a second I feel foolish; only for a second.
"You do not have any authority about what should happen to my father," I try to force my voice to come out strong, but the pain suddenly shooting through my head and body makes it come out like more of a gasp or a plea.
"Oh Evangeline," Jayson tuts, a smirk now on his face. I have to crane my head up to look at him and I can see humour flashing behind his eyes.
"While you are under this roof, in my house, I have all of the authority. I own you,"