hummingbird heartbeat (Marco)

[Deleted]

Hannah breathed heavily as she stared up at the face beneath the mask. He took a picture with a grin. "A work of art."

A work of art. Oh, god. She didn't want to be a work of art. "No," she whimpered, tugging at the robes tying her down. "No, stop it!"

Then his eyes were on her stomach. A grin spread across his face. Her eyes widened. "No! Please! I'll do anything!" she begged, trying to cover her stomach with her hands.

He leaned down. "You're a waste of life," he growled. "You really think anybody's going to mess with you? They won't care. Not one of them. They'll shrug it off and move on."

"No"

A knife was pressed against her stomach. "Say goodnight"

Hannah jerked awake, sitting up and screaming "No! get off me!" Her heart was pounding. As her eyes adjusted, she realized that she was in her bedroom. She slowly stood up, walking on the sides of her feet. Quickly, she turned on the light. Nobody was in the room.

God, it had seemed so real. Hannah normally took a sleeping pill, and she never remembered her dreams. But that night, she hadn't. She thought she was making some real progress. But as it turned out, she really hadn't.

Slowly, she raised her shirt to look at her stomach. Her scar was still there, obviously. Her fingers tenderly traced along the line. Baby Marco's face was still vivid in her mind. Screaming, shaking. God, why hadn't she been able to rescue him?

Opening the door, she went into the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror for a moment before opening the medicine cabinet. She reached forward, grabbing her pain meds and staring at the bottle. It would be so easy to swallow the entire bottle, just end it all. But then he would have won. And god, Hannah was not ready to let him win.

She heard a sound from outside. It could have been a cat. It could have been the wind. But, it was enough to scare her. Yelping, she ran from the bathroom to Marco's room. She paused at the door. She had never done this before. Crawling into bed with him? Wasn't she just a little too big for that? But as scared as she was, she didn't care if she was too old. Quickly, she opened the door.

She bit her lip as she eyed the older man. Tip-toeing, she inched her way to the bed as she made her way to the side he was laying on. Looking around, the brunette swallowed. "Dad?" she whispered, hesitating before she tapped his shoulder. "Daddy? A-are you awake?" she raised her voice a little, trying desperately to get his attention.