Stockholm Syndrome

Lissie frowned when she saw Erin plop down next to her, and the others looked at Erin as if she was committing the ultimate betrayal. She sighed as she pushed her fringe out of her eyes, and decided to break the ice.

“How old are you Lissie?”

“Seventeen. You?” Lissie answered, looking confused.

“Twenty one. Since two weeks ago. How long have you been seventeen?”

“A while,” she retorted. “I’m eighteen in three months time.”

“Do you have a high pain tolerance?” Erin asked, catching Lissie off-guard. Lissie looked at her in confusion.

“Umm, I guess I do?” Lissie answered, not seeing where this was going.

“Can I have a look at your left arm?” That struck a chord. Her eyes widened.

“No,” was all she could say. All the outraged faces turned to puzzled expressions.

“I’m a qualified First-Aider...” she muttered in a low voice, so it was only I that heard.

Lissie snorted and shuffled slightly, slowly moving her left arm further and further from Erin.

Erin sighed, “Well I guess we have to do this the hard way,” and looking extremely apologetic as she did so. She gripped onto Lissie’s shoulder with quite a bit of force to test the teenager.

It was impressive. Lissie’s entire face contorted in pain, but she bit her lip and only the smallest yelp escaped her lips.

The other women’s faces looked horrified as Erin ripped apart the sleeve of Lissie’s cardigan, revealing two neat, but extremely, painful looking, gun shot wounds.

Lissie looked horrified that her little secret had been uncovered, and began pulling back the fabric of her cardigan to hide her shoulder once again.

We all sat frozen, staring in wonder at the seventeen year old who had taken two bullets to the shoulder with no complaint and without anyone else noticing.