They Can't Protect Me From Loving You

ONE MONTH LATER

“Yeah I’m expecting the girls any minute now; they were stopping off to pick up breakfast on the way over.” Eloise said down the phone to Brian.

“Yeah, I think the main reason they’re helping is to scavenge anything I decide to leave behind.” She replied walking around her flat gathering items she’d need to help with the packing – marker pens, bubble wrap, tape.

“The van will be here in the morning so we should be in Huntington in the early afternoon.”

“Yeah I can’t wait to get home, unpack and curl up on the sofa with you.” She continued.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me – let me guess Jimmy’s idea? Yeah I thought so. Ah well, I guess being around all the guys would be almost as good as curling up with hang on that’s the buzzer, the girls are here.” She said going over to the front door to let the girls in.

“Ok, I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah I love you too, bye babe...bye.” Eloise closed her cell phone as the girls came walking through her front door.

“Bye babe” Abi mocked

“Shut up Abi” she called back.

“Breakfast is served.” Hannah said placing a bag of bagels and a tray of coffees on the kitchen counter.

“Great I’m starving.” Eloise stated sitting on one of the stools.

“We’ll have these and then start packing things into boxes.”

“Fine by me, what room we starting with?” Sophie asked

“Bedroom, I need to sort through my clothes as we pack.” Eloise answered and noticed the other three glance at each other with a smile.

“You guys are sad.” Eloise scoffed.

“What do you mean?” Abi asked.

“I saw the way your faces lit up when I mentioned sorting through my clothes; you just want to raid my closets.”

“Well, duh, why else would we offer to help you pack?” Abi laughed.

“Hannah where did you put that marker?” Abi called

“Um, I think it’s on kitchen counter.” Hannah called back from behind a set of packed boxes.

“Girls, I think that’s it. I’m all packed up.” Eloise announced taping up the lid of the last box.

“Oh, it’s so sad.” Sophie announced taking the marker off Abi and writing the word “kitchen” across the final box. It had taken most of the day to pack everything up into boxes. The girls were now surrounded by boxes marked with the name of the room the contents belonged to.

“Come on then guys, let’s go get some pizza and wine and come back and crash.” Hannah announced grabbing her purse.

“Yeah, good idea.” Eloise agreed and grabbed her keys, purse and cell phone.

Eloise’s last night in Sacramento was brilliant. It was spent with the three girls who she’d been friends with for four years, eating pizza, drinking wine and reminiscing about the times they’d had together. After a bottle and a half of wine each Abi, Hannah and Sophie said a tearful good bye to their best friend, making her promise to let them each know when she arrived in Huntington as they all had to work the following day.

***

Eloise was awoken the following morning by a pounding headache. She stirred moaning and prised her eyes open. She turned her head to look at her clock but realised that it wasn’t there as it had been packed away with everything else. She cursed under her breath and leant across to pick up her cell phone. It was ten to nine and the removal guys were due at half past. She groaned yet again and forced herself out of her bed. She took tablets for her headache and headed for the shower. As she got dressed she heard a beep from her cell phone to tell her that there was a message she hadn’t read yet. She opened it up to see a message from Brian.

“Can’t wait to have you back here with me. See you in a few hours. Xxx”

She smiled as she pressed the reply button “I’ll be there before you know it – xx love you.”

She stowed the phone in her ass pocket and sat on her bed to put on her chucks. She was tying her laces when the door buzzer went. She quickly made her way through the maze of boxes to let the removal guys in.

Less than a minute later two well built, tattooed guys walked through her front door.

“Eloise Benson?” the first one enquired and Eloise nodded.

“Or should I say Katie Mitchell?” he smirked and Eloise’s face dropped and her heart rate quickened as she began to panic.

“Mr. Owen has been looking for you for a long time.” the first guy said moving closer to her. Eloise froze, not knowing what to do as the guy came closer to her.

“He’s not happy with you at all.” The second guy spoke striding across the room towards her.

“Not happy at all, and he’s asked us to do something about it.” The first one said still smirking.

“Please, no” she whispered as she began to back away from them.

“That’s what your mum said last night.” He said before she was his large fist connected with her jaw. She fell backwards into the wall and watched as another fist came flying towards her face. She instinctively brought her hands up to cover her face, but all that did was stop her seeing the fist. A sharp pain tore through her abdomen. She assumed that one of the men had kicked her. It had felt too hard to have been a punch. All she could do was cower on the floor sobbing as they bombarded every inch of her with punches and kicks. She was sure that at least one of her ribs had snapped judging by the searing pain in her chest. She was struggling to breath and could taste blood. Every inch of her body was in pain. Then suddenly everything was black and she couldn’t feel anything anymore.

Once Eloise was led on the floor, unconscious with blood coming from her head and torso the two guys left, heading straight back to Huntington to report back to their boss that Katie Mitchell had been taken care of.