Between You and I

We got the luxury of staying in a hotel after the next show, and I knew it was going to feel so good to lay in a bed instead of having to lay across a seat in a van. I’m not exactly sure how many rooms we had reserved, but all I knew was that Eric and I were in a room together.
“Are you excited to be sleeping in an actual bed tonight?” Jared asked me as we were walking around town after the show, exploring the city’s nightlife. Eric didn’t feel like going out tonight, he just wanted to sleep. I respected his wishes.
“Oh yeah. This is probably gonna be the best night of sleep I’ve had since the night before the tour started.”
Jared laughed a little. “You and me both.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I grabbed it and saw that Eric texted me.
hey, come back to the hotel room, I have a surprise for u <3
I smirked and closed my phone. “Eric wants me to go to the hotel. Says he has a surprise.”
Jared smiled and rolled his eyes. “Alright, lets go.”
We both got back to the hotel and made our way to our rooms. I slid the room key through the reader on the door and the little light turned green. We pushed the door open and saw no one in there.
“Eric? Where are you?” I asked, smiling.
When I got no answer, the smile faded off my lips. Jared soon was following me into the room.
“Eric?” He called out.
We went in the room the rest of the way, closing the door behind us. I checked in the bathroom and saw no one.
“Okay, seriously, Eric, this is not a good surprise. Come out now before I call a search squad.”
“I’m in here.” I heard his voice call out from the other side of the room, behind a big wall covered in wall lights.
I breathed a sigh of relief, and we went toward Eric’s voice.
My vision suddenly went black and my mind went numb as I felt a huge pain on the back of my head.
I woke up on something soft and squishy, my face in something softer and squishier. My hands were elevated above me for some reason, and when I tried getting them down, they wouldn’t budge, and it hurt. Really bad. My feet weren’t elevated, but I couldn’t move them either, and the same pain came when I tried to do so. I started getting disgruntled and slowly opened my eyes. I found out the soft squishy thing my face was on was a pillow, and I was lying on a bed. My hands and feet were tied with rope. I tried asking why the hell I was tied up, but my mouth was covered by tape.
I started panicking and screaming, although muffled. I turned my head to look around the room and saw Eric and Jared sitting on the couch, tears streaming down both their faces, looking at me in horror.
I looked down at myself, seeing that I was naked. I started shaking as Craig came in the room, giving me the most maniacal smile I’ve ever seen.
He crawled onto the bed next to me and slowly pulled the tape off my mouth. I held in my scream of pain, shaking even more now. “Why the hell are you doing this?” I asked, my voice shaky and full of fear.
“I said I wasn’t going to leave you alone til I was done with you. You ran out on me yesterday, so now I’m making sure you don’t get away. And if your little friends try and help, they know what’s coming for them.”
I looked at Eric and Jared, and they both turned away, sobbing harder.
I glared at Craig. “You little fucking–”
My voice was muffled by Craig’s hand.
“Shhh.” Craig said in my ear.
Tears filled my eyes and hit the pillow. Unless Beau or Mike came in and saved us, Craig was going to get his way with me. And in front of my boyfriend and best friend.
I looked at Eric and Jared one last time and gave them my most apologetic eyes. They seemed to know what I was saying.
Then the torture began.
It was so horrible.
I couldn’t help but sob and scream through the whole thing. I heard Eric doing the same.
Craig lowered himself next to my face, sweating, smirking, breathing heavily. “Looks like they’re gonna have to change the bed sheets. Have you had enough?”
I said nothing, breathing heavily, keeping my sobs and screams in, thinking that staying silent and not pleading with him would make it stop.
He pulled my hair and bent my back in a way that it wasn’t supposed to. I let out a yelp of pain as Craig glared at me, teeth clenched. “I wanna hear you fucking scream.”
I whimpered in pain as Craig threw me back onto the bed. “You’re fucking pathetic.”
My silence seemed to have worked, because Craig then got off the bed and grabbed his clothes, going out of the room and using our shower.
Once we knew he wasn’t coming back in here for a good ten minutes, Eric and Jared came over by me and untied my hands and feet. I curled up in a ball of nastiness and pain. I hurt all over. There was blood running down my arms from the rope rubbing against my wrists, as well as by my ankles.
I felt so manipulated, so used, so ashamed.
I heard Eric and Jared whisper about taking me to the hospital, and I didn’t protest. Anything to get this all to go away.
When Craig got out of the shower, Eric and Jared went to go sit back down. When he saw that they untied me, he looked like he was about to yell at them, but it passed. He glared at them, then glared at me, leaving the room as if nothing ever happened.
“Go call Beau and Mike, tell them what happened. He needs to get to a hospital.” Eric said softly, urgently, to Jared. Jared nodded and left the room. I heard him break down into hysterics on the phone, and I started sobbing harder.
“Shhh, it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay...” Eric said, comforting me. It sounded like he was trying to comfort himself as well. “Do you think you’ll be able to walk?”
I shrugged, and even that hurt me because of the damage done to my back.
“Beau and Mike are on their way. They said they’d be here in five minutes or so.” Jared said quietly.
Eric nodded and turned back to me. “Lets get you dressed, okay?”
I nodded and tried sitting up, which was so horribly painful.
Eric tried getting me to lay back down, but I stopped him. “We’ve gotten this far, why backtrack.” I said weakly.
He smiled meekly at me and we continued. Walking wasn’t as horrible as I thought it was going to be, so I got in the shower and cleaned myself, feeling disgusting. I started sobbing again in the shower, thinking of what just happened to me. How could I have let that happen. Why did I leave Eric alone; I should’ve just stayed with him instead of going out with Jared.
I heard a knock on the door. “Are you almost done, Matt?” Eric asked outside the door.
“Yeah.” I said, shutting off the water, sniffling, surprised my voice came out as strongly as it did.
“Do you need me for anything?” Eric asked.
I wrapped my bottom half in a towel and opened the door, hugging Eric, feeling the tears coming again. “I just need you right now.”
I could’ve stayed in his arms for the rest of my life, because that was enough to dull the intensity of the memories of what happened, which will forever be etched into my brain.
“Come on, sweetie, we’ve gotta get you dressed and to the hospital.” Eric said, sniffling as well, walking with me to our part of the room and grabbing some clothes. Getting dressed was a painful task, but I managed to get some sweats and an old t-shirt on, slipping on my flip flops.
We came out of the room and went to Beau’s room, knocking on the door.
He came to the door and hugged me. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head, my body still slightly shaking.
“Lets go.” Eric said, leading me out of the hotel with his arm around my waist, tight up against him. I didn’t take my eyes off the ground as we stepped outside. I was dreading the ride there.
My dread was confirmed the moment my ass made contact with the seat.
“I’m sorry, Matt, it’s not that long of a ride. We’ll be there before you know it.” Eric said, massaging my hand. I looked at him; he was worried. Really worried.
“Hey.” I said quietly.
He looked at me with tear brimmed eyes.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” I said, kissing him, even though it sent a shooting pain down my back.
We got to the hospital and again, I made no eye contact with anyone or anything but the ground.
Eric and Jared explained everything and they took me back to one of the examination rooms. No one was allowed in with me because they weren’t immediate family.
The doctor did his examination and told me that the damage wasn’t as serious as it could have been, but it still needed some medical attention.
“Your friends are very lucky to have found you.” He said, filling out some forms. I guess Eric and Jared didn’t explain the situation in full detail. “Now, you’re going to have to talk to a few officers and tell them what happened so they can help find whoever did this to you.”
I nodded, starting to shake even more now. I couldn’t imagine what Craig would do if he found out that I got police involved, not only to me, but to any of the guys.