It's What Makes Me, Me

I had hit him too hard, my foot was turning numb and pain flooded through the cracks in my exterior. A limp was beginning to form, no not now it would slow us down as we ran for our lives, to freedom. Being trapped could have been worse, I had escaped for the most part uninjured and hadn’t been violated, in my mind it would have been worse if Lexii hadn’t of been there. She was strong and determined to escape, it was as if she’d experienced something like this before, I couldn’t ask her if she had. Peering to the girl next to me as we sprinted in search of someone, anyone but them, I finally noticed all the injuries she’d had suffered, the more recent splinters, bruises and scratches and the fading scrapes down her inner thigh and a series of small criss crossing cuts. From personal experience I could tell those were self inflicted, Lexii had many more like it that I just hadn’t noticed until now, collections of them on her thighs, arms and I could just make out a few, larger, deeper ones on her hips.
Gravel and loose rock crunched under our bare feet as we raced away from our prison, I could tell we, or at least I would need to get my feet looked at, as I felt it piercing and getting lodged in the soles of my feet. The loose rocks and gravel gradually faded leaving a dusty dirt track; at least we only had one route to follow, shit, spoke too soon. A crossroads lay in front of us, no signs, no directions, and no help. ‘Which way do we go?’ I asked nervously, her reply was quick ‘it doesn’t matter as long as we get away from here’. I felt her soft hands snake into mine, interlocking our fingers to show we were there to help the other, together we ran forward continuing on the path we were already on.
The whole experience was becoming a blur in my mind; the feeling that this was just a bad dream looming over me didn’t compare to the haunting reality of our situation. What had happened to Lexii before I had been trapped with her? Who could we tell about this? ‘Who do we tell about this?’ I mumbled just loud enough so Lexii could hear, her head snapped in my direction and she stopped abruptly, ‘no one, we can’t tell anyone about this’. Uncontrollably my mouth hung open ‘What!’ I was shocked, this was the first time something like this had happened to me so I had no idea what to do.
Lexii grabbed my hand and pulled me to the side of the dirt track, time seemed to slow down as we sat on the grassy bank. ‘I’m sorry about how we treated you’ my voice struggled to support the apologetic words as they left my mouth; Lexii shrugged ‘its okay I guess, I’m sorry I ignored you’. So she was ignoring me, now all I needed to do was find out why. The reason behind Lexii’s imprisonment was clear, to her at least but mine were shrouded behind lies and cover ups, all I wanted now was the truth. Jumping to my feet, we needed to continue moving. Grabbing Lexii’s hand I pulled her up, it was good that we were friends now; I finally had someone I could trust with my secrets.
Increase in sunlight from the ever rising sun cast our ragged shadows across the dirt track in front of us, we were heading west.