Italics = Isabella

"Did you get the milk?"

"Yeah, I got you some more teabags as well, we're running a little low."

"Oh, really? I hadn't noticed. Thank you, sweetheart."

"Don't mention it, Auntie Lauren, it's the best I can do after all you've done for me."

"Isabella, you never have to thank me, you know that?"

"I...I know."

"I took you in because I saw that my niece needed a place to stay, not out of pity or anything else. I asked you to live with me because I wanted you around. You do know that, don't you?"

"Of...of course."

"And I know settling in has been hard but...you're going to be okay, sweetie. You're as strong as your mother, you are. If anyone can pull through, it's you."

"Thanks...Auntie Lauren."

"No problem, sweetheart. I just wish I could make everything better for you."

"Lauren, you've done everything you possibly can even when I didn't ask for it. I couldn't possibly ask you for more than that."

"I...I know but... but it hurts me to think that you had to see that...that horrific, horrific thing. It's downright hellish that you had to go through that."

"I...I'm fine, Auntie Lauren."

"I know you're not sweetie, but you will be; I...I can promise you that."

"..."

"You know you didn't have to go to the store, don't you? I could have done it on my way home from work."

"It's...it's really no trouble. I...I kind of needed an excuse to get out of the apartment anyway."

"Well...alright then. I'll see you when I get home, alright?"

"Alright."

"And...stay safe, okay?"

"I...I don't really think staying safe is my choice to make, Auntie Lauren."

Isabella slipped the phone back into her jeans pocket, keeping her head down as the hustle and bustle of London pushed her around the streets like a powerful wave being pulled back to shore. Unintentional and completely unwilling. She had no control over her direction, only knowing that she had to keep moving forward, no matter how many times the ripples of people attempted to jostle her from side to side.

People surrounded her, seeming set on whatever direction they were headed, not paying her any attention as she slowly eased herself between the alleyways that were temporarily formed between two people. She supposed that they saw her as nothing but a taller than average school girl on her way home. That is if they saw her at all. It was so easy to blend into the sea of faces; so easy to become another drop in an ocean of secrets. An ocean of people with secrets.

It had always fascinated Isabella to imagine herself as someone else would see her. Looking in the mirror didn't even come close to truly seeing yourself. To see yourself you had to account for every little bit of your body. Of your personality. A mirror always cuts something out, a biased reflective material that only allows the viewer to see what they want to see. In the books, people could look into another's eyes and easily tell the emotions that swirled beneath them. That didn't happen in real life. Because, if it did, then every single person on that busy London street would have stopped and asked if she was okay. Because she wasn't. And eyes weren't windows to the soul so no one could tell. All the sea of strangers could see was a girl with hair the colour of sunshine and a smile that had no reason to be fake.

Isabella had lost the privilege of seeing strangers as strangers.

All she saw were potential threats. Like that man in a form-fitting suit who had been walking ahead of her for the past few blocks. Or that woman wearing bright red lipstick who was waiting at the bus stop. Or the guy beside her with an obnoxiously large umbrella that created her own personal rain cloud above her head. To anyone else, they would have been normal people walking through London. To Isabella, she couldn't see them as anything but potential criminals, preparing her head for the worst that could possibly happen so that it wouldn't come as a surprise when the nightmare erupted. Not like last time.

Because staying safe wasn't her choice to make, she had discovered that far sooner than she should have done. How could it be her choice to stay safe if someone was out to get her? If someone held her at gunpoint, that wasn't because she had chosen not to be safe. It was because someone else had taken that decision into their own hands. And, unfortunately, that decision had not been one that she had approved of.

Reaching her apartment door was like reaching a safe haven. There would be no strangers in here. Nothing but a small square space for living with no guns and no threats and no one to judge and no one to become a possible threat. The thought made her heartbeat accelerate, desperate to get away from a world of faceless terrors and into a universe that only consisted of things that she knew were safe.

She was fumbling for her key when she heard the opposite apartment door squeak open, the rusty hinges screeching for the whole corridor to hear. It took a few moments before the door slammed shut again, causing her to flinch at the sound that sounded all too similar to something far more sinister. The key turned in the lock next, the locking of a home synchronising with the frighteningly similar sound of Isabella unlocking her own.

Pushing the door open, she caught one glimpse of the figure as he slipped his key back into his pocket and walked off down the hallway towards the stairs.

Frowning to herself, she recognized the boy as the same one that she had sat next to on the bus.

The one who had seemed content to hum and dance along to the music in his ears.