❛ Memories, not bad dreams ❜

"Screw you, Cecil," Anna hissed under her raspy voice as she glared into the eyes of the drug lord who showed no mercy. He laughed in his cryptic and cynical cackle and slowly walked closer to the shaking girl who was suffering from a drug withdrawal. "You stupid girl," he smiled. "You think it matters if you really answer me? You think I don't already know exactly where your precious Thea Queen is at this moment? She's at a party with her so called friends and is currently getting drunk with some vodka. You mean nothing to me, Annabelle Carter. And your answers don't benefit me at all."

"Then why are you asking them?" she bravely demanded, wanting to know why the Count was needing to know answers about her and Oliver's escapades and plans. "I want to see if you are willing to give me the right answers," he smirked before turning on his heel and bouncing lightly between his left and right feet. His back faced Anna and she let out a huff of air and tried to release all the fear she had been holding in while being in the presence of the Count, though she would never admit it.

"You never answered my question," the girl spoke up, making the unstable man whip around. "What question?"

"I asked you what you wanted with me," she told him, her fear escalating as he approached. "I want your boyfriend," he answered simply. "Then why don't you take him?" she argued. "Why the fuck am I here?"

"Why not torture you by torturing Oliver? I'm killing two birds with one single stone."

"You're sick," she said while shaking her head. The Count slowly approached her. "You're sick!" she screamed as he overtook her and her vision went away.

The night Oliver fell asleep beside Anna was the night Anna awoke in tears and sweat due to a vivid nightmare. She didn't let Oliver know about her nightmare and instead, she rolled over and scrambled out of bed where she eventually made it to the bathroom with insane pain in her side. She felt Oliver awake as she wandered outside her room and before he could call out to her, she had already shut the bathroom door and crawled against the wall across from the toilet as she cradled her legs and tried to ignore the pain. She did not realize Oliver was counting the minutes till she returned to bed with him, but when she didn't return for more than five minutes, he got up and went to go find her. She was replaying her nightmare in her head. She watched the needle come closer to her, she saw the Count's beady eyes staring into her own, she saw the lights flickering in the corner.

Bang! Bang!

Anna sighed and stretched her neck, staring at the art piece in front of her on the wall as the door to the bathroom opened. Oliver's head poked in and he smiled softly at her, "What's wrong?" he asked while sitting down on the floor next to her and looking at her. She shrugged, "My stomach is hurting," she honestly replied to the man. His eyebrows furrowed, "What happened?"

She shook her head, "I had a bad dream. It'll go away in a few minutes," she replied quietly. "About?"

Anna sighed and glanced over at Oliver before laying her head on his shoulder, "The island,"
she lied, knowing it would be a more painful and difficult conversation if she told the truth. Oliver nodded, "I have those, too. But they're memories, not bad dreams."

"I know, Oliver," she muttered while staring at her hands. "That's the scary part."

•••

When Oliver had left to go train at Verdant, Anna had taken her chance to leave the house. Moira was at Queen Consolidated and Thea was at school, so Anna had an opportunity to go by her lonesome to revisit her horrible ordeal. She had slipped away so easily and wore only a simple black hoodie that belonged to Oliver and leggings. She had to wear her hood and sunglasses so no one recognized her and wondered why she was out about. She had to take a bus to get to the outskirts and after many stops and a little bit of walking, Annabelle stopped in front of an abandoned building with dead plants in front.

She stared at the worn-down concrete building for a long moment before taking a deep breath and stepping forward. She walked up the long road of gravel until she got to the rusted metal door and she slowly lifted her hand up to the doorknob. She twisted the knob that creaked as she turned it, and pushed it open with all the strength she could muster. The room was barren aside from the one chair in the center of the room.

There was yellow tape guarding the back wall where blood dripped down and Anna shivered. Goosebumps flooded her arms and she turned away, choosing to look at the cracked floor and single chair. She walked to the chair and ran her hands over the rusted seat. There was a drop of blood staining the floor under the chair and Anna took a deep breath. Something inside her compelled her to sit in the chair and so she did. She planted herself down and stared straight ahead, trying to imagine her dream that she had earlier.

As she stared at the cracked wall, she saw a shadow of the man who held her captive for weeks and inflicted so much pain in her body. She shook at the remembrance of him. Annabelle Carter had survived years on an island where she had to learn how to survive with no shelter and food and when she was a child she had never even gone camping. She had endured stab wounds and bullet holes, scars and scrapes, and heartbreak and love. But this was different. Never in her life had she had a needle pressed into her shoulder everday with a new drug in it. Never had she been forcefully addicted to a liquid that made her blood burn. Never had she been completely alone for weeks with only a crazy man before her. She had been helpless against her captor when she should have been able to kill him at the snap of her wrist. But she couldn't even move with the pain of her ulcer.

The sound of a vague ringing snapped Anna out of her horrifying trance and the girl blinked twice to clear her vision before pulling out her cellphone from her jacket pocket. She saw Oliver's name come across her screen and she pressed the accept button while holding it to her ear.

"Hey, where are you?" the voice questioned and Anna instantly knew Oliver was worried about her - especially since she wasn't supposed to be out and about without someone with her. "What do you mean?" she asked while rising to her feet and approaching the metal door. She heard Oliver huff. "You know what I mean, Annabelle. You aren't home and Diggle is with me. Where did you go?"

Anna shrugged and hugged her arms against her chest as she left the building and continued down the concrete path. "I went to the Carter Provision," she lied. Oliver rolled his eyes as he stood in the living room of his home, "You're not supposed to be working."

"I wasn't," she told him, dodging people on the sidewalks and keeping her head down. "I was..." she hesitated, needed a real reason she would be at work if she wasn't actually at work. "I went to go visit Jordan and brought him lunch. He thought it was ironic since he is usually getting me lunch and now he's running the Provision while I'm out in rehab."

"You aren't in rehab," Oliver rebutted with a faint smile on his lips. "But you're still not allowed out without someone with you. And you aren't supposed to be walking that much. Did you take a town car?"

Anna pursed her lips, "Uh, not particularly. I did walk," she answered. She heard a groan from Oliver and before he could respond she jumped back in, "But I feel fine."

"It's not about how you feel right now. It's how you're going to feel in two hours."

"This isn't the worst thing I've endured, Ollie," she announced, knowing he would very well understand her pain. "I'll be home shortly anyways. And tell Diggle to stop worrying about me, please."

"The last time we didn't worry about you for one minute, you went to go get Thea's pajamas and disappeared for weeks. I'm not taking any more chances, Anna."

"I understand," Anna sighed. She looked down at her sneakers and watched herself walk slowly in the Glades. She counted her steps and tried to avoid all the cracks like she did when she was a child and she had her parents on either side of her as they lifted her up and swung her over each crack in the pavement. "You're scared, too," she realized.

There was no response on the other end for a long moment and Anna brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes while waiting. "Yes," the simple response was. Anna frowned, "I'm sorry I left that night. I should have stayed with Thea. I should have reacted faster. There were so many things I could have changed and I - "

"There was nothing you could have done, Bella."

"Oliver, you know there was. I made an amateur mistake."

"No, you didn't," he sternly replied, making Anna silence and her shoulders drop. "This isn't a conversation to have over the phone. I'm coming to get you."

"Ol - "

"I'll see you in five minutes."

Once the line clicked, Anna shoved the phone back in her pocket and slid her hands in the pockets as well. She looked straight ahead as she walked and thought about the conversation she had just had with Oliver. She knew she was scared about what happened to her, but she didn't know Oliver was. She had convinced herself that she had failed and that ultimately led to her demise. She thought that if she hadn't had left the hospital, of if she turned around faster, or if she was just able to get out of her chair, then she would have been fine. Oliver believed her. He knew she was stronger than she gave herself credit for and because of what happened she had lost all hope in herself. He always knew that what they did was dangerous and one day someone would get hurt. But he never thought it would be when they weren't paying attention that someone would get hurt. Anna was the love of Oliver's life, and if he lost her then his life would lose all meaning.

He couldn't let her get hurt.