April's POV

There were light splatters of water splashed onto my face.

It felt refreshing. I turned slightly, mumbling incoherently into the pillow. Gradually, slowly, then surely, the raindrops began to become heavier until an overwhelming sensation of panic shot through me as a bucket of ice-cold water drowned me temporarily.

My eyes burst open and I sat up frantically, spluttering. My pulse was racing sporadically. Using two fingers, I wiped wet strands of hair from my face and the haziness from my eyes. A dark form was leaned over me and as I blinked a few more times, Jerkface came into view, his forehead furrowed. When he saw me register his presence, he grinned devilishly.

"You sleep like a dead person. And you drool."

"What, aren't you going to get up now? Or are you too tired?" He mocked, a smile pulling his lips upwards. A jolt of adrenaline shot into me again - I was momentarily distracted by him to remember to be pissed as hell and then glanced down at myself. My body was soaking wet and when I lifted my leg it squelched.

He laughed and lifted up a bucket triumphantly.

"What the hell is your problem?" I snapped. I was beyond angry.

He continued to laugh and I yelled all sorts of obscenities at him, my eyes pricking with anger. Then, seeing as he was clearly incapable of feeling any empathy for his actions, I returned the favour and, with a small smile, flicked him with the minuscule water droplets hanging off my fingertips.

I continued flicking him with every bit of dripping water I could physically fling. His laughter stopped.

I scooted out of bed so there was a small amount of distance between us. I didn't doubt that he would reach me within two strides though. When I got up I squelched to the door as quickly as my legs could carry me, but he blocked the doorway in one swift movement. The laughter lines around his eyes were gone, his eyes no longer laughing.

Oh damn.

Way to go April – just go and make your kidnapper angry when he specifically said he'd hurt you if you didn't cooperate.

"That wasn't very nice." His voice soft. Too soft. I swallowed hard but my throat was dry and no sound came out. It was at moments like this that I wished I possessed more courage. As much as I would have relished in muttering an insult or standing tall and making a stand, I couldn't because I was a coward. Aiden stepped towards me lightly, his movements silent - elegant almost. I moved backwards silently until I hit into something hard. The wall.

Oh damn.

He reached me and caged me with two arms so that I was trapped - the action appeared non-threatening, almost affectionate, but all the anger was present in his eyes, not his hands.

He bent down until he was eye level with me and said. "Look, the rules of this game are simple. You don't get to mess with me, I get to mess with you. It's really not that hard to abide. And I think you know what will happen if you break them." He smirked at the last bit. I wanted to hit him so badly but he was so close to me that I was scared of what my actions could reciprocate. I couldn't move without touching him, so I was ultimately trapped.

"Don't you have anything to say to that or is the courage gone?"

I swallowed, praying that my breathing would level out. My chest felt tight, my palms wet. This proximity was making me very, very uncomfortable and I wanted nothing more than to push him away. I moved slightly, my body suddenly feeling heavy all over again because of the unwelcoming wake-up call.

"I'm sorry." Not.

He released his hands, took a step back, smiled and titled his head to one side thoughtfully in one graceful motion. "Thank you. I appreciate that very much."

Glancing at the mirror, he ran a hand through his damp hair. "You messed up my hair."

"You messed mine up too." I pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

He shook the thought off, and spoke, ignoring me. "Get ready and come downstairs. People are waiting for you and time's-a-ticking. Clothes are in that cupboard." I looked in the direction of his finger, nodding. "The bathroom is two doors down to the left. The lock's a bit tricky, but just keep twisting it and it should work. If it doesn't, tough luck - you better pray no-one walks in." He swept past me, causing me to stumble to the side in his wake.

Jerk much?

Shivering, I rubbed my arm and pondered this strange boy. I'd made my mind up about one thing: he was quite clearly deranged.

* * * * * * * * *

I decided to look in the cupboard first for clean clothes - anything to replace the ones I was wearing - and found that it was fully stocked. My jaw slackened. Whose clothes was it that I was borrowing? Strangely, we were the same size in nearly everything. The shelves were neatly lined with thick jumpers, woollen coats, jeans, t-shirts and upon opening a cupboard, a heap of socks.

I quickly found a pair of dark jeans, a black long-sleeved top and a knitted cardigan because despite the warmth of the room, it seemed cold outside. Thick fog distorted the vista outside the window, enveloping my sight and everything it encompassed.

Grabbing some underwear, I headed into the bathroom, following his instructions about the lock with careful precision. There was a tall shower in one corner with a bathtub stretched underneath it, the taps glinting.

Showering, I scrubbed at my body vigorously, until steam swirled under the light bulbs overhead and took my time changing, examining every inch of the bathroom, whilst all the while humming A Pocketful of Sunshine. I tugged on the window again, testing the stiff latch, desperate to waste time.

The longer I'm away from him, the better!

* * * * * * * * *

After 20 minutes of pointless wondering, I decided to go downstairs into the kitchen. I entered it cautiously to find Jerkf- I mean Aiden leaning against the counter with his back to me. Maybe you should call him Aiden now - if you accidentally call him Jerkface out loud, you're doomed. My inside voice warned me.

I moved quietly, not wanting to attract his attention and studied him closely. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt with jeans. He looked effortlessly good-looking. It wasn't fair! I sighed to myself in dejection. After studying him further, my growling stomach gave me away.

"You called me down?"

"Yes." He gestured for me to take a seat. I cautiously sat down – what cruel joke was he going to pull on me now? Set a hybrid dog on me? Glue me to the chair? Pretend to be nice and feed me poisoned cereal?

He sat opposite me, webbing his long fingers under his chin and leaning forward. I sat back on the chair instinctively.

His smile vanished. "Alright, let's cut the bullshit. I'm not going to pretend to be a nice guy - I'm not. We need to know each other in depth; if we're going to pretend to be mates, we need to at least understand how the other person works to make it more believable. That means you also have to spend time with my friends – I need to pull this off." He said determinedly. I got the feeling he was convincing himself more than me throughout this.

"Okay." The situation still baffled me. "So, what do we do?"

"What do you think? We need to get to know each other. I'll start by interrogating you - hopefully your life is far more interesting than you've given the impression of it being." I shifted in my seat, slightly offended.

"Okay." I wasn't going to look affected by him – jerks like him feed off people's unhappiness. He's a human dementor. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, his eyes assessing me curiously.

Thankfully, he asked me the most boring, predictable and tiresome questions that ever existed, such as when my birthday was, when I came to America, my personality summed up in three words etcetera etcetera. I caught him yawning every now and then and shot him the dirtiest look I could muster.

After nearly 30 minutes of questioning he said, "Well, you are officially the most boring person I have ever met. I mean you have no substance, no life to you. The only interesting thing that's happened to you is that you moved to America by yourself to pursue an education. That story was kind of interesting, until you said that you moved here to complete school and gain qualifications for a future business in a bakery." I became very still. "You have the mindset of a middle-aged women whose given up with living her life."

His words hurt – I knew I was nothing special, but people had the respect not to tell me how un-extraordinary I was. My hurt turned to anger. How dare that jerk tell me that my life was boring. Look at his own pathetic excuse of one - he was a kidnapper, a jerk and an asshole.

Instead of allowing my anger to get the better of me, I smiled at him as charmingly as I could and told him the truth. "Thank you for telling me what a dull excuse of a human being I am. But honestly, are you any better? Don't you spend all your time drinking and smoking? I don't know you personally, but I can tell that you simply follow through with life because you have to - you don't live at all. You simply be."

He fell silent, eyes shining.

"You think my life is boring?" He leaned forward – I could see the muscles in his arm flexing as he did so and tore my eyes away. "I quite enjoy my way of life. It's spontaneous, enjoyable and unpredictable. Unfortunately, for narrow-minded people such as yourself, you constrain yourself with ideals that are created by people who clearly have no idea what the word fun means."

"Shut up! The word fun isn't defined in the same way in everyone's books, so I suppose the only narrow-minded one here is you."

"I'm not narrow-minded!"

"You are!"

"You're the one who wants to open a bakery in a world where there is an impending obesity epidemic."

"I'm not promoting obesity, I just want to follow my passion."

"Sure. And kill half of us whilst you're at it."

"Shut it." I shot back hotly.

"You stop trying to win a losing case."

I screamed in frustration and threw myself back in the chair, exhausted from this stupid fight with this stupid boy. Arguing with a fool makes you a fool. Arguing with a fool makes you a fool. Arguing with a fool makes you a fool. I kept repeating this in my head, determined not to give him the satisfaction of showing my frustration.

Movement from the corner of my eye made both of our heads turn in unison to the welcome disturbance. Diego, Beau, Carlos, Daniel and Emma were standing with their mouths agape – they'd obviously just seen the fight. After a few moments of stunned silence, their raucous laughter filled the kitchen.

I mentally face palmed myself and slumped back in my chair, covering my face with my hand. Oh God.