❤ To Save Our Heartbeats ❤

Laying on my bed, if you could even call the hard as hell mattress on a old metal frame truly a bed, I stared at the ceiling lost in my thoughts. Sometimes its hard to believe that I've been in this godforsaken place for nearly 4 years, one thousand four hundred and sixty days... it's crazy. I have pretty much given up on any hope of actually being adopted, most prospective parents want the babies, toddlers, and little kids, not the loud mouth teenagers, so normally, anyone over six or seven years gets passed over every time.

When I was rescued from my kidnappers four years ago, the police assured me they were taking me to a safe place, a better place, where things would be good again. Yeah, what a load of crap that had been. The owner of the orphanage, Acacia, she didn't give two shits about any of us, this was just a job to her, and she loved making our lives hell, as if being an orphan and going through everything most of us had already gone through in our lives wasn't hell enough, no she just had to constantly make it a hundred times worth with her harsh words and snappy nature.

You can't even imagine how many times I have thought about, how many times I've actually attempted to just end it, to just end my life and escape all this bullshit. The only thing that's really kept me going all this time at all is my sisters, Rachel and Quinn. They aren't really my sisters, not biologically at least, but they are in all the ways that matter. They're just as damaged and fucked up as I am, but we kind of hold each other together in a weird way. They are a big part of the reason that I haven't harmed myself at all in any way for a full month, which is a huge thing for me, a record of time actually. They make me want to keep living, to keep fighting.

I was pulled away from my thoughts, snapped away from them really, by the sound of Rachel's voice screaming from the bathroom that connected to our dorm room.

"Quinn! What the hell?" she screamed.

At the sound and tone of her voice, and her words, I jumped from my bed and rushed to the bathroom myself, frowning deeply. I hear Quinn's voice as I enter the room, responding to Rachel, while sobbing.

"Too...much...pain!" she sobs, and my chest clenches when I see her, see all the blood dripping from her arms as she clings to Rachel.

"Seriously, Quinn? Didn't you learn from MY mistakes?" I snap at her slightly, as I too rush to her side.

I instantly regret that my words sound so harsh, I mean I know what she is going through, I know how the pain feels, all the inner torture. But I can't let her destroy herself, I can't be alive without her and Rachel, I just can't. They are the only anchor keeping me holding on to my own life, and I cannot lose that.

Kneeling beside my sisters, I help Rachel to clean up and take care of Quinn's wounds. I make sure to be as gentle as I can, whispering words of support in my youngest sister's ear as I work. Just as we finally have her all fixed up, well as well as we possibly can at least, the sound of Acacia's voice sounds from the doorway to our room, out of nowhere, making us all groan.

"Yo, scumbags, get your asses downstairs. We've got people here to adopt," she says, as if anyone is actually going to adopt the three of us.

But we are the only ones actually at the orphanage at the moment, and she's at our door, so she can't mean anyone else. At this time of day, all of the younger kids are still at school, as elementary school and middle school get out later than high school does. Nodding, we follow her downstairs, though I'm pretty sure all three of us are thinking the same thing, that this will be pointless, whoever is here won't want us, they never do.

We follow her into her office, where five guys who look in their early twenties are waiting. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks five young guys looking to adopt is a bit weird, but who am I to judge or question, so I say nothing. I just get in line with Rachel and Quinn and the other 3 high school age girls here at the orphanage, and wait patiently to see what happens.

"So, here they all are, choose away," Acacia told the men in her normal bored as hell careless snappy tone. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes at her to be quite honest.

"Can we interview each one individualy?"

I looked up at the sound of the question, finding it had been the one with dark hair and a slight beard that had spoken. I watched him slightly intrigued, as I waited for Acacia's response.

"I don't really give a shit what you do with them," she replied, snorting.

The one who had spoken noticed me staring, and nodded at me before speaking.

"You, with the blue hair, you first," he said, pointing at me, as if there were anyone else with blue hair in the room to have been confused with, and motioning for me to follow him and his friends back out into the hall.

Exchanging a quick look with my sisters, I got out of line and followed them. Out in the hallway, the five of them just stood against the wall looking at me, as if they were trying to figure me out with their minds, it was a bit unnerving really. But I didn't call them out on it, just waited for them to initiate the conversation that was clearly coming.

"So, I don't know if you know who we are," the one who had spoken in the office finally spoke up, "we're kind of famous so you definitely could, but it's okay if you don't"

Now that he mentioned this, they did look vaguely familiar, as if I had seen them on the tv or in a magazine somewhere, but whoever they were I wasn't an actual fan so I didn't really know who they were.

"No, sorry, I don't," I said, shaking my head.

"Like I said, that's all good," he responded to my words with a smile, "the thing is, we're a famous band, a boyband, and we have to travel a lot and be away from our families and friends and stuff, and it gets lonely as shit a lot of the time. Plus, well, we hate knowing there are orphans out there stuck in horrible places like this, yeah we know this place is horrible, you don't have to pretend it's not. Sooo... we decided we would adopt a few girls in their teens, both to have some company with us while we tour, and to help get a few of you out of this situation ya know... and well, that's why we're here."

I stared at him, genuinely surprised by his explanation. He seemed genuine, but it was just, well crazy that they wanted to do this. Most celebrities like them wouldn't care enough to do something like this. But here they were, and they were doing it. Honestly I was kind of impressed.

"Wow..." I said, at a loss for any other words at the moment.

The blonde one chuckled at my response, and I smiled slightly. The one who originally had spoken then began to speak again.

"So, introductions. I'm Liam, and this is Harry, Zayn, Niall, and Louis," he said pointing to each of his friends, and er I guess bandmates, in turn, "what's your name?"

"I'm urm Mizuki," I responded.

I found myself suddenly hoping and praying that they would choose me, even though I'd given up hope til now, suddenly, with knowing why they were here, that hope was creeping back a bit. A hope that maybe, just maybe, I finally had a way out of this place. But I also knew there was no way in hell I would willingly go anywhere without Quinn and Rachel, so I needed to let them know that.

"Look... I honestly thought I'd never get out of this place... not before I turned eighteen or just died... whichever happened first. But now... well what you guys are doing has me hoping just maybe you might decide to take me, that I might get the fuck out of here... urm... excuse my language," I said honestly, and bluntly, "but even if by some miracle you decide I'm one you want to adopt, to get out of here, you need to know that I will not willingly leave here without my best friends... my sisters in every meaning of the term besides blood... Rachel and Quinn. I'm sorry but I won't leave them to suffer in this place just to escape by myself."

"Are those the two you walked in with?" the one I thought was named Louis asked, "the ones who looked as shitty, no offense meant love, as you do? One of them has bandages on her arms I think?"

I just nodded in response.

"Well then its decided. We're taking you three," he said.

I widened my eyes, looking back and forth between the five of them.

"Are you... are you serious?" I asked softly.

Liam and the others nodded.

"The minute we saw you three we noticed you looked worse off than the others," Liam said, "that's why we wanted to talk to one or two of you privately, to get a feel for you and the situation. So let's go get your sisters, make this adoption official, and get you guys the hell out of here yeah?"

I just nodded, shocked and speechless, and followed them back into the office. This was real, this was happening, we were escaping this hell hole, finally.

Notes