Four months later...

I scrambled onto Thomas's desk, deeming it the best place to look for pencils and paper. They were usually littered on the floor, but for the first time in almost a month, he'd decided to tidy his room. Thomas himself was lying with his hands at his stomach listening to his IPod. I heard the faint sound of 'It Comes Back To You' by Imagine Dragons pump through his ear buds. I steered well away from him, knowing a confrontation would do nothing in my favour. It had been a long time since our last proper conversation, and not as long a time since I'd regained function of my legs. And being stuck in a birdcage for two months with my only company being a broken teenage boy with long hair was not really something I'd want to repeat.

My thoughts were conflicted though, and the same nagging voice, while growing smaller and smaller by the day, begged me to talk to him about his problems. I opted to avoid him as usual and reached for the pencil tin to yank a pole sized pacer down onto the desk. I barely felt Thomas's eyes flicker on my pale body, but they didn't linger. They never did, anymore. I pulled a strip of lead out of the pacer and lay down beside one of the notebooks on the desk to begin sketching.

As soon as I'd let the lead tip make contact with the paper, it skimmed across the page like it had a mind of its own. I let it, bored of drawing set things that no longer mattered in my life. I sat bolt upright though, when I realized that I had drawn Thomas's face and scribbled over the top of the sketch with gritted teeth. I hurled the lead across the desk, as far away as possible, and put my head in my hands. I didn't even care that Thomas had his eyes locked on me again. Tears streamed down my face. What was I doing? Did I even know anymore? As I wept, a familiar song filled my ears.

"We all are living in a dream, where life ain't what it seems... oh everything's a mess..." I started humming the tune of 'Dream' quietly through the constant flow of tears. I sang the chorus dully, and memories flooded in of the first time I'd heard the song, back in the birdcage when Marcus had sung it to himself. It made me realise just how much I could relate to the lyrics. The world I lived in was much like a dream, where everything in it was a complete mess. So once the song had consumed me in its sorrows, I didn't even notice that I'd gotten to my feet and  sat on the edge of the desk, with Thomas's giant face inches from my own.

I did though, when he turned to face me so suddenly that I had next to no time to put my hands over my ears before he yelled:

 "What are you DOING!" His voice pierced my eardrums like knives and I fell back, rubbing my temples in pain. I sniffled away the tears in a rush, as I watched the shadow of his hand move over my body. I cringed at first but then relaxed, realising how little I cared. When he lifted me off the desk with rough movements, I didn't even flinch or try to escape. He brought me eye level with him, his hand around my waist and chest again like a vice. It brought a painful round of Déjà vu to stare up at Thomas's angry face from the same angle as I had four months ago. The only difference now was my attitude to the situation.

"Go ahead." I mumbled, with a blunt voice that was not my own. "Kill me."

Thomas's huge blue eyes widened, but to my surprise there was only a slight flicker of anger behind them."Why don't you fight? Why don't you hate me?" He asked, practically begging for the answer.

So, with a long sigh, I gave it to him. "Because you're not always like this." I said. "Most of the time, you're just like me. Lost."

My words didn't seem to affect him as much as I'd thought, and all I got in return was a sigh of his own. "I don't get you, Amy. Everyone else in that blasted cage wants to kill me. It's their punishment." His arm muscles contracted further around my waist. I winced, expelling a sharp grunt in pain.

"I... don't... think... you... hate... me." The words came out in a ragged croak, my lungs in the process of being ruptured in his grip.

All signs of confusion in Thomas's expression changed, and his face twisted into a snarl. "Of course I hate you, you little shit. You put my mum in jail and sent me into foster care!" He snapped, the volume stinging my ears.

"Well... I'll never hate you Thomas. Even if you torture me till I die. I will never hate you." I gasped, as the pain of being squeezed dulled my senses and tore through my bones.

"You are winning a losing battle, Amy. I can make you hate me. All I have to do is snap your little bones one by one and watch you suffer and scream knowing no one, no one can fix someone your size once they are crippled." He hissed. I recoiled in his grip, as if I'd just been slapped.

"You're not really like this." I said tightly. "I know that somewhere deep down you care for us. You bring us food and water. Give us time outside. I know you care for me." My heart beat at a million miles in my chest as four month's worth of bottled anger finally spilled from my lips.

"Picture yourself this size, Thomas Ryan. Picture your dad running out of the hospital after they saw that their only child had been shrunk. Picture yourself knowing your whole life that you have broken your family and left your little brother fatherless. You have it damn good, and you know it!" I yelled the last half of my speech, body quivering in rage. "And if my mum gave me up because I was too hard to look after, then no one would adopt my sorry ass and give me a new home. Because no one wants a tiny daughter."

 I exhaled shakily and waited for a reaction. It came of course, but Thomas was silent for a few seconds beforehand. He released his grip on me and I squeezed my eyes shut, anticipating the familiar racking pain in my legs after I'd hit the ground... just like before. But I landed on my back on a surface surprisingly soft and squishy, the wind knocked out of my aching body. I'd fallen onto Thomas's bed, although the relief was short lived, as I snapped back into standing, his gigantic body still turned to me.

 "I wish I could see you this size." I continued, as if I hadn't just free fallen over 50 relative metres. "I wish I could see you suffer the way I do and I wish you were the one getting thrown onto a bed and toyed with like you know nothing." I yelled, no air in my lungs to fuel my retort.

Thomas didn't move. He just sat there cross legged on his bed staring. In bewilderment I suppose. I don't think even Marcus had been game enough to say something like that to him before. But then again, I was different. Out of all of us, I'd endured this kind of suffering for the longest, even though the others had been in Thomas's clutches far longer. My mind had grown accustomed to being trapped long before my body had. All it had taken for it to catch up was a situation like my abduction, and now, I felt ready to let go. Regular sized people had taken advantage of me for my entire life, and I'd just reached my breaking point. After half a minute of waiting for Thomas's next move though, someone cheered. I scanned the bedroom with confused eyes, searching for the speaker.

"Go Amy! Teach that fucker a lesson!" It took me a while to realise that it was Marcus cheering, the boy who'd never even left the birdcage until, well, now. Ebony and Russel came out from behind a bookshelf and joined in, followed by Harriet, and then finally Abigail and James.

I couldn't help but beam, grateful that there were other backing me up. Thomas on the other hand had paled. His tanned skin was barely white. I relaxed a little on the bed, enjoying the satisfaction of overpowering Thomas, although it didn't last long. His rough hand came at me again and I retained the same smug smile as I was scooped me up again and held back at eye level with the giant. I didn't even offer any resistance to the invading digits.

"Look what you've done! You've embarrassed me. Made me feel like the loser here!" He snapped in irritation. The sheer sound of his voice burst my ears, but I ignored the pain. My lips curled into a smile.

 "Isn't that what you wanted us to feel, Thomas? Like we hate you? Think you are the loser here? I think you'll find that everyone but me in this room is complying with your wishes." I replied in complete calm.

 His eyes flared in anger. Still holding me in the tight grip I was already growing accustomed to, he yanked open his desk drawer and retrieved an empty jam jar, with several holes punched into the lid. I laughed when he held it out for me to see, obviously expecting me to cower in fear at the sight of the thing. It was one moment where I appreciated the countless past times when Max and his friends had gotten kicks out of seeing me trapped inside a jar for hours, even days on end whilst mum was on business trips.

"You think that scares me?" I giggled, wiping a tear out of my eye. "Believe me; I am quite accustomed to being shoved in a jar." At that stage, I wasn't in the right frame of mind to give a shit. I only watched with a manic grin as he opened the jar lid with exaggerated movements and dropped me roughly inside. My face whacked the size of the glass, but I was too giddy to feel the pain that followed. My eyes never left his as he screwed the lid shut overhead, or when he placed the jar beside him on the desk. I sat up with my back propped lazily against the clean glass wall of the jar and folded my arms with a loud huff.

"Am I your new pet?" I asked.

Thomas grunted to himself, but didn't answer. My guess was that he was still fuming from being humiliated. "You little bitch. Let's see how you feel after a week next to me in that jar." He snapped, and I shot him a devil's smile.

"Oooh! Harsh words for someone younger than me!"

"Hah. When's your birthday?"

"January third."

"Bitch." He lay back on his bed and exhaled slowly.

"Just to clarify, I've been in a jar for more than a week. This is a norm." I said with a casual shrug. He laughed dryly in response.

"Well I hope you enjoy your stay." He said with a voice dripping with sarcasm.

"I will, thank you." I mumbled.