Page 30 of Heal Me

The worst pain is not the one on the outside, though, or even the searing sensation throbbing in my back opening. No, what has me wailing into the room is the flare of memories. Painful, brutal, heart-shattering memories and realizations.

The helplessness of being bound and beaten, the worthlessness of being reduced to a whore, and the soul-shattering sensation of a man forcing his erection into my ass, clawing along my dry walls, and invading me in the most dehumanizing way possible. But not even that is the worst thing. It’s just another straw on the already broken camel’s back. What has me releasing another clawing scream is the betrayal. The crushed hope.

How cruel can this world be? After everything I’ve lost and endured, I finally worked up the nerve to forge my escape and slit my wrists. And just when I was about to leave, I was swept away. Into another hell, where the flames burn twice as hot and the devil’s claws scrape twice as deep.

Out there, I got raped and abused, but I was always free to roam on and escape one hell; in here, I’m trapped in ways I could have never imagined. Trapped within narrow halls where beasts roam. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Trapped in this padded cell, forced to endure this stagnant life. No choice, no chance. Just trapped.

I can’t accept it. I just can’t. I won’t.

I stare down at my wrists and the scars the knife left—the one I wielded. Why couldn’t I do it? Why am I so weak?

A new wave of anger wells inside me, this time directed at myself. It crashes with all the fury at the world and every cruel thing it has to offer. I can’t accept that I’m stuck here. I can’t accept my weakness. I need to end this. Somehow, any way I can.

I gnash my teeth together as I watch the blue veins beneath my skin. I might not have a knife, but I have something else. If only I am strong enough, I can end things right here and now. I can escape.

With a sharp inhale, I gather all my will and sink my teeth into my wrist.

21

DORIN

I wake in the middle of the night, cold sweat beading on my brow and heart pounding in my chest. I haven’t woken from a nightmare since I beat my father to death when I was fifteen and retook the power he had stolen from me.

I can’t even remember what I dreamed, but an acute sense of unease crawls across my skin even as I turn the lights on, leave the bed, and get dressed.

Rex gives a slow whine as he gets up from the rug beside the bed and follows me through the living room to the kitchen area. I grab a few pieces of cold cuts from the fridge, throw him one, and stuff the rest into my mouth.

“You’ll get fat and lazy if I feed you every time you look at me like that,” I tell him as he keeps staring at me expectantly. Leaning down to scratch him behind the ear, I add, “Go back to bed. I have something I need to check on.”

His paws scrape against the floor as he follows me to the door. I’ve trained him well enough that he knows not to go farther without permission, so he settles for giving me another wide-eyed stare as I step into the hall.

I have no idea how the big dog with a bark that can scare even the worst of men got so cuddly. It’s not just food he shamelessly begs for.

“Not now, buddy.” I sigh and close the door.

As I make my way to the basement, an image pops into my head: Rex lying beside the fragile woman in the padded cell, cuddling up against her as she lies there in the straitjacket, sad and broken, and her burrowing her face into his soft fur as she weeps. I’m sure he would love to provide comfort like that, and I think she just might love it too.

My mind wanders. I imagine lying down behind her, taking turns stroking his fur and her golden locks, listening to their breathing slowing down as they both fall asleep. I would drift away quickly too.

A sense of dread pulls me from the peaceful images as I open the heavy door leading into the dungeon. An urgent feeling that something is wrong keeps tugging at me, getting worse with each step I take toward the hall with the padded cells. It keeps gnawing and twisting to the point where I run.

My gut feeling is always right. It’s like some kind of bad déjà vu as I rip the door to her cell open. There, in the middle of the floor, sits the blue-eyed woman with the milky white skin and blonde hair. Instead of the white tiles of the night I found her, the walls are covered in white padding. But even this room can’t protect her from herself. Just like that first night, there’s blood. It’s not as violent or pervasive, filling the tub and staining the walls, but the trail of red down her arm is just as frightening as she digs her teeth into her wrist.

Shocked, I hover. It’s only for a moment, but that second seems to stretch out into an agonizingly slow minute as dread pulses in my heart. Snapping out of it, I burst through the room, digging my fingers into her jaw and shoving her to the floor.

“Get off me,” she wails as I pin her, stomach-down, grabbing her arm to inspect the damage. The bite wound is deep. So deep that blood would’ve been pulsing from her veins if she had bitten a little more to the left. I’m almost impressed she had the strength to do this. Most people couldn’t hurt themselves even iftheir lives depended on it—even less to take their own life. But the awe drowns in horror as I realize how close I came to walking in on her bleeding out. If I had come just a minute later, she might have bit again and hit the right vein.

“I’ve got you,” I say absently as I tighten my grip on her hands to keep her still. It’s all I can do to try and calm her as guilt rattles through my mind and the only thought I can think is,Why the fuck didn’t I put her in the straitjacket.

“I hate you. I fucking hate you!” she screams as she struggles. “Just kill me!”

“No,” is all I can say as I try to chase away the horror of how close she came to taking her own life. On my watch.

I don’t get much time to process. As she starts banging her head against the floor, I’m forced to act. I don’t even get time enough to remember that she can’t hurt herself on the padded floor before I’ve pulled a syringe from my pocket and stabbed it into her neck. My brain only kicks in when she goes slack beneath me and murmurs in a broken voice, full of bone-deep hurt, “I trusted you.”

I pause, the syringe butt halfway down. Part of me wants to inject the rest and go back upstairs and sleep, but those words do something to me. For some reason, I can’t stand to leave like this—her hating me. That last part wins out. I withdraw the needle and lift her onto the mattress, arranging her slack limbs carefully as I place her on her back.

“I’ve got you,” I say again, this time more sincerely, as I stroke the hair from her face. “I’ll fix you. Just like I did when I found you.”

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