Page 49 of Peripheral Vision

Pain and hunger radiate through every fiber of my body, like shattered glass grinding beneath my skin. My head throbs with every beat of my heart and my body feels like a map of bruises. When I open my eyes, the darkness is the same, and for a moment I can almost pretend like this was some twisted nightmare that I could wake from. But the ache in my ribs and the rawness of my wrists tell me otherwise. I’m still here, and while what I told Fletcher in the video was true, I’m not sure just how much longer I can hold on. I roll onto my side, biting back a hiss as pain tears through me. I can feel the dried blood on my skin, the sticky residue of… my body heaves through disgust. It’s mostly been Connor taking pleasure in my pain, but he’s started letting some of the others in on it.

Somewhere deep in the silence I think I hear a sound. A faint shuffle, maybe a door creaking on its hinges—but when I strain to listen, there is nothing. I would have liked to think that it was him. I could be delusional. I was only fed and given water when they deemed my behavior to be up to par, but I’d rather starve than give in. Maybe that's what they hoped to achieve by taking care in wrapping and bandaging and splinting my wounds… even when they would just find another way to create new ones. Maybe they were hoping to have some weird and fucked up Pavlov effect on me. Maybe it would work eventually. And while the physical pain is nearly unbearable, nothing is worse than the psychological and emotional torture that is inflicted just as much. Connor had started talking about my mother. Alluding to just enough that would have me asking questions he wouldn’t answer, without a price that is. One I refused to pay.

I always assumed that she abandoned us on purpose, that she cared about her addiction more than her own family… but I’m not so sure about that anymore. After all, if there is one thing I’ve learned it’s that people surprise you, and they certainly aren’t always who you thought they were. Not that I knew why it even mattered so much to me now. It wasn’t like I could fix the past, and it wasn’t like knowing the truth about her would change the fact that I was here—broken, trapped, and barely holding on. But Connor knew how to dig his claws into my mind, twisting memories and doubts into fucked up bows. “Does it bother you?”he had asked me the last time we had… one on one time. “Thinking about her? Wondering if maybe she didn’t leave you, but someonetookher?”

I’d stared at him, not knowing what to say, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing what his words were stirring up in my mind, the implication behind them. But I couldn’t resist anyway so I had asked exactly what I knew he wanted me to ask. “Did someone take her?”

I had fed right into his wishes, based off of the way he had smiled at me. “You should be careful what questions you ask. Answers can be a dangerous thing.” After that I stopped asking. Stopped speaking. My screams weren’t of any use so why would I waste energy on anything else.

I pull myself out of bed, cradling my broken hand and limping because they had decided to twist my ankle just for the hell of it. The throbbing pain in my ribs makes it hard to breathe, each inhale like the knife Connor has scraped across my skin. My face is swollen frombeing backhanded too many times to count and I can barely see out of my left eye. My lip stings where it had been split. I try to swallow to soothe my aching throat, to ease the pain of the hands that had been wrapped around it. But none of it compares to the ache in my chest—the one that has nothing to do with the physical wounds. That one, the one they can’t see, is the deepest of them all, and I’m not sure how I’m ever going to move on from it.

I stagger toward the door, knocking against it. “I need to use the restroom,” I mutter, my voice hoarse. There is a moment of silence followed by the shuffle of feet and the scrape of the chair that I knew someone sat in every waking moment I was in here. I hadn’t bothered to learn their names, and they hadn’t bothered to tell me. The door cracks open, their hesitancy evident, but not because they don’t trust me. No, they want me to humiliate myself—and while I had lost much of my dignity, that was one thing I wasn’t going to allow them to take from me too.

I can feel their eyes on me—watching, waiting for me to slip up, though. They’d seen the defiance in my eyes, the way I always fought until I couldn’t anymore. “Don’t try anything,” he warns. “You’re not going anywhere.” As if I would try that again. I tried to make a run for it from the showers one night. I didn’t care that I was naked, I didn’t care that I was half dosed out of my mind, or that I had a broken hand. But I couldn’t stay here without trying. I knew it was a bad idea from the start, though. There were too many guards, too many corners and dark corridors to make sense of. They let me run for a little bit, however. Tried to give me the sense of freedom I was fighting to claim. And then when they caught me, I paid for it. I wasn’t just beaten within an inch of my life, but the things they did to me after because Connor gave them permission to take turns… made me wish they would have just killed me then and there.

“Just the restroom,” I say again, my words more urgent now. “I just need a minute, please.”

“You get one minute, don’t waste it.” The enforcer opens up the door fully now and steps aside, waiting to follow behind me. Wedon’t get an ounce of privacy here, and I saywebecause I’ve learned that there are others being kept here against their will. I’ve heard the sounds from some of the auctions that have been held each night when I’m locked in my room. I’ve heard the terrifying screams and the crying that follows. I’ve heard the sound of gunshots as they cut off some of those screams and crying. We aren’t just in hell, it is the very air we breathe.

I take a steadying breath and step forward, keeping my head low, as if it will somehow shield me from whatever is to come. I can hear muffled sounds of desperate pleas through the walls, followed by hollow laughter. As I walk, I try not to focus on those muffled voices. Each one holding a name I didn’t know and likely never would. When we get to the bathroom, the enforcer crosses his arms, looking down at me. “One minute,” he repeats.

I nod, stepping into the stall and closing it. I lean against it for a moment, taking a deep breath, trying to silence the pounding in my chest. The ticking clock in my mind begins as I turn around to do my business before I walk out of the stall and to the sink to wash my hands. There are no mirrors in here. I can’t see my reflection, don’t know if I want to. But they didn’t want us finding a way to tailor a weapon, either.

“Thirty seconds,” the enforcer calls out from where he is watching me against the wall. I decide to use it to splash my face with water, the cut on my lip stinging. Behind me, the door creaks. I freeze, willing myself not to turn around. They usually didn’t let more than one person in here at a time because they didn’t want us socializing, which could only mean one thing. I grip the edge of the sink as I close my eyes, steeling myself for his presence. But instead of his taunting voice, I hear a loud thud. When I turn around, the enforcer is laying down, blood seeping from his neck where a knife is embedded. I can’t believe my eyes as Callum steps into view, his eyes scanning the room with sharp precision. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since he brought me here. And he is the last person I ever wanted to see again.

How dare he? How dare he show up now, looking like he wasn’t the reason my life had been torn apart? He moves with a certain level of calculated ease toward me, not even glancing at the man he had just killed. “Dylan…” he breathes out, as though he can’t believe the state I’m in. I don’t trust myself to speak at first, my teeth grinding together as I fight to hold back every bitter word that threatens to spill out.

“What the hell do you want, Callum?” My voice drips with contempt as I address him. But what did he expect? That he could come in here and save the day and all would be forgiven? Fuck that.

“I’m getting you out of here before they have a chance to… it doesn’t matter. We need to get moving. It won’t be long before someone comes looking for you.” I hate how soft his voice sounds, as though he cares.

“You mean before Connor comes looking for me. You don’t get to do this, Callum! You don’t get to show up now after everything. After what you’ve done.” I can’t keep the shaking from my voice, but it isn’t fear—it israge.“You really think you can walk in here and save me from this place and forget that you’re the reason I’m here in the first place?”

His gaze hardens, but something like regret flickers in it. “I didn’t come here to be your hero. I know what I did, which is why I’m doing what I can to reverse it.”

I scoff, bitter laughter bubbling out of me. “Reverseit? You think you can fucking fix what they’ve done to me? Look at me, Callum, and tell me if this is something repairable!”

“Ineverwanted to leave you here, Dylan. Believe me when I say I didn’t have a choice. I was trying to get out of the game long before you came into it… but they threatened my family, and?—”

I cut him off, “It doesn’t matter now, does it? You did it anyway. You were doing it long before me. And now I’m the one who has to pick up the pieces of my life while you try and make yourself feel better about being a shitty human being.”

He doesn’t speak, looking as though I had just slapped him, and Iguess in a way, I had. The weight of my words is sinking into him like a knife twisting deeper, but he doesn’t deserve to have me make him feel better. But then he says something that tilts the room on its axis. “It might not matter, and it sure as hell might not make a difference to you, love. But I am trying to help you whether you like it or not. Because it was real for me. Because Fletcher is here, and I’m trying to get you to him. So if you never trust me again about anything else, trust me on that.” Fletcher is here? How does he know that?

Suddenly, the bathroom door opens with a bang, and I barely have time to react when Callum rushes me into the showers, out of sight. His eyes are wide, frantic, but there is a fire in them. “They’re coming, we have to move. Now.”

I want to scream, but if my options are between him and Connor… I give him a subtle nod. A pair of enforcers stride into the room, their eyes flicking around until they land on the dead guard that Callum killed. One of them growls, his hand resting on his weapon, and I feel Callum tense beside me, the muscles in his body going rigid. There is nowhere else for us to go, they are going to find us. Callum grabs my arm, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts. I can hear their heavy boots as they move closer, each step sending a wave of dread through me. “Now,” he whispers urgently, pulling me toward the narrow gap behind the row of shower stalls. We are too close to the enforcers, their voices low but growing louder, discussing their search for us. Callum’s heart pounds against my back, his body a shield, but there is no mistaking the fear coming from him as well.

We have no plan, no clear escape route. But there is no time to make any as we slip into the hall, moving as silently as we can. The other guards that had been stationed are nowhere to be found; looking for us would be my guess. Connor isn’t going to let me go so easily. The hall stretches before us, and if I had to make an assumption, it was that Callum knew which way to go. We are just about to take off again when a sharp voice echoes from behind us, Connor or a guard, I’m not sure.

“Find her!”

There is no more time. Callum jerks his head toward a narrow staircase at the far end of the hall, the only possible way out. We run, my heart slamming in my chest as the sound of footsteps grow louder while we sprint down the hall, my ankle protesting with every step, but we still aren’t fast enough.I’mnot fast enough. A shout rings out from the top of the staircase. “Keep going,” Callum says, ushering me along. I am moving as fast as I can. We fly down the stairs, rounding one of the landings and I run right into Connor where he is waiting with several other enforcers. The moment I collide with him, I feel a rush of panic claw at my throat, my body freezing for a split second before I try to push past him, but his grip is like iron.

“Did you think you could escape me, Dylan? That I wouldn’t come after you? I thought we were making such good progress. I thought we werefamily.” His words drip with venom, the way his breath hits my throat like poison against my skin.

I open my mouth to say something, anything, but the words are stuck in my throat. I glance at Callum, a mistake as soon as Connor’s gaze shifts toward him. He smiles and it’s dark, promising danger. Callum’s eyes are locked on mine, his jaw tight as he’s being held by other guards. “Connor, let her go,” he growls.

Connor spins me around, locking an arm around my waist, his hand grasping my jaw. “You think you can come in here and take what belongs to me, Callum? Do you think you have any claim on her? She’s mine. I’ve given you more chances than I can count, but now you’ve crossed a line.” The pressure of his grip on my jaw increases and the sound of Callum’s growl echoes in the stairwell. “Oh, isn’t that sweet. Your feelings for her were real, even when you were supposed to be pretending. Did she know that?”

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