Page 33 of Nitro

“He did something terrible to you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“How long were you there?”

“Five years.”

“Oh, God.”

“Yeah.”

“How did you escape?”

I’m grateful she doesn’t ask for details about the abuse I suffered at the hands of Blackstone. If I’m ever ready to tell her about it, I know she’ll be capable of listening to me. I’m not ready yet. Until then, I can at least explain how we got out.

“While we were at Blackstone’s, we developed certain abilities. I’m a medical intuitive. I can feel other people’s illnesses. I can tell when they’re sick or in pain.”

“Is that how you knew I was in trouble? I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, but everything has been so chaotic since you found me.”

“Yeah. I could feel your pain. But my gift isn’t perfect. None of our abilities are easy to use. They don’t always work, and we can’t control them very well.”

“How did you figure out that you had the ability to feel other people’s pain?” She walks over to a fallen tree and sits on the partially rotten trunk. I can see the fatigue on her face, but there’s also a flicker of determination. She’s not going to give in to her pain. She’s so strong and she doesn’t even know it.

I take a seat next to her and rub my shoulder against hers. The contact makes it easier to talk about one of the darkest days of my life.

“Blackstone didn’t hurt us alone. He brought friends sometimes. He even had parties full of bastards just like him.” Bitterness fills me. It’s hard to continue, but I do because she wants to know me, and I want to give her that. “There was this one guy. I never knew his name. I guess it was on the bottle, but I didn’t look that closely.”

“What bottle?”

“The nitroglycerin.” I pull open my shirt to reveal my favorite tattoo. “That’s the chemical structure of nitroglycerin.”

“I wondered what it was.” She traces each line before pressing a soft kiss to my skin. I tremble beneath her touch. I want so much more, but not here. Not in this place.

“When he was … attacking me, my heart hurt so much I threw up. The guy was disgusted. He sent me into his bathroom to get cleaned up. I’ll never know what made me do it, but I opened the medicine cabinet and found the guy’s heart medication. I didn’t know what it was or what it did, but I had this strange feeling when I touched the bottle. My heart stoppedfor a split second, and somehow, I knew I could make that guy’s heart stop too. I just needed the right dose.”

“How did you figure out how much to give him? And how did you get him to take the pills?”

“I just knew. The only way I can explain it is that I have a deep sense of knowing. I can’t describe how I know. I just do.”

“Once you figured out how much to give him, how did you get it into his system?”

“I crushed up the number of pills I needed. When he wasn’t looking, I dropped them into his drink.”

“Then what happened?” She leans her head against my shoulder, not meeting my eyes. But maybe that’s for the best because I’m about to tell her how I murdered one of my abusers.

“He had trouble catching his breath. He started complaining about seeing two of me, double vision. Then he started convulsing. Scared the shit out of me. I was only thirteen at the time. It wasn’t the first person who’d died in front of me, but this was different.”

“How so?”

“I enjoyed it.”

“It was self-defense.” She’s letting me off the hook, but we both know I’m a killer.

“When his lips turned blue, I started laughing. I couldn’t stop. And then, when he wasn’t breathing, I panicked. Getting into trouble at Blackstone’s could mean a fate worse than death. I had to get the fuck out of there but couldn’t figure out how to do it. We were locked in. The only person who could let us out of the room was Blackstone. He told his guests it was for their own protection. What a crock of shit.”

“I can’t believe those guys let him do that.”

“Considering what Blackstone allowed them to do to us, those fuckers were willing to put up with any of his crazy rules. Blackstone set up the perfect pedophile buffet for his guests.Girls. Boys. Both. Whatever they wanted. He was smart. He secretly filmed a lot of them. We never knew why until last year when he announced his bid for governor. Then it all made sense.”

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