Page 37 of The Devil In Blue
“I remember being told about them. They showed me every scar from that day. Told me I was refusing to revisit the incident. It was too violent. Too awful. I thought that was the part of me that’s been missing. My parents’ faces. Our house. I can see them… but I can’t touch any of it. They’re like pictures in a book. Vague pictures. They don’t even have color.”
“Who told you about your parents?”
“Father Eli did. At Southminster Asylum. That’s where they put me. I was too dangerous to be around others at the time. But every time he spoke to me about my family, I had… episodes. I was angry and vegeful, he said. So he helped me bury those memories. And then he helped me heal.”
I must have looked like I was teetering on the edge of control again because Petris reached out and wrapped a hand around my wrist, squeezing hard.
“I was sick,” I muttered. “They took the sick part out, but… what if I needed the sick part? What if it was a part of me and now I’m just broken?”
“You were not sick, Briar.”
I sniveled and sat up in the bed, head hanging low. “I was. I truly was. If you’d seen how out of control I was, you’d have committed me, too. I hurt people. But, when I left, something in me was gone. Sick or not, I think I needed it. And Rune only makes me feel more broken. He says these things and I don’t know what’s real. It’s Southminster all over again. And until believe him, I fear he’ll lock me away. Hurt me. Force me to live like this until I bend the way he wants me to.”
Petris sat up in front of me, hand still on my wrist like he thought I might float away. Heavens, I felt like I was about to.
“He would never do that. Despite the way he acts, he wants your freedom over anything else.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No,” I shook my head. “It’s not complicated. I am not myself. I never have been. And people keep trying to make me into something and I don’t know what it is.”
He paused a moment, watching me break apart. I hated it. I wished I could just hold it together like I had been taught to, but the screws were too loose.
“What did they do to you there?”
“They…” I hesitated, desperately trying not to revisit it in detail. “They helped me. Using any method they could.”
“What methods?”
I shrugged. “I don’t quite remember them all.” I stared across the room at the unlit fireplace and let my mind tiptoe through the halls of Southminster for a moment. “They hit me sometimes. Only when I would not let them speak. I fought back, but it slowed their progress, so they took steps to still me. Calming herbs. Tea. Then these horrible cold baths for hours until my teeth were chattering and I couldn’t feel my body. It was demons, they said. Demons from my past. When they could not control me, they put me in small rooms. Small cages. For their protection, they said.”
I stopped, letting myself breathe. I could still feel the icy water on my skin, sucking the life out of me slowly. I could feel my limbs stiffening from the tiny cages where they put me to calm down.
“I drew so much blood fighting them, but they never gave up on me. I scratched them, bit them, and screamed awful things at them. But they never gave up.”
“They hurt you that much and you think they were helping you?”
I didn’t answer that. I didn’t know how. No one had ever asked me a question like that.
“And Father Eli?” Petris continued, realizing I didn’t know what to say.
“He told everyone I would get better. He kept the sisters in line when they wanted to leave. He talked to me the most. Helped me to chase the bad memories away. He even brought the doctor.”
“The doctor?”
“The one who took my blood. They thought my madness was a disease for a time. It worried the sisters every time I hurt them. Every week, they took blood, cleansing me of the sickness more and more each time. And then Father Eli brought Lucien to me and Lucien took me out of that place, assuming full responsibility.”
“And the bleeding? What did they do with the blood?”
“Got rid of it, I suppose. It was sick blood.”
Petris went quiet for a moment, his masked face shifting to the side as if in thought. The silence stretched too long. I was beginning to imagine the expressions on his face. Doubt. Regret. Judgement. All the things that made me want to shrink away into the darkness. But then my stomach made a soft grumbling sound and broke the tension.
“You’re hungry,” Petris said. “I didn’t get a chance to bring you food last night. Come.”
He slid off the bed and stood, holding out his hand to me. I regarded it for a moment, astounded at how kind he was in contrast to the others. Not that Naeve and Lura were particularly unkind, but they’d been friendly at the masquerade and had since avoided me it seemed. I reached out and clasped his hand, standing off the bed.
