Page 20 of Hurt to Love
I could feel my body being bumped around. I was groggy, I ached all over, and I had absolutely no idea where the fuck I was.
“Where is he?”
That voice came through to me again, slightly louder than before. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. My throat felt like I’d swallowed a thousand shards of glass, and my tongue was swollen and heavy.
“We won’t ask again. WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?” I jolted my eyes open in reaction to the boom that his voice created in the enclosed space.
I couldn’t see much. The room we were in was dark and dusty, like a basement of some sort.
“Wakey wakey, little traitor. Rise and shine. Time to face your day of reckoning. Only, it won’t be a day for you, it’ll be a fucking lifetime. A lifetime of hell, just like the one you gave us.”
I squinted to try to make out who was speaking. Was this some kind of fucked up Halloween prank my brother was playing? Did my friends do this as a joke? What the hell was going on?
My focus returned slightly, and I could just make out two men. At a guess, I’d say they were brothers. They both had similar ratty facial features and jet black hair. One of them was shorter, and was sneering at me. The other stood taller, and had a nasty scar on his face. He was holding an iron bar and my heart started to thump out of my chest at the sight of it. Who the hell were these men? I’d never seen them before. What did they want? What the hell was going on?
I tried to move, but my body wasn’t complying with my brain. I glanced down to see I was tied to some kind of table, my hands and feet clasped tight by cuffs that dug into my skin.
“What… what’s going on?” I slurred, moving my head from side to side to try and get a handle on where I was.
“Revenge, that’s what’s fucking going on. An eye for an eye. You fucking deserve this. He does too. So, where is he?” the shorter one hissed, clenching his fists and looking like he was getting ready to launch himself on me and pummel me into the table.
“I… I don’t know.” I didn’t know who ‘he’ was, but I guessed Michael. Maybe my father? I wasn’t sure.
“It doesn’t matter,” the taller one with the scar piped up. “Once he knows we’ve got her, he’ll come crawling out of his hole. Until he does, we’re gonna have some fun with you.”
The shorter one pulled a knife out of his jacket and yanked my skirt up. I screamed, but my throat wouldn’t let me make that much noise.
“No point screaming, little girl. We’re miles away from anywhere, and your screams only turn us on more.” The taller one cackled.
Oh, shit. What the fuck were they going to do to me?
“Please…” I whimpered. “Please, don’t…”
But they weren’t listening. The shorter one ran his knife under my knickers and cut them off. The taller one slapped the iron bar in his hands. What was he going to do with that? Please God, don’t let him use that on me.
I didn’t have to wait long for my answer.
“No!”
The searing, white hot pain.
“No!”
The silent scream that ripped from my body.
“No, no, no!”
The cold sweat and shock that ran over me like a tsunami….
“Please, God, noooo…”
I woke myself up screaming,drowning in a sea of sweat in the bed. Seconds later, I could hear Cill banging on my door, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get the images out of my head, the feelings, the pain. What those brothers had done to me the first night they took me. Those nightmares would never go away. This was my reality now. Whether I was their captive or not, I’d never be free of them. They stole my innocence, my sanity, my life. I just wished I could go to sleep and wake up free of this nightmare.
Or never wake up at all.
“Thanks for coming so soon,Doctor. Sorry to call you out this late.”
Doctor Graham wasn’t at all what I’d expected. A fifty-something lady with a stern look and even sterner manner. Immediately, she brushed me off and headed straight for the stairs.
