Page 51 of Make Me Hunt
She hesitates, and I feel forced to turn my back on her. I know that’s the most fucked-up thing I could do at this point. But it’s not that I don’t want to look at her, or that I can’t face what she’s about to tell me. It’s because I can’t control the darkness within anymore. It’s about the monster screaming to be set free. And I don’t even think I want to stop him. I just want whoever did this to her ripped to fucking pieces.
“Go on, my little curse. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” Maybe it sounds fake because my back is fully to her, but I don’t want her to see what’s happening to my face.
I know I won’t be able to hide it for much longer. And I need to hear the truth before the monster takes control. My hand drifts across the couch until it finds hers. Even if I can’t face her, she has to know I’m here for her. In any way she needs me.
“I don’t remember what happened in my room. By the time I usually got there, I was too drugged to know what he was doing. But I remember him taking off my clothes... and... and I’d wake up in new ones, every time.”
She pauses, waiting for me to say something again.
“It’s okay. Go on, beautiful.” That’s not what I really want to say. I want to curse, I want to scream, and I want to fucking tear the whole world apart.
But that wouldn’t help. Not now.
“Him taking me to my room wasn’t the worst part. Because at least I don’t... I don’t have any memory of those times. But he used to take me into a treatment room. There he’d strap me to a chair, inject me with some kind of cocktail. Something strong enough to keep me from fighting, but not strong enough to knock me out.
“I was awake.
“At least part of the time.
“When he… he tortured me.” Her words hung in the air for a few seconds before I gathered enough composure to speak.
“Where was everyone else? Were they all fucking in on this?” I can’t help myself from asking, mostly because I’m planning to take the list of everyone who ever worked there while she was a patient... and detach their heads from their fucking shoulders.
“They were all in on something, except for one nurse. My guardian angel, Melissa. She’s the one who helped me escape. She switched my medication for some vitamins, then left a few doors unlocked so I could get out of there. The rest were either selling something—like sex tapes on the dark web—or satisfying their own twisted needs. Ezekiel fit into that second category.” Her voice tightens. “He wanted me to want him. But no matter how many drugs or medicines he gave me, I never said what he craved to hear. I never called him to me.
“Never asked him to be mine.
“And every time I didn’t, he’d get pissed and pull out his little silver knife from his pocket. Nothing too menacing, just the kind you’d see on a keychain. Small enough to pass security without raising flags.”
Her jaw clenches, and so does mine.
“But the pain was very much real. He used to cut me with it. Small scars, the kind he could blame on me, if anyone asked. There were plenty of ways we could’ve hurt ourselves in that place, especially since I was kept in the open section of the sanatorium. Self-harm was just something... common in a place like that.”
My blood turns cold.
“The scars wouldn’t have hurt that much on their own. I’d grown used to that kind of pain. But he used to pour salt into them. Sometimes even lemon juice. Just to make the pain unbearable. He just loved to hear me scream. And the harder I fought, the harder he pushed. The more wounds he left behind.”
“Fucking bastard,” I groan, unable to restrain myself. Still, I try to hold on to some shred of control and let her finish. Though my mind blurs with the thoughtI’m going to torture him and fucking destroy him inch by fucking inch before killing him.
I think I hear a sob, and I suspect she’s crying. There’s nothing I want more right now than to hold her and never let go. And the bastard took that away from me, too. I can’t even turn to face her—by now, the darkness has claimed the color of my eyes, my face has shifted, my features hardened, letting the inhuman part of me surface.
“I don’t know what happened after the torture. Sometimes I kept screaming until I passed out. Other times, he just gave me more drugs. I remember bits and pieces… I remember him naked,” her voice gets cut off by tears, and I feel my free hand clutch the couch so hard it tears through the fabric. She sobs, but I know she’ll go on. She has to get this off her chest. “I remember my body feeling different… but I don’t want to think about it. I refuse to think about it.” She can’t hold back her tears, and all I want is to let her know she’s safe now. That nothing can touch her ever again. And maybe I’m not good with words, but I swear I’ll erase everyone else from her body and mind.
“My perfect little curse,” I murmur, trying to keep my voice steady. “I can take the fear away. You just have tolet me.” I go on, still not facing her. “I can erase him from your mind. And replace him with something different. A different kind of monster. One that’s yours. Just say the words and it’s done.”
She doesn’t answer, her tears choking off even the smallest sound.
I give her space without abandoning her. Just let the silence stretch until I hear the words I need so badly to hear.
“Make it stop, please.”
twenty-one
-Brynn-
I’m shaking so hard; I might start thinking I’m plugged into the machines again. I haven’t felt like this since I escaped the sanatorium. Not even when I’m having the nightmares, or when Elias used to talk about it.
I’m vulnerable and I fucking hate it. I hate being so exposed in front of the man I need to destroy.
