Chapter 2 #2
We’ve been walking forever. Being cooped up in that shoebox didn’t leave me much room for cardio, and my legs are burning.
We take turn after turn, one staircase after another, and I want to believe that Callum is taking us the fastest route, but something tells me that’s not the case.
He’s fucking with me. More mind games I don’t have the energy for, nor ones I want to play.
I’m tired. Of walking. Breathing. Living.
If you can even call it that. Maybe I have one last fight in me, one strong enough to get me to the end I desperately crave.
We finally reach our destination, and Callum pulls open a door that looks identical to all the others we passed.
The stark-white room shocks my senses, and I instantly shut my eyes to relieve my burning retinas.
Gods, the overhanging lights have to be turned all the way up.
Bleach stings my nostrils, and my dry throat rages with more unrelenting coughing.
The door automatically shuts behind us, and Callum’s shadows recede. I rub my wrists like they were rubbed raw, but that’s not why. Now I feel emptier than I did before.
Scanning the room, there isn’t much in it. A patient bed, a tray of instruments, and a monitor. Great. A supernatural hospital.
“Sit,” Callum demands, pointing at the bed.
I can’t suppress the scoff that escapes me, but with just one look, his shadows coil around me.
I can’t help but shamelessly relish in the sensation of him enveloping me—even if it’s just an extension of him.
The feeling is gone like the wind after they place me on the bed themselves, leaving me cold and empty.
“Stay.” He gives me his back, waltzing toward a different door on the opposite wall.
“Woof, woof,” I bark. It’s strange. I can almost see the tension in him, like he’s stiffening to suppress a laugh. But it’s gone in the blink of an eye, as if I had imagined it.
When the door clicks shut, I waste no time.
Catapulting off the bed, I take one of the scalpels off the tray, uncaring of concealing it.
There isn’t anywhere to put it anyway in this patient gown.
Then I check the doors. There’s no way they’re stupid enough to leave them unlocked, but I had to try.
I attempt to rein in the panic and search for some sort of key, a false wall, loose tile, something to get me out of here.
But I come up empty. Of course, they wouldn’t leave me in a room where I could escape—that would be foolish.
But people always make mistakes, always slip up, and I have to be ready when they do.
Sure, leaving the instruments out in the open could have been a mistake…
or a test. Whipping my head side to side, I look for a clock, needing to figure out how long he’s been gone.
But there isn’t anything. Not a gods damn thing in this hell hole to use to escape.
I kick the metal tray, letting the other instruments clatter to the ground.
A blinking red light catches my attention in the far corner of the room—so small I almost missed it.
A camera? They’re watching me. He’s watching me.
Anger festers within me, frustration painted with every pinch of my face.
And I snap. Screaming up at the camera, I take the fallen tray and throw it at the blinking light. But it does nothing.
“What do you want from me?” I yell. Fine.
They want to watch? I’ll give them a fucking show.
I tear the sheets from the bed and relish in the thud the monitor makes when I push it over.
Next, I take the IV pole and briskly walk underneath the camera.
Lifting it as high as my brittle arms will allow, I whack it against the taunting light.
Again, and again, and again. Until it finally breaks away from the wall and hangs on by the wires.
I jump, and my fingertips skim the glass dome.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Taking a deep breath, I jump again, and by the grace of whatever gods or goddesses, my fingers lock over the back, and I yank, ripping the camera from the wall and letting the exposed wires dangle.
I huff out a breath. I’m fucking exhausted.
I haven’t used that much energy in, well…
I don’t know how long, but it feels like an eternity.
Tossing the pole to the ground, I walk over to the door Callum escaped out of and inspect the hinges and notice it swings in.
Assuming he’s coming back in this way, I press my back against the wall, knowing it will conceal me once it’s opened.
I don’t have to wait long. The doorknob turns just moments after I get settled. He opens it just enough to snake through. I’m grateful because that would’ve really hurt had he chosen to throw it open.
Once his broad figure is in sight, I waste no time.
Gripping the scalpel firmly in my hand, I throw my other arm over his neck and hold the blade against his carotid.
My attack is done in a matter of seconds, and I so badly want to slit his throat.
Make him bleed and watch as the life leave his eyes.
But I hesitate, and that costs me. Callum rears us back, slamming me into the wall.
My knuckles bleach with the death grip I keep on the handle, and my elbow squeezes tighter around his windpipe as I try to keep my hold. Instinctively, I swipe the blade horizontally under his jaw, and he lets out an annoyed sound.
“Let me out of here, and nobody gets hurt,” I snarl in his ear through clenched teeth just before the air leaves my lungs. The scalpel clatters to the ground, and my hold vanishes. Clawing at my neck while gasping for air, I watch as he steps forward, and I collapse to the floor.
On my hands and knees, I use all my strength to crawl toward the open door, but I watch my dreams slip farther and farther away as the opening shrinks, and it’s closed again.
Callum’s boot steps on my hand, and I try to scream out in pain, but nothing comes out.
What is going on?
My vision goes blurry, and just before I’m about to pass out from lack of oxygen, I’m able to breathe. I take in lungfuls of air, sputtering as I try to regain my breathing.
“That wasn’t very nice.” The air I just got back stays stagnant in my chest as I hold it.
That voice is sweet—and feminine. And it belongs to the one person I’ve thought about every day since I left home.
The person I’ve cried to and trusted. It belongs to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, backstabbing bitch who I thought was my best friend.
“Kate?” I manage to squeeze out.
She stands over me, her features slightly changed, just like mine had when I first arrived.
“Obviously.” She rolls her eyes and stalks away. Callum follows close behind her, and I watch as she snakes her arms around his neck, kissing him like they’ve been apart far too long.
“What—what are you doing here? H—how?” I can’t seem to get the words out as I stand. Pain radiates throughout my body, but it barely registers.
Kate rolls her eyes and stares back at me. “Oh, Kallie. Poor, crybaby Kallie. What a mess you’ve gotten yourself into.” She lets go of Callum and takes a few leisurely steps toward me.
I stare at her, trying to make sense of all of this. But the questions swirl around me, forming a whirlpool I can’t escape, dragging me deeper with every passing moment.
“Ah, I can see those wheels turning, my little Kallie-Pie. So let me break it down for you.” I wince a little with each word she speaks, each one like a punch to the gut.
“I was sent to play the abused little girl for you to befriend. It was so easy with how…sympathetic you seem to be. You literally brought the monster to live under your roof!” She giggles at that last part.
“Then it was so easy for me to worm my way in, isolate you from everybody else, and make sure I was the only one you needed,” she continues.
Kate was the only thing in my life I believed wasn’t a lie. I’m starting to wonder if I ever existed at all.
“Kate, I— You were my best friend. How could you do this to me?”
“I wasn’t finished!” I’m blasted back by a gust of wind, and I skid on my ass until my back slams into the wall. “It’s so rude to interrupt,” she mutters to Callum.
“As I was saying… Just when I thought you were a complete waste of time, you started having nightmares. Truly, it was amazing seeing you being tortured by your own mind. It was like a breath of fresh air.”
She doesn’t realize it was Callum, I think, and my gaze flickers to him briefly before snapping back to Kate. “You act as if my life was perfect. Fuck, Kate. You were there! You saw how my mom treated me. How can you stand there and—”
“Shut up! Gods, you just go on and on. It isn’t all about you.”
“It sure seems like it is. Care to enlighten me on why all of a sudden everyone and their mother is so obsessed with me?” I fume.
“Honestly, Callum, I don’t know how you survived so long with her. I mean, I know I had to deal with her for years, but at least I was able to escape during school hours.”
“Why are you talking to him like you know him?”
“Oh, honey, did he not tell you? While you’ve been captive, we’ve spent a lot of time together. And well, one thing led to another and…” She drifts off, placing her head on his shoulder.
My shoulders sink with defeat. But a thought crosses my mind. “Where’s my dad?”
“We haven’t been able to find him,” Callum answers. But I can’t look at him, I keep my eyes trained on Kate.
“Why?”
“Can you be more specific?” she asks, examining her nails.
“Why go through all this trouble? Why me?”
“Beats me. Callum, it’s time for her injection. I’ll leave you to deal with that. I have other business to attend to.” She gives him a chaste kiss on the cheek before sending me flying to the other side of the room and striding out the back door.
My hand reaches up to feel the bump that’s already forming on the back of my head. I hear him shuffling things around on the back counter, but I keep my gaze fixed elsewhere. My eyes close when the sound of his heavy footsteps grow closer. I don’t have any fight left.
I’m done.
All I can pray for is whatever he’s about to give me will send me to my grave. The slightest pinch goes into my arm, but I don’t react. Dizziness takes over, and my eyelids get heavier as the metaphorical clock ticks down. When I blink again, my eyes don’t open.