Chapter Five
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Ily
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CLOUDS IN MY HEAD, MY mouth, my ears, my heart.
I groaned and tried to crawl my way out of the fuzzy, foggy entrapment, only...something heavy pinned me down.
Sleep dissolved instantly, slamming me into a vicious headache. My hand raised to try to rub away the discomfort, only that was trapped too. Blinking away threads of nausea and confusion, I raised my head and froze.
I lay in the jewelry room.
Naked as the day I was born.
Dressed in a few scant band-aids, I slowly shifted against heavy, crushing body parts and sat up.
The people surrounding me mumbled with annoyance. Some rolled over and slung arms and legs over their closest companions. Others huddled deeper into their dreams as if unwilling to come back to reality.
A circle of them.
A hoard of them.
Just like all the jewels dumped into baskets and draped over each other, Victor’s jewels did the same thing.
And I sat in the middle of what looked like a massacre.
Bare limbs punctuated by scant white blankets drawn from single beds. A blend of skin colours, hair colours, bruises, cuts, and pain. I hadn’t met all the slaves serving in this fetish-filled stronghold, but seeing them all in one room made me freeze.
At first, I thought it was another illusion. It had to be the drugs. Because if it wasn’t...
I choked.
The strangeness of an arm missing a hand or a hand lacking a finger or two. The sickening realisation that one girl was missing an ear, and another had a puckered scar running from her temple to her chin.
The longer I stared, the more maiming and torture appeared. Red scars and silver scars, raised ones and neat ones, almost every jewel had some imperfection, granted by a Master who ought to be dead.
Swallowing down a gush of venomous empathy, I rubbed my face and stopped looking.
It’s the drugs.
You’re still under the influence.
That’s why you’re in the middle of mostly nude strangers.
I braced myself and tried to see past the history of abuse and focus on why they were all curled around me, tighter and tighter, forming a spiral of body parts with me in the centre.
What happened?
Are they okay?
My breath came shallow, my throat stinging from all the salt I’d cried last night.
Last night?
More like only an hour or so ago.
Sunshine poured through the high barred windows and the door to the cavernous bathroom glowed with burning sunlight.
Too bright.
Far, far too bright for my sorrow-stinging eyes.
My bladder pressed uncomfortably, and my hip ached from sleeping on the stone floor.
But I wasn’t cold.
If anything, a sheen of sweat covered my chest thanks to the body heat of so many.
I-Is this real?
And if it is...how had they survived such torture and unhappiness?
I’d only spent one evening being molested, and I’d shattered.
It made me feel stupidly weak compared to the Chinese girl missing two fingers and the black woman with only one ear.
A dark-haired head closest to me suddenly rose.
I stilled as Peter opened blurry, bruised eyes and pushed himself upright with a groan.
Kirk’s arm fell off his bare waist, and Rebecca mumbled in her sleep, cuddling closer to Citra, who rested her head on Nancy’s thigh.
Dane, with his mohawk, snuggled into Corine, and she burrowed closer to a boy I didn’t know.
I was literally in the middle of warm skin and brave hearts.
“Hey,” Peter croaked.
I swallowed, coughed, and swallowed again. “I-I’m not imagining this?”
Gently extracting one of his legs from beneath a sleeping girl I hadn’t spoken to, he eased his knees up and hugged them. “Your crying woke them. They came to see if you were okay.”
I flinched.
I couldn’t fully remember.
Didn’t want to remember.
The crack inside me had been enough.
The release of all those hot, painful daggers behind my eyes and the churning, heart wrenching grief inside me.
I’d held back the tears for as long as I could.
But when I broke? Well...
I shrugged. “I’m sorry for the scene I caused.”
Shaking his head, he gave me a soft smile and cupped my shoulder. “I’m not. It was a relief to have you let it out. To have you purge what happened.”
I flinched as images erupted.
Henri.
His knife.
His cuts.
His tongue...
I recoiled from Peter’s hand, cupping my breasts and shifting my legs to hide the very part of me Henri had taken without consent.
How could I forget even for a moment?
How had my mind pushed it away long enough for Peter to remind me?
The awful thing was, I didn’t need reminding.
Last night was a part of me.
It’d changed me on a cellular level.
And I had no idea who I was now that it was over.
I shuddered as more images returned.
The breaking, the bleeding...
The shallow cuts on my body would heal, but my heart never would.
Devastated didn’t come close to how I felt. Betrayed? Of course. Confused? Definitely.
But guilt curdled most of all.
He’d asked me not to fight him, and I’d fought.
He’d begged me to remember our promise, and I’d forgotten.
I couldn’t forgive what he’d done, but I couldn’t lay the blame entirely at his feet either.
Peter dropped his hand and stiffened. “You’re thinking about him.”
I looked up and met his soulful brown eyes. “W-We had a deal...and...I broke it.”
“We?”
I slouched, aware I’d almost slipped. Henri’s secrets. Henri’s covert mission. I might hate what he did and vaguely remembered hating him with a thousand suns last night, but...if there was the slimmest chance he could pull himself back from this, then...I couldn’t spill his truth.
This was bigger than me.
This was for them.
“Doesn’t matter.” I rubbed my face. “None of it matters. It’s done.”
“That’s it, huh? You were in pieces last night.
You almost turned catatonic in my arms as you cried.
It took all of us hugging you to stop your shivering long enough to get you to sleep, and now you’re just forgiving him?
I mean, I’ve seen some sick shit in this place and dealt with a hundred broken people, but that? Wow.”
“Of course I’m not forgiving him.” I scowled. “It’s just...complicated.”
“Complicated?” He bared his teeth. “It’s the simplest thing in the world, Ily.
He hurt you. I drugged you against your will.
Be mad at me. Be mad at him. Be mad at the whole goddamn world, but don’t you dare shut down on me again.
You shut down, and it’s all over in here.
I won’t let you check out. I won’t let you fade away.
And I definitely won’t let you take responsibility for what he did. ”
I glanced at the maimed jewels again. A question suddenly popped into my head.
“When you brought Victor into the library—when Henri was about to take me the first time—why...why did you tattle on us? I always wondered if you were playing a sort of game or...” I narrowed my eyes on a pretty jewel missing an entire hand.
“Or was it because you feared he’d cut me into pieces?
That Henri would do to me what others have done to you?
” My heart flopped out of my chest. “H-How much have you seen, Peter? How much death have you witnessed? Aap kaise jeevit reh sakte ho? Unmein se Koi bhi kaise jeevit reh sakta hai?” (How can you keep surviving? How can any of them?)
He shrugged. “That’s a lot of questions, and I have no answers.” His eyes told me everything he didn’t. “We keep surviving because we don’t have a choice, and you...you almost gave up on me last night.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I just...the drugs made me fight him. H-He told me not to.” I reached for his hand. “I agree I lost myself for a moment, but you don’t understand. There was so much riding on me keeping my wits. That day in the library, he made me promise not to fight. He—”
“That fucking asshole.” Shooting to his feet, he didn’t care he woke ten others or a ruckus of grumbles echoed as jewels slowly sat up. “He made you promise not to fight?” He bent and glowered. “And you agreed? Fuck, if that isn’t one of the most twisted—”
“It’s not. It would make sense if you knew why—”
“I don’t need to know. I know him. I know others like him. I know he enjoys the hunt, the tease, the toying. He told you not to fight because he fed off your trust and obedience. He made you believe he’d never do to you what others have done to us. But wake the fuck up, Ily! He cut you, raped you—”
“I don’t need you to remind me, Paavak.”
“Peter,” he snarled.
I stood too, still cupping my breasts, then giving up. It wasn’t as if everyone hadn’t already seen me or that a dozen other naked jewels scattered by my feet. No one ogled me. No one cared.
Lowering my voice, I whispered in Hindi, “Main ab theek hoon. mujhe lagata hai, Davaaon ka Asar khatam ho gaya hai. aaj sab kuchh behatar hoga...aap dekhenge.” (I’m okay now. The drugs are gone, I think. Everything will be better today...you’ll see.)
Blackness stole over his face. “Everything will be better? How can you say that? Are you deluded?”
I reared back. “No, I’m—”
“Trying to see good in a shitty situation?”
“Yes, I—”
“Don’t.” Bending down, he snatched something from the floor.
His linen pants brushed against my legs as he grabbed my hand and shoved my aventurine pendant into my palm.
“I need you to stay strong. I’m aware I’m contradicting myself when it comes to you—I tell you to run.
To stay. To trust. To give in. I have so much advice, and none of it can truly save you.
Perhaps I should let you have your fantasies that he’s different and won’t hurt you.
But after last night...how can you even want to believe that?
” He hung his head. “I just...I just need to know you’ll be okay.
Tell me you see him now. Tell me you’re prepared for how bad he’ll get and that you’re strong enough to bear it, and... I’ll back off, alright?”
“Pete feels responsible for you,” Kirk whispered from the floor. “He feels responsible for all of us.”
I tensed.