27. Inés
27
Inés
C old sweats drench my body. The pain medication barely takes the edge off, and my body isn’t prepared to go without it. Shivers run through me, making me tremble, while footsteps come and go from the room. The guy in here nags more than anyone I’ve ever met, especially for someone he doesn’t even know. He asks questions like:
“How are her vitals?”
“Is she going to wake up soon?”
“What’s taking so damn long?”
“Can you get her some warm blankets?”
The voices drift in and out, almost like my consciousness. I can’t move. I can’t speak. I can’t even open my eyes still. I can only hear and feel. I feel them touching me and checking me. I could cut their hands off for taking me from my mother. Why couldn’t they just let me fuckin’ die?
“Why isn’t she waking up? It’s been two weeks.” The man’s voice is impatient.
I wish I could answer his question so he would just shut the fuck up already. But I can’t. I’m trapped somewhere between here and nowhere—a place where I have become nothing but still in the shell of my own body.
Another chill cracks over my body, and suddenly, warmth spreads over me–a new blanket tucked in by careful hands. The same hands rub my hand, and a slow huff comes out.
“Come on, Little Killer, you have got to fight this shit. You’re not weak, and you know that. I have only met you while sitting at your bedside and can feel the light begging to come out of you. Ga–Ghost needs you to come back.”
As I feel a gentle stroke along my right knuckle, my skin tingles in response. It’s a strange sensation, one that I didn’t expect to enjoy, but I can’t help that at this moment, I do. A part of me feels ashamed for liking the touch, especially when I know I shouldn’t. But it’s comforting in a way I can’t quite explain.
Still, I need to wake up and snap out of this. There’s no time to get lost in these feelings. I need to be strong and focus on getting myself through this.
“You’re not alone anymore. You got a whole family waiting for you out there. A lot of people who need to meet you and speak to you.” A strong Hispanic accent fights through the words; they are filled with different emotions.
My heart is racing. I don’t even know what a family is anymore. I have only had myself, my knife, and my bike. The concept of family feels foreign and confusing. But sitting here with a complete stranger who has voiced for me more times than I can already count makes me feel like it all may be worth a shot. But they don’t know the demons that are inside of me. They don’t know that I crave that feeling of ending a miserable man’s life. They don’t fuckin’ know that I murdered not one but two innocent girls trying to prove myself to others. I am a dog who bit a stranger and needs to be put down.
After all, none of this matters if Marklov is still alive. He won’t stop until I am either back in his hands or fuckin’ dead. What if they see the monster that I am and toss me away like I am nothing? I wouldn’t even argue. They would be right in so many ways.
Something is wrapped around my head, pressing against my skin, trapping heat and sweat beneath it. It itches—a relentless, maddening sensation that makes me want to claw at it, tear it off, breathe. But I can’t move.
I try to lift my hand, to scratch, to do something, but nothing happens. My body doesn’t respond. It’s as if I’m locked inside myself, screaming into the void, unheard, unseen.
The itch worsens. A slow, crawling torment that makes my skin burn with the need for relief. But all I can do is endure it.
I want to wake up.
Why can’t I wake up?
Panic coils in my chest, a rising tide that I can’t control. I try again—move, damn it, move—but my body is nothing more than dead weight, useless and unresponsive.
I’m trapped.
A prisoner in my own skin.
I can hear something, faint and distant, like I’m underwater. A rhythmic beeping. Soft shuffling. Muted voices just out of reach. They sound familiar, but the harder I try to focus, the more they blur into meaningless noise.
I want to scream.
I want to rip this suffocating thing off my head, force my limbs to move, break free from this suffocating stillness. But I can’t.
Instead, I sink deeper.
The itch is still there, taunting me. The heat, the sweat, the frustration—it’s unbearable. But worse than all of that is the fear creeping in.
What if I never wake up?
What if I’m stuck like this forever?
No. No, I can’t stay like this.
I push against the nothingness, against the weight holding me down. My body may not listen, but my mind refuses to be silenced. I will move. I will wake up.
The beeping grows louder. The voices shift, a murmur of concern, but I still can’t make out the words. I try to focus on them, desperate for something real, something to anchor me.
Then—pressure.
Fingers brushing against mine. A warmth that seeps through the numbness.
Someone else is here.
The touch is hesitant at first, then firm as if they’re silently pleading with me to hold on. I know this touch. I can feel the calluses, the rough edges softened by something careful, something… familiar.
It’s him. Ghost.
I want to squeeze his hand to let him know I hear him. I feel him.
But my body betrays me.
Again.
A scream builds inside me, raw and violent, but it has nowhere to go. It crashes against the walls of my mind, trapped like the rest of me.
I’m right here.
The pressure of their hand lingers, steady, grounding. I focus on it, ignoring the suffocating stillness, the unbearable itch, the fear gnawing at my insides.
I don’t know how long I’ve been like this. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.
But I do know one thing—
I’m not alone anymore…and I think that I am becoming okay with that. Or it could be the drugs talking.