Chapter 25
As soon as I heard my father speak, something or someone hit me over the head, taking me out completely. I have the pain and, most likely, the mark to prove it. They’ve kept my mask on, and when I woke, they kept me waiting for hours, listening to my own heart pulsing through my ears.
There’s a click that sounds like a door opening. I sit up on my knees, uncomfortable from my bound wrists and ankles as voices filter through the room.
“We tried once, but it didn’t work. What makes you think it will this time?” my father asks, and my lip curls into a sneer.
Heartless fucking asshole.
How could you do this to me!? I want to scream, but I contain it. I’m not about to give him the satisfaction without getting some answers for myself.
“We’ve changed the formula, and we’ll keep her here until she can’t remember that night.” That voice. It’s so familiar, but I can’t place it.
What night is he talking about?
“Do what you have to, but make sure she doesn’t leave here with that memory. It could ruin me and everything else we have planned.”
What the fuck do you have planned?
“The public must not know about Purileen, do you understand?”
Footsteps echo through the space until they fade, then the mask is torn from my head, and I gasp, coughing, sucking in one breath after another.
My eyes blur, adjusting to the light, and finally land on Benedict. “You,” I whisper.
“That’s right, Isla, me. What do you remember from that night?”
I blink, squeezing my eyes shut. The longer I’m in this room, the more the memories come flooding back.
The dank room, the constant monitoring and needles.
The painful sleep, fighting temperatures like fire coursing through my veins.
Then it hits me as soon as I spot the two beds on the floor at the back of the room.
“I was here before,” I whisper.
He nods. “What else, Isla?”
Blood. So much blood, but it wasn’t mine. I knew that much.
“Beatrice…” My voice cracks, then images of her sprawled on the mattress, like a lifeless doll, her eyes blank as she stared up at the ceiling, come to me. No. No, no, no!
“You see, when you started remembering, it was only a matter of time before everything came back, so we were left with no choice.”
“You lured me back to give me whatever is in those syringes to make me forget?” I ask, wanting to understand, longing to have the entire picture after years of nothing.
“We couldn’t risk the public finding out about Purileen.”
But why did you use it on me and my sister?
What don’t you want me to remember?
What does my father have to do with any of this?
He holds up a thick syringe in front of me, his blue eyes glistening with something sinister. “You took something from me, Isla,” he whispers, leaning into me. “I’m going to take it back. You won’t be leaving this room again.”
It hits me like a train, the visions so bright and filled with colour like I’m there, his blue eyes like a tunnel into the past.
“Isla, don’t do this, please. I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to help both of you!” Ben yells, holding up both hands in surrender, backing away from me. He’s a younger, much more handsome version of his father, but it won’t stop me from attaining my revenge.
I don’t listen. I won’t, because I’ll never allow myself to be used like a toy ever again.
“You fucking sat there and watched. You watched them torture and rape that little girl. You did nothing!”
The tears stream from his eyes, knowing I’m right, the regret clearly visible in the dark blue swirls. It’s not enough. I want them all to die, to feel what every poor little girl felt in the moment before she forgot.
“Isla, let’s just go, please,” Beatrice pleads from beside me.
My rage blinds me, the red seeping through every crevice I’ve left open, allowing it to fill me as I ram the knife into his neck. He can’t scream, he can’t speak…just like them. He drops to the floor, his blood seeping through the carpet and onto my bare feet.
An alarm sounds, and the entire place goes into lockdown.
“Come,” I breathe, gripping Beatrice’s wrist and holding onto her like she’s the only lifeline I have left. “Run. Don’t look back.”
I pull her through the door as our bare feet slap against the pavement. The grounds are silent as we work our way through the shrubbery, every scratch, every jabbing breath a reminder that we’re still not free.
“Stop!” a man yells from behind us as we slip through the bushes and out into the street.
“Don’t fucking let them get away!” another screams behind us.
Then hands are on me, and Beatrice is stripped from my hold. “B!”
My shoulders hit the pavement, followed by the back of my head as he jabs something into my neck, my sister’s screams echoing through the empty street.
The liquid flows through my veins, coating me once again, the fear not of what will happen, but when I’ll forget.
“I got her!” he says above me, his hold on my neck like a vice. I leverage the proximity, driving the knife still curled in my hand into his arm. “Fuuuckk! You bitch!”
My splutters and coughs don’t stop me from climbing over him, stabbing him in the chest, over and over until he stops struggling beneath me.
When I look up, Beatrice is being pulled by her ankles, the needle still in her skin, protruding from her neck. “Isla!” The terror in her eyes mirrors the urgency in mine.
I ignore the pain and get to my feet, rushing to her aid. “B!”
Her foot rams straight into his groin, his knees buckling as he topples over. I stand above him, gripping the knife with both hands and raising it above my head.
“Fuck you,” I spit, driving the knife down through his skull as a guttural, ragged scream tears through my chest.
Helping her up to stand, I pull the needle from her neck and throw it to the floor. “Let’s go, before we start to forget.”
The night grows darker as I hold onto my sister’s hand, the fog slowly creeping into my mind.
“Isla, I don’t think I can hold on,” B sobs, clasping my hand tighter, her fingers interlaced with mine as our legs work to escape.
“Yes, you can. You have to. One of us has to remember. We need to remember…” I say, but the memories are already fading, their faces blurred, and the voices now muted.
I’ve tried to count to keep myself grounded, but it’s no use fighting it. We walk and walk with no end in sight, both of us without a sense of what just happened.
The sound of an engine pulls up beside us, and I flinch, pulling B into me. The window rolls down, and a man with dark hair and eyes as black as the night stares back at me.
His face is familiar, like I’ve seen him somewhere or known him previously in my life. “Is everything okay? Do you need some help?”
Before I can answer, he speaks again.
“Stop the car,” he demands and opens the door to step out. “Isla?” he says, taking in his surroundings. “Why the fuck are you covered in blood?”
The more they used it on us, the quicker the effect was, like our bodies were surviving off it.
“Your son,” I breathe. “The girls…I remember everything.”
His smile falls as he drops the needle to his side. “Perfect. I’m going to enjoy how painful this is going to be for you.”
He doesn’t hit me or jab me with the needle like I thought he would. Placing it on a tray by the door, he leaves without another word.
Every inhale is like a sharp sting, my body on fire, but cold at the same time.
It burns through me like a firestorm, the hot, nauseating waves flowing through me like a river.
Then comes the bone-deep chills, the sound of my teeth chattering, violent and involuntary.
My head pounds, each pulse a brutal throb, cascading spots across my vision.
Every move I make, my body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, every muscle screaming for mercy. I can’t even lift my head without the world spinning around me.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here now. Days…maybe weeks, subjected to the same torture repeatedly.
I press my head to the cool fabric of the pillow for relief, but it doesn’t last. The heat is unbearable. My skin is slick and clammy, my clothes seeped in sweat.
Breathe, Isla, breathe.
I should be resting or sleeping, but how can I when I know what they want?
It’s like I’m trapped in my own skin, every molecule begging me to fight, and that’s exactly what I do, so I don’t forget. I won’t forget.
Not this time.
I shut my eyes, thinking about the only thing that brings me comfort. The one thing that can cut through the fog and haze.
Malik.
The way his strong calloused hands thread with mine, as if he could protect me from anything. His laugh, laced with grief and longing. I cling to it all as the fever billows through my body, letting him be the only thing that pulls me through my misery.
“You belong to me. You have since that night in the graveyard.”
It’s like I hear his voice, faint and distant.
Is he here?
I don’t have the energy to move or call out his name, but I can almost feel his warmth beside me, the back of his fingers on my forehead, his voice in my ear telling me he’s coming for me.
“Malik.” His name slips out, barely a whisper, before the darkness envelops me.