Chapter 6
DAISY
I keep forgetting to write. Or maybe it’s that I don’t want to remember this time in our lives.
Fin came by, asked if he could help. But he has his own problems. He looks thinner. Maybe from what happened. I don’t know. I can’t ask him.
We had to move. Without Mark, I just don’t make enough to pay the mortgage. They foreclosed on the house that Mark and I were so excited to move into. Our first house. Now Daisy and I live on a busy street in a tiny apartment. There are sirens all the time.
Daisy hates it.
So do I.
She hasn’t said more than a word or two at a time since the fire. Even Fin didn’t seem to be able to bring her out of her shell. They don’t have the afterschool programs she was in before here either. Couldn’t afford them even if they did, I guess.
I don’t know what to do except take it one day at a time until things get easier.
If they get easier. God, I wish Mark was here.
He always knew what to say, even to Daisy.
Seems like everything I do and say is wrong.
She gets so upset. She’s worn her ear defenders for three days straight.
Got called into school because she won’t take them off.
She won’t shower, won’t even wash her hands.
Something about the water smelling funny.
All the change over the past couple months has set her back.
She got angry and threw a glass across the room yesterday.
She’s getting worse and I don’t know what to do.
Iput the book down and stare at the ceiling.
I’d thought the diary began when my mom married John, but there’s a lot here from before that.
The entry prior to this one was about how she and my dad were going to the movies together and they weren’t sure if I’d be okay with the sitter.
Then there’s a gap of three months. When the fire happened.
I guess she couldn’t bring herself to write about it.
I remember when we moved and the ear defenders thing. All the kids in my new school were too loud. The streets, the park, even my bedroom were the same. There was no quiet. In the end, I caused such a problem that they let me keep them on in class after that. A large win in my tiny world back then.
I close my mother’s diary and put it next to me on the bed.
No one’s come into my room since Jacob brought me back.
There was some cold, congealed soup on a tray waiting for me, which I ate as soon as I could walk properly, even though I didn’t want it, because I’m conscious that I haven’t been given any food at all for days.
I think it's been days, anyway.
I inspect the Stinger on my thigh again. I never messed with the one at The Heath. They’d have noticed too quickly if I had, but if I can get a hold of some tools, open the box somehow, and disconnect the battery, maybe…
I uncurl my body from the position it’s been in for several hours, stretching my limbs and sitting up slowly.
I don’t look at the dress Joe made me wear that’s in the corner in a heap.
I don’t think about what happened this morning or what it means, nor the fact that the only clothes I now have to wear are the gray prison-like ones.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that Joe is transforming my life back to the way it was before I left England.
Worse, even. He’s getting a sick and twisted pleasure from all of this, his absolute power over me…
the fact that he can now correct me just like he used to watch on the videos that were sent of me.
Besides the general horror of everything that’s happened, it grates that Joe is, for all intents and purposes, my master.
I have to do whatever he says now, or the consequences are very real and their effects are lasting.
This Stinger is so much more powerful than the one at The Heath.
I’ll bet it’s at the very limit of the voltage a human body can take.
I hear a noise in the hall and put the diary away quickly, knowing that Nasty Nurse will take it just because she can. The key in the lock has my body tensing. The door opens and the nurse stands at the threshold for a moment, surveying the room. Her eyes land on me.
‘There you are, sweetie.’
‘Where else would I be?’ I ask. ‘I’ve been locked in here all day.’
Nasty Nurse smiles. ‘An oversight. I’ll let you out in a minute and you can go read one of those boring books you love downstairs.’
I stand up, anticipating being out of my room.
‘But first I need you to drop your pants.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You’re excused,’ she chuckles like she just made a joke. ‘Pull your pants down or I’ll just call Jacob. Or,’ her eyes gleam as she takes out a black keychain.
My stomach bottoms out and my legs almost give way. Joe gave her the button to zap me.
‘Maybe correction is in order?’
Head swimming, and now feeling very ill, my fingers find the drawstring of the gray pants and I unknot it, letting the pants fall and pool around my ankles.
Nasty Nurse steps forward and pulls the long shirt out of the way. My lip is quivering, so I bite the inside of it so that she doesn’t see my fear.
She inspects the Stinger slowly and tells me to turn around while her thumb plays with the button.
I do as she says, focusing on the trees outside the window as I feel her sharp acrylics graze the skin of my thigh.
‘He had this made especially for you,’ she hums. ‘Off the blueprints of something he found. But he made it better. Smaller. More powerful, he says.’ She titters a little.
‘He was telling me all about it while he was fucking me earlier. He’s very proud of it.
’ She gives another little laugh. ‘You poor little thing. Your face when they held you down and you saw it. I thought you were gonna pee yourself.’
Without warning, she grabs my hair and wrenches my head back, forcing a cry out of me.
‘And then you bit my hand, you little bitch!’
She steps back quickly, making sure she’s not touching me, but keeping hold of my hair and, holding the remote out like she’s turning on the TV, she pushes the dreaded button.
Pain shoots through me like a rush of fire, making my back bow and my muscles lock. My hair being pulled from my scalp becomes an afterthought, a whisper in a cacophony of sound. I can’t even fill my lungs to scream.
When it finally subsides, I’m on my knees and the hateful cow is still holding onto my hair tightly.
‘New rules, Marguerite,’ she hisses. ‘When I correct you, you don’t make a fucking sound, or I do it again. Understand?’
She shakes me when I don’t answer.
‘Yes,’ I croak somehow.
My hair is finally released, and I slump forward, grabbing the sheet to stay upright.
‘When I correct you, I want you to say, ‘thank you, Nurse Smith.’ Can you do that for me?’
‘Thank you, Nurse Smith.’ I whisper, hating that I’m doing what this horrible woman wants.
But even I know there’s no other way. Not right now.
When she giggles, she sounds further away. I look back and see that she’s filming me on her phone from the doorway. I turn my face away immediately, trying to cover myself.
‘Oh my god, you actually urinated on yourself a little. Unbelievable. Ugh, you’re disgusting. Get up and go clean yourself up, you lazy little retard, or I’ll zap you again right now!’
I do it. I struggle to my feet though it feels much too soon to be moving after being shocked with that much voltage. Feeling dizzy and nauseous, I stumble on shaking legs to the bathroom.
‘Leave the door open,’ the nurse orders when I go to close it.
I leave it a crack and she kicks it wide, still videoing me.
‘Take off your pissy clothes and get in the shower, dirty retard.’
I try to pretend she’s not there, that she’s not recording this. My brain is on autopilot, and I go through the motions as I turn on the water.
When I get in, she reaches through the door and turns the water cold, ordering me not to fix it.
She makes me shower in the freezing water for a long time, watching the phone as she makes her little movie of subjugation.
Deep inside, I promise myself that I’m going to get her for this.
Finally, she sighs like she’s sated after a nice meal and turns off the water, throwing me a towel and putting her phone away.
‘I’d love to put that online. I’ll bet there’s a ton of pervs who’d love to see your fat, ugly ass getting what it deserves.’ She pouts. ‘But Joe said all the videos I take are just for him. No sharing his future wife over the internet.’
She leaves the bathroom but turns back.
‘Almost forgot. What do you say, Marguerite?’
‘Thank you, Nurse Smith.’
‘For what?’ she asks, voice hard.
‘For correcting me and helping me clean up,’ I answer, my voice toneless.
‘And are you sorry for biting me?’
‘Very sorry, Nurse Smith.’
She snorts and leaves my room, not bothering to lock the door.
When I’m sure she’s gone, I get back in the shower, turning up the heat until I’m warm. My body aches, probably from the two shocks I’ve gotten so close together. My left leg feels the worst. It’s shaking and feels a little like Jello.
I wrap myself in a towel and walk to my room, glancing at the closet. I know what I need. But what if she comes back? What if she finds me…
I cut off that line of thought before it can go any further.
I can’t give in to the fear. It’s only been a few hours.
I was at The Heath for ten years. Was it really much different than this?
Some of the Blanks and the nurses were sadists like Nasty Nurse.
Sure, they didn’t have complete control the way Smith seems to think she does, but am I really going to let her break me? This quickly?
I’m better than that, and stronger, too.
I limp to my bedroom door and peer out into the hallway. No one’s there, so I close it and half hobble to my closet, already anticipating the darkness all around me. The quiet. The feeling of safety.
Even though it’s a lie.