Chapter 36 The Harvest
MAGDALENA
We were alone in the office for too long after he’d made the call for them to come get me.
He kept yapping about what a disappointment I’d been and how now I would truly pay for the disaster I’d caused.
Apparently, I’d destabilized the system.
Some girls had already been caught revering my “asinine actions.”
I was so shattered I wasn’t even completely aware of myself.
Was I sleeping? Sobbing in silence? Or wailing?
I couldn’t tell. Every time I attempted to analyze my state, all I felt was a mix of a cold, lonely emptiness and numbness.
There was no fooling myself into believing someone had done this to me out of obsession or some sort of a sick love.
They’d done it all to hurt me. And the worse part was my body enjoyed some of it.
It was as if they’d broken me and I’d managed to come together, but all wrong with leftover shreds that didn’t fit.
I couldn’t possibly even contemplate or process his words. Sometimes, I’d speak a word or two, a phrase here or there, but never a whole sentence.
The guards practically busted in, then lifted my broken body from the floor, leaving behind the splinters of my mind and soul.
They couldn’t possibly unstick that from the carpet.
It’d stained it crimson red. I stared at the shadow of it in silence.
That was it, the place where the last of me had been ripped away—or so I thought.
They rolled me through halls that had finally become familiar.
How ironic that it was too late to use that information to escape or help anyone.
Minutes later, they pushed me into a shower.
With my forehead and palms flat against the tiny pink tiles on the wall, I attempted to stay standing for them to do whatever it was that they were going to do, but as soon as the high-pressured icy water whipped my skin, my legs gave out.
I folded into myself, running away from it.
It was so strong it hit my muscles, sure to leave scars.
“Stand up!” one of the men commanded, but I couldn’t.
The other one sucked his teeth, then stepped in, hauling me up by my arms. I tried to pull away, to hide from the stinging spray, but I had no strength to fight.
My protests were ignored. Then his big hands rubbed a strong soap that dissolved every drop of moisture my body could produce.
By the time I was dried and placed on a new hospital bed, the only thing keeping me awake was my constant violent quivering.
Not only had the cold water taken all my heat, but the room seemed to be the temperature of a morgue.
Perhaps that’s what it was; I must have missed the cabinets of dead bodies somewhere.
I lay on my right side, trying to fold my body so some heat would accumulate.
Without a word, my hands were pulled together and tied to the metal railing on the side of the bed.
More and more people talking to each other walked into the room, preparing for a procedure I wasn’t aware of.
No one talked to me, not even as they lifted long shreds of fabric with velcro and tightened them over my across my body.
It was surprisingly heavy. I guessed it was meant to keep me in place.
They did the same on my hip, then tugged my legs to fully extend them.
“She’s too dehydrated,” one of them complained after his third attempt to insert an IV into me. Another took over, only accomplishing to poke my muscle until the pain reverberated through my entire arm. It woke me into a panic. What were they doing to me? I couldn’t let them do this.
“It hurts. Stop! No! Leave me alone!” I kept screaming and pushing their hands away.
“Stop fighting us, slave. You’ll ruin everything we set up.” Gloved hands forced me down into the mattress.
“Did I really hear some screeching?” a new male voice asked as he walked in. “Why have you not sedated her yet? I don’t have all day.” Every word in the question increased in volume.
“We can’t find her veins, Dr. Avery—”
“Where’s the ultrasound machine? You have five minutes to sedate her, or I’m moving on.” I heard his steps, and his insulting murmurs got farther and farther, then the door swung open and he was gone.
While some shoved my upper body into the mattress, even my face, others rushed.
I saw them moving like chickens without heads.
They yanked at my arm, the same one that hurt from their previous attempts.
Soon after they stabbed an IV into me, I found myself unable to move at all.
My chest started collapsing; it hurt as if my lungs were too heavy for me to breathe into.
This was it. Despite my immobility, I felt a tear slide over the bridge of my nose and down to the other side.
A thumb pushed my eyelids closed, and to keep them that way, they taped them down the middle.
It was worse than any hell I could have imagined—lying on that bed, fully awake, unable to move anything.
It’s as if they’d buried me alive. The world was heavier on me.
I don’t want this. I don’t want to die. Please!
Someone help me! Someone please save me.
Please. Someone! Dadddyyy! Please save me, Daddy!
Heeelllllp! I screamed in my mind again and again, feeling trapped, clautophobic.
Never could I have possibly guessed how important it would be for me to be able to physically express my fear and distress.
Even during my panic, the tube kept breathing for me at a consistent slow pace, as if I wasn’t about to lose my mind.
To calm myself, I dared to do something I’d avoided the whole time I’d been at the center, I basked in happy memories from my childhood.
Now that I was stuck in this horror, it seemed like a fairy tale.
Dad adored me, and Mom was always in awe of me.
It was clear now how much they’d loved me, how much they’d tried to give me a good life, but somehow, I’d messed it all up.
I remembered how Dad would play with dolls with me and read book after book after book.
The Ugly Duckling had been my favorite for so long.
I love you, angel, he’d coo after tucking me into my cute bed.
Mom would put on some music and dance with me, silly moves that would make me giggle ’til I collapsed.
“Alright, are we ready? Is she at least immobile?” The doctor interrupted my vivid memory and panic took over again.
The tube was so dry against the inside of my trachea.
Everything was so wrong, uncomfortable, and painful.
No. Remember your wedding day? I asked myself.
My heart calmed a little. I remembered the white magnolias, my dress, and how the sunlight made the diamond ring glimmer so strongly it almost blinded me.
I love you, Daddy. I love you Mommy. She’d kiss my hand.
I love you, baby. Have some nice dreams.
A thick cold liquid was spread on the curve of my waist and hip.
It seemed to take too long. My desperation for it to be over intensified.
The burning pain cut not just through my skin but through any formation of solid thought.
I felt everything, every inch of skin torn apart by the sharp edge of the knife.
The pain burned. My blood streamed down my belly and back as the knife slid across.
The slicing, stabbing agony reached deeper. I couldn’t take it.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” All I had in my thoughts were constant screams and sobbings, but the room continued being completely silent except for the beeping.
A towel dried the fat sweat beads on my forehead and the tears running on my face as fingers dug inside the cavity they’d cut, and cradled what I felt was my kidney.
The beeping quickened even more as a new hollowness filled with blood. The earth swirled under me, my heart exploding. The heart monitor’s beeping quickened and got louder.
“Will someone silence that thing?” The doctor’s question brimmed with annoyance.
And then the beeping stopped. They’d silenced the last layer I’d had to communicate the pain I was enduring.
The world was becoming heavier and heavier, and I could feel what was left of myself slipping away, dissolving into the air.
“We need her to calm down. That’s your one job, Joe.” The doctor’s deep grumpy voice was muffled.
All I want is to go home. I need to go home. Please. I need …
“Beeeeeep—”
Killian’s smiling face was so close to mine.
His eyes were taking in every detail of me as if he couldn’t get enough of it.
I liked it when he looked at me like that because I couldn’t get enough of him either.
He was like a mystical creature, every minute I would discover a whole new beautiful detail of his.
I was counting his freckles while sitting on the bench with him.
An acute hot pain ripped through me. My heart hammered too fast, hurting my chest.
“Okay, we have it,” the doctor announced.
A movement in the background caught my attention.
It was Daddy! Pure excitement filled every particle that made me.
I’d missed him so, so much. “Daddyyy!” I yelled for him with joy, but then as I ran to hug him, he disappeared, and all the oxygen was snatched out of my body, and I was no longer with them in that yard.
“No! None of you are leaving this room until you put her back together!” a male voice yelled. There was a deafening alarm blaring, but I couldn’t identify it.
“Sir, please. Let’s be practical. She’s lost too much blood.”
“I said save her!”
“Let them go. I can finish the job,” the calm doctor tried to negotiate.
“No one gets out!” he yelled at them, then his breathing got closer to my ears. “Little One?” Warm hands cupped my cheeks. “I’m here now. Little One, I need you to wake up, okay? Wake up. Right now.”
It sounded like Sir, but it couldn’t be; he was dead. I was daydreaming again, wishful thinking. As the voice became more and more familiar, it cemented me to this world, but I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be with Killian and Daddy where I was loved and happy.
The tape pulled at my eyelids when it was yanked away.
“Little One, I need you to wake up right now,” he whispered, kissing the edge of my ear again and again.
“Magdalena? Please.” Instead of waking, I tried to find my way back to that sweet memory when everything was so beautiful, loving, and perfect.
“Goddammit! What the fuck did you do to her?” Sir sounded hysterical and furious. “What are you putting in her veins? I want her awake!”
The snapping of a stapler was followed by tiny teeth sinking into my skin, sending thin wires of pain through my body.
“We did what we always do, Sir, we followed orders. It’s best if she’s not awake while I staple her back together.” I only heard him because his voice was so near me.
I left the room again, and a sweet, restful peace blanketed me. I never wanted to go back. But then warm fingers interlaced with mine, bringing me back despite my fighting to run away.
“My little one, you can’t die.” Was he crying? No. Sir wouldn’t cry for me. A thumb caressed my forehead. “You need to live.” Kiss. “You’re so young.” Kiss. “Today hurts, but maybe tomorrow will be the best day of your life. Maybe in a few months.”
I can’t. Please let me go.
He kissed my eyebrows, my forehead, my cheek. Each kiss brought me more and more into this cold world, waking me to the excruciating pain on the side of my body.
“Don’t go to him. Stay here for me. I promise I’ll fix it. I’ll make everything right. I promise. I’ll do everything to free you. I’ll give my life. They won’t hurt you again.”
“Sir, we need to go, the smoke—”
“Finish your fucking job, or I will blow your motherfucking brains out,” Sir threatened through his teeth.
I kept coming in and out. For a few seconds, I felt the ripping of my insides as the breathing tube slid out of me. I coughed, desperate for water, anything to soothe the dryness.