16 Olivia
July 5th, 2022
6th, 2022
7th, 2022
8th
It had to have been the 6th by now, right?
They refused to feed me, but they gave me water, and by how many times I had soiled myself, by how numb my body was, I was sure it had at least been a day.
At the very least a day and a half.
I was sure.
I blinked heavily, staring at that door. They had come in and tried to drown me again, but I survived it. At least, I think I survived it.
Heaven couldn’t have been like this, and Everett was still talking to me, so I had to be alive.
Lillian’s father allowed her in here every couple of hours, I think, to beat me. I was her punching bag, she said. Better than a regular one because I ‘felt real’. It prepared her for the real world. Apparently, she had a lot of rage to get out of her, and I was the only one good enough to help her accomplish that.
Everett said he couldn’t take the chance with just hanging around the city, waiting for her to find him, that it would waste too much time, and I think she hated that. I think she blamed me for it. Blamed me for the amount of time she had spent in the city, waiting for him at that park like I had, waiting for him like I had waited for him.
If I had the ability, I would have laughed, but as it was, I didn’t think I could anymore.
I think one of those blows to my head had broken something inside of me because I couldn’t even remember what my own laughter sounded like.
Had I ever known?
Was that something people knew? How they sounded when they laughed?
It had to have been Tuesday the 6th, I was sure of it.
The door opened and my heart skipped a beat. It was Phil and this time he brought some food with him.
A slice of bologna and a carrot.
I pulled on the chains as he shut the door behind him, his eyes taking me in while mine remained on that food. “They’re feeding me,”
I said, my voice hoarse, raspy.
“Good,”
Malachi said through the earpiece.
“It’s a show of good faith,”
Phil explained, walking up to me. “In hopes that you’ll give them something.”
I tried to push forward as he stopped in front of me, my mouth open, saliva pooling from the tip of my tongue. I didn’t care how I looked; I was starving. I had never been this hungry in my entire life. I needed food.
Phill rolled up the slice and held it out, gently placing it on my tongue.
Fuck, it was the best food I had ever tasted. Better than anything my chefs cooked for me when I was growing up. I chewed quickly and swallowed it whole, opening my mouth for another taste.
Phil watched me carefully before glancing at the door and back. “You need to slow down, Olivia, savor it. I don’t know when they’ll feed you again. Especially if you don’t give them anything in return.”
“Please,”
I pleaded, trying to lean closer. “Please, I’ll be good.”
I opened my mouth again. I would be so good. I would do whatever he wanted me to do if it meant I could have just one more bite of it. One more.
Phil released a breath and let me take another bite. “They’re going to come in and clean you,”
he explained quietly. “With a water hose.”
“Good,”
I groaned around that piece of fake meat, swallowing it whole and opening my mouth again.
He gave me another bite. “Olivia, a high-pressured water hose. It’s going to reopen some wounds. It’s going to hurt.”
I swallowed it again, this time it was painful. “A hose is a hose. More.”
He frowned, holding it back. “You have to listen to me.”
“Why?”
I asked, staring at that last bite of bologna. “You probably get off on it. You’re probably excited to see me all wet and whiney. All shivering and cold, my nipples hard, my skin tight. I bet you love it. I bet you jerk off to it when nobody is around.”
He had to. They all had to. Why else put me through all this other than to see what I looked like underneath? Steven did, mom hated and loathed the way I looked, she had been using it to her advantage my entire life.
They probably liked it too. They probably fantasized about me, about fucking me while I was chained to this wall. It made me feel horrible and disgusting, but I couldn’t stop their imaginations. I couldn’t stop their thoughts. All I could do was hang here and hope that I was wrong about it all, even though rationally, I knew I was right.
His eyes dried, his frown growing. “I have a wife and child. A boy. I don’t fantasize about you, Olivia, I feel sorry for you. I wish you didn’t have to be here.”
I straightened as much as I could given how I was hanging. “Sorry?”
I released a breath that maybe could have passed for a laugh. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Phil.”
I jerked against the chains, using my body to thrash against them. “Fuck you,”
I snapped. “I’m fucking stronger than you, better. You couldn’t fucking last an hour in here, let alone a full day.”
He lowered the food a few inches, his eyes filled with shadows. He licked his lips, gears moving in his eyes, until finally, he sighed. “It’s been a week, Olivia.”
My heart stuttered and he stepped back, taking my food with him. “No,”
I said, thrashing against the chains violently. “No!”
I screamed. “You’re lying to me, Phil!”
I snarled, jerking and shaking. “You’re a fucking liar!” I yelled as he turned away, heading for the door. “A liar!” I screamed until the door shut behind him. “You goddamn fucking piece of shit liar!” I roared.
I was panting, staring at that door, my anger quickly disappearing when I realized it wasn’t opening back up.
I gasped, holding my breath, waiting for him to come back, but thirty seconds passed, a minute, two minutes, and he never came back. He had taken my carrot, and he had left. “Wait,”
I called pathetically. “Wait, no, wait, I take it back. I take it back! I’m sorry!”
I cried, tears streaming down my face. “I’m so-sorry, please. I’m so hungry. I’m so…”
I couldn’t breathe. My eyes lifted, seeing the dried blood cracking around my wrists, my fingers purple and I felt the scream rip through me. Over and over again.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
The room was smaller, I know it was. It had gotten smaller. They had put me in a different room without telling me. Without saying a word. “What,”
I gasped, frantically looking around the room. “What the fuck, where am I? What the fuck? Let me out of here!”
I screamed, ripping my throat to shreds. “Please!”
“Olivia.”
I gasped, going completely still, the voice familiar. So familiar. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. It was familiar for a reason. I had to focus. If I just focused, I could remember.
Whose voice was that?
Not Steven’s. Not his, um…
Oh! “Ev…Everett?”
“I’m here, pup.”
I inhaled sharply, shaking my head. I knew it. It was always him, it would always be him. “Where did you go?”
“We’ve been speaking every hour,”
he said, his low, sultry voice filled with something I didn’t quite recognize.
I looked around the room carefully, slowly. “They moved me,”
I whispered hoarsely. “This room is smaller. Phil is lying to me now, he said it’s been a week, but I know it’s a lie, I know it. Can you use that information? He has a wife and son too. I don’t know why everyone is lying to me, but it has to mean something, I know it does.”
“It does mean something, you’re doing so good, Olivia, but listen, I need you to listen to me, okay?”
At the shift in his voice, I knew exactly what he wanted, and I wanted it too. I missed him so much. I just wanted to see him, just for a second. “If I do what you ask, will I get something in return?”
I dared, my eyes locking on that door.
He was quiet for a long time before he answered again. “Anything you want, just name it.”
“I want to see you,”
I told him, feeling my heart flutter at the possibility. “Just for a second and I’ll do whatever you ask, I promise. Just come right through that door, and I’ll do anything.”
Seconds passed. “It might be a bit, but I promise you will see me.”
Relief filled me and I nodded. “Okay.”
My eyes filled at the possibility of seeing him. I had been good. I was being so good, I deserved to see him, I was sure of it. I had more than earned it.
“Okay,”
he whispered back, that thing in his voice back. Like a crack or a break. If I were writing the story out, I might have paired it with crying, but that was impossible because Everett didn’t cry. Ever. He didn’t have it in him. “Olivia, I want you to repeat some things for me, okay? Over and over again. I want them engrained into your mind; do you understand me? I want you to say it so many times that the words don’t sound like words anymore, okay?”
My brows furrowed. “Words? That doesn’t seem like a challenge.”
“Not yet, but it might feel like it later, so you need to do this for me. Over and over again. Out loud or in your head, just keep saying them no matter what happens, okay?”
That didn’t seem like something he would request from me, but who was I to question him? “Okay, I understand.”
“Good, repeat after me; ‘I am Olivia Rose’.”
“I am Olivia Rose,”
I repeated.
“I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed.”
I watched the door for a long time, thinking over his words. Just truths. He was having me repeat truths. Why? I wasn’t sure. I was fine, everything was going fine.
“Olivia?”
I swallowed, my tongue dry, the taste of bologna still lingering. “I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed,”
I repeated back at him just as the door opened.
Isaak walked in, his eyes narrowing as someone behind him pulled in a hose. “Were you talking to yourself? Perhaps confessing a sin?”
I sneered at him, so angry, so exhausted. I just wanted some food. “Sin?”
I asked vehemently. “The only sin I committed was not swinging the gun towards your daughter’s chest when I had the chance. The desperate whore deserves to be six feet under.”
“Bide your time, pup,”
Everett’s voice drifted through me.
Yeah, I knew that. I knew I needed to bite my tongue, to hold back my reactions, but I was so tired, and it was getting harder and harder to hold it back.
His expression darkened. “Now, Olivia, I’ve tried to be fair. I’ve given you water, I had Phil feed you today. I’ve done my very best to keep the miscreants away because look at yourself. A ragged dress, hanging on the wall, no way to fight back. I have many men up there begging me for the chance to get a few minutes down here with you. Olivia, please, please do not give me a reason to punish you for your dirty little mouth. I’m a good man, I would hate for you to ruin that.”
I worked my jaw, my heart beating way too hard. I wanted to yell at him. To ask him why he was even keeping me alive at this point. I had been here a week and I hadn’t said a single thing regarding The Family. If it were my book, he would have killed me by now and moved on.
But maybe he was just that desperate.
Maybe there was someone whispering to him that I actually did have these secrets that I didn’t have.
Maybe it was something else. Something I hadn’t predicted yet. Not every plot twist could be predicted, after all, not even when the pen was in my own hand.
But I had to hold my tongue. I couldn’t bite back, I had to be a good pup.
So, I swallowed down the words I wanted to say, and found his unwavering eyes. “I am Olivia Rose, I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed,”
I said hoarsely.
His brows furrowed in irritated confusion. “What?”
“I am Olivia Rose,”
I repeated, trying to put strength into it. “I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
My heart was thudding against my ribs, it hadn’t really stopped doing that in days. “I am Olivia Rose, I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed.”
“Stop that,”
he demanded.
“I am Olivia Rose,”
I said again, my throat burning. “I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed.”
Isaak snarled and turned to the man. “Hose her down, it reeks in here.”
“I am Olivia Rose, I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed,”
I shouted as he turned for the door.
“I am Olivia Rose! I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed!”
The man stepped forward and pointed the hose right at me.
I locked eyes with him. “I am Olivia Rose, I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Cl—”
The water hit me like a cannon. Ripping me against my chains, my feet hitting the wall behind him.
I cried out, my clothes ripping off me, my skin burning, my cuts reopening everywhere that whip had hit me, everywhere Lillian’s knuckles had split my skin.
It felt as if a stream of rocks were being pelted at me at 100 miles an hour. I felt as if my skin was ripping from my bones as he lifted the stream towards my chest, my hands tearing in the chains.
I screamed, trying to turn my head away, snapping my mouth shut when the water hit my face, ripping my hair back.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t see.
I couldn’t scream.
“I am Olivia Rose, I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed.”
“I am a writer, I am unbreakable, I am Claimed.”
“I am unbreakable, I am Claimed.”
“I am Claimed.”
“I am Claimed.”
“I am Claimed.”