Prologue #2
His eyes widen in surprise that I’ve actually spoken, but before he can say anything, I lunge forward and sink my teeth viciously into his lower lip. He cries out, but I lock onto that mouthful of flesh and refuse to release him.
He bellows out a furious scream tinged with pain and tries to push me off him, but my teeth are clamped down tight and I’m not letting go. He continues to scream even as the coppery taste of his blood fills my mouth. In desperation, he grabs a handful of my matted hair and yanks hard.
My head snaps back and we finally separate. He falls backwards and hits the floor with a thud, scrambling away from me. Blood pours down his chin, the crimson fluid staining his once pristine white coat. His eyes are filled with shock and his mouth is fixed in a rictus grin, lower teeth exposed.
I stare at him in utter contempt and spit the useless lump of flesh that used to be his lower lip on the floor between us. He stares at it in horror, and for the first time in years, I smile.
“Does it hurt?” I say coldly. It was what he always used to murmur in my ear as he forced his cock inside me.
He holds his hand to his mouth in a useless attempt to stem the gush of blood and scrambles to his feet. I watch dispassionately when he almost wrenches the door of its hinges and disappears into the corridor.
“Does it hurt?” I scream at his retreating form before I throw my head back and laugh maniacally.
Like a cacophony of hyenas, my loud cackling sets off the other patients.
I can hear them screaming and hollering, bangs and crashes ringing out, and I continue to laugh and laugh, my voice shrill and mocking.
Punishment comes quicker than I expected.
Within minutes, Dr Whyte is back, a thickly folded square of muslin pressed to the grim open wound of his mouth.
He’s flanked by Hobbs and Cooper, his lackeys masquerading as orderlies, but I’ve seen the look in their eyes.
They share their employer’s love of the suffering of others.
“Take her to the bath,” Whyte orders, but his command is muffled and distorted. It also sounds wet.
The two burly men stride forward and unbuckle the wide leather belt that has kept me tethered to the wall; they leave the straitjacket though. I am lifted between them, my numb legs dangling uselessly beneath me, a clear foot above the ground as they carry me from the room.
The corridors are dimly lit, and the smoky tallow of the wall sconces give off a sickly scent. Bangs and clatters echo along the corridor as shrieking patients throw themselves against their locked doors, screeching like harpies.
I’m still laughing. The energy from the patients pulses in the air like a living, breathing entity.
Their madness feeds me. I can feel Dr Whyte’s eyes burn into my back.
I’m carried forcibly to a large room on the next floor, a room I know all too well.
I know what’s coming, but I’m not afraid.
It will be worth every second of torture to be able to relive Whyte’s scream of agony as I ripped his flesh from his cruel face.
I am done with men trying to control me.
For the first time in years, I feel my magic stir in my blood, not yet awake but shifting restlessly. It’s only a matter of time before I regain control of my power and then I will make every single man who’s wronged me suffer.
Cooper kicks the door and it crashes open, the sound echoing loudly.
My eyes land on another familiar-looking figure.
Sister Agatha, impeccable as always in her high-necked, long-sleeved gown of dark blue, a starched white apron pinned to her front and tied around her thin waist. Her dark hair is scraped back tightly into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, and as usual, her pale face bears a look of pinched disapproval.
She stands beside a large tin bath filled with what I know to be ice-cold water.
Her eyes widen in horror when she takes in my appearance, most likely noting the blood still sticky on my chin and saturating the front of my straitjacket.
Her mouth tightens and her gaze slides across to Dr Whyte, who has now entered the room behind me, the blood-soaked muslin pressed to his mouth.
The straitjacket I’ve been imprisoned in is roughly unbuckled and stripped from my body.
Once free, my arms drop heavily to my sides.
It’s a struggle to lift them, they’re so numb from hours and hours held immobile.
Before I can do anything, Hobbs and Cooper pick me up once more.
I struggle against them, but it’s no use—my body won’t cooperate and the two men are big and powerful.
But still I scratch and bite and shriek, clawing at any inch of skin I can reach.
Although I’m practically feral, they manage to wrestle me into the bathtub and shove me down into the water. It’s so cold it robs the air from my lungs and I can’t even scream. The icy temperature feels like thousands of needles stabbing all over my body.
One of the orderlies grips my hair painfully and forces my head under the water. Sound is muffled in my ears and I thrash wildly, but brutal hands pin me down. My lungs burn from lack of air and my heart pounds from the sudden shock of the ice water searing my skin.
My vision begins to waver with the desperate need for air.
Just when everything starts to turn hazy, my head is yanked above the waterline.
I barely have enough time to suck in a breath before I’m plunged back down.
The pattern repeats several times until my body is so numb and heavy from the cold that I can’t fight anymore.
For a moment I wonder if this is it, if this is the time they finally kill me, but there’s no peaceful acceptance.
All I feel is rage.
Suddenly my head is yanked above the water, and I’m shoved back against the lip of the tub, my body wracked with painful shudders. My hazy eyes lock on the bloodstained form of Dr Whyte.
“Y-you’re going to d-die in a-agony,” I whisper to him, my teeth chattering loudly while my body shakes. “I swear it.”
Whyte looks over at Sister Agatha and nods. She leans forward with something in her hand. My head is roughly shoved to the side and there’s a sharp scratch to my neck as a needle pieces my skin. But I don’t even flinch, keeping my hate-filled gaze on Whyte until my vision goes black.
I don’t know how much time passes. I slip in and out of wakefulness. I can’t move but can feel the heavy leather belts chafing against my body where I’m strapped to the bed. My vision is blurred, but I recognise the room that has been my prison for years; it’s as familiar to me as the pain.
My stomach seizes, cramping the way it does when they withhold the measly portions of food they allow us. My mouth is dry too, my throat spasming when I try to swallow. I have no idea what they’ve done to me while I slept nor how long I’ve been under.
When the fog surrounding my mind finally begins to clear and I begin to feel every inch of my body screaming in agony like an abscessed tooth, I realise two things.
One. I’m not alone.
My head lolls to the side and my eyes slowly begin to focus. I see that Dr Whyte sits stiffly on a chair beside my bed.
Two. At least a day or so must have passed.
I glance down at his mangled lip. His once attractive face is now permanently twisted into an ugly grimace.
They’ve obviously tried to stitch his lower lip, but with such a large chunk of it missing, it was impossible to reassemble it.
Instead, they’ve stitched the two sides together, leaving his mouth a misshapen mess that probably makes it difficult for him to eat.
The wound itself is partially healed, scabbed over and marred with ugly black stitches.
It makes me smile. Something I’m sure he can no longer do.
“So finally,” I rasp, my voice barely above a whisper, “they will see you for the monster you truly are.”
His dark eyes glitter with malice and he stands abruptly, the legs of the chair scraping against the floor in a squeal of protest. He leans over me and strokes my head, a mockery of tenderness he is incapable of feeling.
The sensation of his touch feels not only unwelcome but strange. Due to the sluggishness of my drug-addled brain, it takes me a moment to realise why.
My hair is gone. I can feel his palm against my bare scalp, and it makes me cringe.
Not for vanity. I’ve been naked, tortured, dehumanised, raped, abused, drugged…
the list goes on. I no longer give any mind to how I present myself, which is usually dirty, with tangled, matted hair and stinking to high heaven.
Not that I believe there is such a place.
Not anymore.
“Cordelia, still so defiant,” he mumbles. His mouth can no longer quite form the words he’d use to charm and cajole the upper echelons of society. “You’ve always been my favourite.”
His fingers trail across my chin and down my throat. I shift and feel the restraints at my wrists.
“So much fire,” he slurs, and I struggle to understand him.
“I always thought I’d break you in the end, but here you are…
” His fingers skim over my breasts and then toy with the wide leather belt pinning me to the bed.
“Here is where we part ways, but I want you to know your sacrifice will not be in vain. I will be able to learn so much from you, be able to learn how your mind works. That indomitable will, that spark of fire that refuses to be extinguished.”
“What do you mean, my sacrifice?” I reply.
The unsettling look in his eyes tells me he’s smiling even if his mouth isn’t cooperating.
“I’m going to cut open your skull,” he mutters, his fingers tracing patterns across my scalp. “And then…I’m going to dissect your brain.”
“You can’t do that,” I hiss.