7. Ophelia
OPHELIA
No one speaks to me the entire ride to the facility. The man drives while the woman perches on a small fold-down seat beside me.
Because the only windows are in the cab of the vehicle, I can’t tell where we’re going, and I have no way of knowing the time.
The drugs in my system mean I keep nodding off, which doesn’t help my perception of things.
I try to reassure myself that my parents know where I am, but my trust in them has been fractured, and I’m not sure how we’ll ever repair it.
I have no idea how long they’re planning to keep me here, but if I’m going to get out, I need to convince them I’m as sane as the next person.
No more losing my shit, no matter how frightened I am, or how loud and overwhelming the Prophet’s voice might be.
From now on, I won’t mention it to anyone.
It is a relief that the sedatives they’ve given me have silenced him for the moment.
It occurs to me that maybe they’re right, and I need to be on them permanently, but I don’t want that for myself.
I don’t want to go through life in this strange, numb, distanced world.
I want to feel alive, like I did when the Preachers were chasing me through the woods.
Alive and free for possibly the first time in my life.
The memory makes me want to cry all over again.
Finally, the van comes to a halt, and the engine switches off. The female staff member stands and prepares to disembark with me. The rear doors open, and the ramp is rolled back out.
It’s dark outside.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. It feels worse to be smuggled into this place in the middle of the night, like I’m some kind of dirty secret.
In front of me is a single-story building, painted completely white.
There are bars on the windows. A tall fence and gates secure the grounds.
Someone has tried to soften the severity of the facility with some strategically placed planters around the outside, and there’s a seating area with wooden benches.
It hasn’t worked. It looks like what it is, a clinical prison.
At the front of the building is a large sign that reads, ‘Cedar Bridge Recovery Center.’
Somehow, seeing the name of the place gives me comfort. If something has been named, it means it’s possible to be found.
“Let’s get you signed in,” the woman says. “Then we can show you to your room.”
I don’t want to have a room here, but I have no choice.
She wheels me toward the building. A set of automatic doors senses us approaching and slides open. A reception desk is directly in front, with a woman in a white uniform, the same as the one my two captors wear—sitting behind it. She’s young and pretty and offers me a smile.
“Welcome to Cedar Bridge Recovery Center,” she chirps, as though I’m here on vacation and not strapped into a wheelchair.
“This is Ophelia Sinclair. Her parents have already signed the forms,” my female captor says.
They did? I guess they must have. I try to figure out the legal implications of that information.
I’m over eighteen, so does it mean I’ve been assessed as being a danger to either myself or someone else?
I remember the Preachers finding me after I’d taken all those pills, and how they’d dumped me in a cold shower. Maybe the assessment isn’t wrong.
On my lap, they place a folded set of pajama style clothes in a shade of pink that reminds me of strawberry milkshakes and cotton candy. They’re good things—faint reminders of the childhood I was stolen from—but instinctively, I know this place is anything but.
“We need all your personal possessions, too,” the younger woman says. “You’ll get them back when you leave.”
I don’t understand what she means. “I don’t have anything.” I display my empty hands, my wrists still strapped, as though proving a point.
“Yes, you do.” She motions at the small gold hoops in my ears and the gold bracelet I received as a birthday present from my parents on my last birthday.
“Why do you need my jewelry?”
“You might use them to hurt yourself with, or to buy yourself contraband from other patients.”
I’m still confused. “What kind of contraband?”
She opens her mouth as though she’s about to tell me, then snaps it shut as she must realize that not such a good idea.
But I’ve already put two and two together and come up with drugs .
Patients must not take their meds and stash them to sell on to other patients who perhaps might be on a different kind, uppers instead of downers and vice versa.
“We just need the jewelry,” she says instead.
“Oh.”
It’s not as though I can take it off myself, so my female captor unclips my bracelet and takes out my earrings.
As her hands brush my cheek, I resist the urge to growl and snap at her like a wild dog as I’m guessing those actions won’t do me any favors on the ‘trying to convince them I’m sane’ front.
I’m strangely naked without my jewelry. It makes me feel like I’m back in the commune where any kind of dressing up was considered vanity and a sin.
I’m wheeled away from the reception desk, toward another set of doors. These don’t open automatically. Instead, the older woman uses a keycard against a sensor.
A buzzing sound blares from somewhere beyond the doors, then they swing open. A long corridor lies beyond with numerous doors set at regular intervals. Harsh, strip fluorescent lighting illuminates the space. They hum and plink above us as the electricity is regulated through the tubes.
“Mealtimes are at seven a.m., midday, and five o’clock sharp,” she says as she pushes me along.
“You are expected to attend and to eat your food without complaint. The dining hall is at the end on the right, and the day room is on your left. There’s a television in there, which you’re allowed to watch, but the staff have control of the channels.
You’ll also find board games in a cabinet in the corner, which you’re welcome to play. ”
The last thing I want to do is play board games.
Ahead, a couple of people dressed in the pink outfit—one a young man, the other an older woman with graying hair—drift across the corridor like a couple of ghosts. They seem completely unaware of my presence or even each other. Their heads are down, their shoulders slumped.
Is that going to be me in a matter of weeks, or even days, from now?
The presence of other patients makes me wonder if it’s not as late as I think. Is there a set bedtime, like there are mealtimes, or are we allowed to just wander the corridors whenever we want?
We come to a halt in front of a door, and she reaches past me to open it.
“This is your room,” she announces.
The room is barely a step up from a prison cell.
The one luxury is a private bathroom, but otherwise there’s only a single bed and a dresser.
There are no mirrors, and not even a picture on the wall to soften the place.
There isn’t even a closet for my clothes, but then I realize it’s not needed.
I’ll only be allowed to wear the pink pajama set.
There’s a window, but it’s barred, and it’s dark outside.
She wheels me into the middle of the floor. “I’m going to unstrap you from the chair now. If you try anything stupid, we will sedate you again.”
“I won’t,” I mutter, already wanting to claw her eyes out.
But there’s no point in fighting. There’s a locked door between me and freedom, plus additional staff.
I also noted the number of cameras along the corridor and at reception.
I glance up to the corner of the room. Yep, one in here, too.
I have zero privacy, though I assume the bathroom won’t have one.
If I try to fight, there’s probably a buzzer she can hit to get more staff in here, and like she said, then I’ll be sedated again.
A part of me wants to give in to that. Maybe my time here will go quicker if I allow them to drug me into oblivion.
It’ll certainly silence the Prophet’s voice.
The thought is tempting, but there’s one main reason I don’t want to give up.
The Preachers. My beautiful men.
They helped me once, and I know they can do it again. The choice between spending every day alive, running from them in our woods, and free, or spending it in this drugged hellhole, is an easy one to make.
You don’t even know that they’ll want you back…
The voice isn’t the Prophet’s this time, but my own. A whispered, poisonous voice that spells out my worst fears. What if they’re done with me? What if, once the initial shock of me leaving fades, they discover they’re happy to see me go?
The possibility breaks my heart.
I’m lost in thought as she undoes my straps.
“Stand and undress,” she instructs.
I think I’ve misheard. “Sorry?”
“You need to take off your civilian clothes and put on the facility ones.”
“Okay, but can I have some privacy? I’ll use the bathroom if you have to stay in the room.”
“No. You might have smuggled something harmful in on your person. We need to be sure.”
My jaw drops. A strip search? That’s what she’s saying this is.
“No! I am not taking off my clothes in front of you.”
She rolls her eyes and tuts at me, then leans back and presses a buzzer near the door. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there’s a small microphone beside it which she speaks into. “I’m going to need some backup. Room one-oh-four.”
Adrenaline jolts through my veins. “No, please, don’t sedate me.”
The squeak of rubber soled shoes on the linoleum floor comes from outside the room as her backup arrives. It’s in the form of a huge man, who I’d guess to be in his thirties. He’s wearing the same uniform as the woman.
“Wait a minute, Carter. She might have had a change of heart.”
Carter remains standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, his arms folded over his chest. The short white sleeves of his uniform strain over his biceps.
There’s something cruel about his features.
His eyes are too small and set too far apart, his lips thin, his nostrils flared.
His blond hair is thinning, his pale scalp shining through the strands under the harsh overhead light.
They both stare at me.
My face floods with heat. “I can’t do it now that he’s here.”
“Yes, you can,” she insists. “You’ve proven yourself untrustworthy. I need him here in case you try anything else.”
He gives a slow smile, his gaze lingering over me. “I’ve seen it all before, sweetheart.”
He makes my skin crawl.
“Strip,” the woman says, “or we’ll just sedate you and undress you ourselves. Your choice.”
It’s not much of a choice, but I know for sure that I don’t want Carter’s hands on me.
“Okay, okay.”
I get to my feet, my legs wobbly beneath me. My head swims, and I pause, waiting for it to pass. I clutch my new outfit to my body.
“We haven’t got all day,” Carter snaps.
Huddling into myself to try to keep my modesty, I pull my shirt over my head. I go to pull the pink top on, but she stops me. “Lose the bra. We need to make sure you haven’t hidden anything in it.”
“I haven’t!” I cry.
“You still can’t keep it. It has an underwire in that you might use to hurt yourself or someone else.”
I fight down tears but turn my back. I unhook my bra and drop it to the floor.
“Now turn to show us,” she says. “We have to make sure you don’t have anything under your breasts.”
My vision wobbles with unshed tears. Keeping my head down, I slowly turn.
Carter gives a chuckle. “Her tits aren’t big enough to hide anything under.”
“Now the pants, underwear and all,” the woman says.
There’s no point in trying to fight it. I just want all this to be over and for them to leave me alone. Fighting tears of humiliation, I roll off my pants, taking my panties with them, and kick them away. I use my hands the best I can to hide myself.
She stands directly in front of me. “Squat.”
I do, my thighs trembling, and me hating her with every ounce of my soul.
“Good. You can stand. Now open your mouth. We need to check you’re not hiding anything in your cheeks.”
“I’m not.”
“Just open your mouth.”
I think she is going to do it, but then Carter steps forward. I’m completely naked, with only my hands covering my body, and having a strange man in such proximity to me feels like a violation in itself. He grabs my jaw and digs in his fingers, forcing me to open.
I whimper my dismay.
He pushes a thick finger into my mouth and swirls it around the inside of my cheeks. He lingers a little too long on my tongue then pushes his digit far enough back in my throat to make me gag.
“She’s clean,” he announces.
I note how he makes no effort to wash his hands and wonder what he plans to do with his saliva-covered finger once he’s in private. I burn with shame and fury. How could my parents send me here?
“You can get dressed now,” she says. “We’ll assess you properly in the morning.”
To my relief, they both leave the room. A moment later, buzzing sounds, followed by a click, and I realize they’ve locked me in here. I don’t even care. I’m just glad to be alone.
I quickly throw on the outfit they’ve given me. The material is starched and scratchy. I glance up at the cameras, wondering who is behind them, and if they got a kick out of seeing me naked and watching that asshole practically assault me.
When I get out of here, I fully intend to tell my dad exactly what happened. I wonder how the Preachers would react if they knew, too. I imagine the fury in Cain’s eyes, the wildness of Malachi’s rage, the intense force of Roman’s anger.
Carter wouldn’t be walking for long after they all found out.
It’s with this tiny shred of pleasure that I lie down on the bed.
The mattress is thin, and the springs stab up through it, prodding me in the ribs and hips and shoulder.
I curl up on my side, facing the wall. I hold their faces in my mind and their names in my heart as I close my eyes and will myself to sleep.
I can only hope that when I wake, this will all have been some terrible nightmare.