Chapter Three
The Caged
Present Day
I’m cold, but that seems to be the norm these days.
My wrists and ankles are protesting against the metal tightly clamped around them, I’d think they’d be used to it by now.
He left the balcony doors open when he was done with me, leaving my naked body shackled to the bed, my limbs pulled in different directions leaving me fully exposed.
It’s always the same.
The same ending. The same position. The same dread that fills my body and infiltrates my bones.
It’s been three months at least . I only know that because I have been counting the days that I remember. There are 72 scratches on the back of the nightstand. 72 days I have remembered to count.
How many days have I forgotten?
I know that I was unable to mark the days I spent in the dungeon, which is why I am estimating three months, but something is telling me it’s been longer. Nothing feels right, as if I am living someone else’s life, but maybe this is what trauma feels like.
Maybe this is what it feels like to truly be helpless.
The icy spring air flows throughout the room, causing me to tense.
That only makes the shackles dig deeper into my skin, burrowing into my flesh.
I wince silently. I learned quickly how to hide my pain.
Not because I had to appear strong, but because no one cared about the pain I was in.
The only person interested in how I feel is Tobias, but that is only because he enjoys the sight of my pain.
My screams for help, every flinch and wince as he slices me until I am nearly unrecognizable, only to pump me full of drugs and do whatever it is that makes me heal almost instantaneously as if nothing has even happened.
My brain doesn’t heal as fast though, my mind slow to recover. The days blur together and I often find myself questioning what truly happened. Did any of it actually happen? Am I insane? Are these moments of pain and terror just dreams like the one I had about Chatis?
When will I wake up?
I can’t fight the full body tremors wreaking havoc through my body as I shiver, the chains rattling from the movement.
The shaking always comes, it's a sign that the hemlock is wearing off. A sign that my body is craving it, something I can’t even fight.
He’s made me addicted to it, the numbing haze that overtakes my senses, making me forget.
Tobias has been using poppy root less and less lately with the hemlock.
He wants me to remember. He wants me to remember how he touches me, how he uses me, what the pain feels like.
He wants me to remember every single second of my miserable life.
He wants to break me, but I won’t let him. I can’t let him.
But if I do, if I succumb to the depression eating away at my mind, who will I become? Will I become a husk he can control even more than he already is? Is living this life, like this, even worth it anymore?
Davel is standing by the door, his hand resting on the pommel of his golden sword.
He’s my least favorite of my rotating jailers.
He stares at me, intently. He watches Tobias touch me, hurt me, rape me.
And then, when Tobias leaves, he stands as close to the bed as he can while he touches himself, finding pleasure in my pain, in my blood.
It doesn’t help that Tobias keeps me tied up like a dead deer, for all who walks in to see.
Naked, chained to the bed. Not a single part of my body is hidden.
I guess I should be grateful I’m not dead. That I am not lying in an unmarked grave like I am sure Theo and Donovan are. Like I know everyone in Chatis is.
Graves I’ll never get to visit.
The day Tobias brought me home, I could barely even think.
I could barely even breathe. The smoke was so thick, I was choking with each breath.
My bare feet were getting sliced up from the rubble and shattered stained glass.
The leftover bones were burned and reduced to ash.
It smelled awful—like sulfur and charred meat.
He paraded me around, holding me close to him with a metal collar he has kept around my throat since.
I had no words for what I saw, for what was left of my home.
He read off the list of casualties as if he was reciting a task list. Chatis was small, but the death count totaled to 481 people.
Nearly 500 people were murdered simple because I pissed off Tobias.
My father. My friends. My people.
All dead.
I’ll never forget that it was my fault. I will never get their faces, their names out of my head. For ten years I dreamt of glass and bone, but it wasn’t a dream, it was a premonition.
One I could have stopped.
I haven’t had a single dream since that night.
I don’t know if it’s the steady stream of drugs Tobias has been pumping into me, or if I just have no more visions to see.
I have tried nearly every day to reach out to Enzo, but the connection is gone.
I feel nothing. Part of me is convinced he never existed.
That I imagined him to get away from the horrors I’m experiencing.
Another part of me believes that it was the glass dagger, the one I am convinced he left for me in the woods, that fueled our connection.
When Tobias broke it, it shattered everything.
That is what I keep telling myself, because if that is true, then I am not crazy.
I am not growing mad. I am merely a person who can see the future, uncontrollably, and that I have someone out there who I can connect to.
Or maybe I am insane.
I take a slow deep breath as another breeze filters through the open doors, causing my nipples to harden and goosebumps to spread along my bare skin.
Even back in the dead of winter he tried to freeze me, and he almost succeeded.
Laris was on duty, and if he hadn’t thrown a blanket over me, I would have died from frostbite.
I almost wish I had.
I haven’t seen Tano in weeks and Laris will barely look at me.
For three months he has been averting his eyes, only speaking when needed.
He’s the weak link. I plotted for days on how to exploit that, but I eventually gave up.
Any hope I have of getting out of here is gone.
No one is coming to save me. No one should.
I’m not worth the sacrifices everyone has made already.
The door opens and Lydia walks in with Malia trailing behind her.
I asked where my other two ladies went, but it seems they were dismissed after everything.
They glare at Davel before making their way over to me.
They are coming to bathe me, like clockwork.
I don’t offer them a smile, nor do they offer me one.
Davel follows behind Malia, producing the key to unlock me.
She and Lydia stand off to the side while he walks over to me, his armor rustling.
Their eyes harden as they wait, as they know what comes next. I brace myself.
Davel has a smirk plastered to his face as he reaches over the bed. His hand trails down from my breasts, his fingers brushing the hardened peaks of my nipples, before sliding down. His fingers slide against the apex of my thighs softly and he bites his lip and snorts.
Every day it’s the same. He watches Tobias, he touches himself, and then he touches me.
Sometimes it is more than this, more than a brush of a finger, but I don’t let myself remember those days.
I don’t let myself remember the feeling of him pressed up against me as he has me bent over the side of the bed.
The feel of his hands squeezing my sides as he slams himself inside of me.
I can’t let myself remember how he told me Tobias would never believe me as he empties himself on my back, wiping the evidence away before anyone can see it.
I can’t, because he’s right.
He never believed me about Jeremiah. Almost to the point of my death. If he hadn’t seen first-hand what he had done, I don’t think Tobias would have ever believed me.
I keep my glare fixed to him and he stops his caress before winking at me.
Davel gets to work on the shackles holding me in this position.
I nearly groan as they fall off my wrists and ankles, the pressure finally releasing.
When he’s done, he slowly lets his eyes trail over my naked body, licking his lips.
I force myself to sit up and slide off the bed, pushing past him with shaky legs.
His hand grabs my arm, pulling me into his side.
He leans down, pressing his nose to my hair before inhaling loudly.
I rip my arm from his grasp and stumble towards Lydia, who catches my shoulders before I fall into her.
My stiff limbs protest the movement, and if my ladies didn’t stand on either side of me, I would probably fall.
They lead me to the bathing chamber where a tub full of steaming liquid sits.
They don’t say anything as I step into the water.
I hiss as the hot liquid burns the sores on my ankles and the shallow slices along my stomach from this morning that haven’t yet healed.
When I’m fully settled in the bath, Malia gets to work scrubbing the blood from my skin as Lydia detangles my hair.
I close my eyes and relax, it’s the only time I can. The only time I feel safe. I used to fight.
Fight Tobias. Fight Davel. But all the fight I have in me is gone. All that’s left is a full-body numbness. I don’t protest, I don’t speak. I don’t do anything but exist. It’s the only way to keep my sanity.