Chapter Twenty
Quinn - Present Day
Oh, Quinnnyyyyy. Did you miss us?
We missed you…
My heart drops into my stomach. I thought they’d left me alone.
I thought the fact that I had chosen to live—for now—would be enough for them not to come back.
Clearly, I’m not that lucky. I’ve been in this place for less than twelve hours, and already they’re here torturing me.
Voices bounce around my head like I’m the little white ball in a game of ping pong.
We’re your only way out, Quinn.
We’re here to help you.
“I don’t want your fucking help! Leave me alone!
” I smack my hands against my ears, shaking my head from side to side, trying to rid myself of them, even though I know it’s no use.
They took my watch because it was classed as an electronic device, so I have nothing to indicate what time it is other than the moonlight trickling in through the broken window.
The lamp went out hours ago. In the darkness, I can see webs across the pane, and I’ve spent the majority of the night engrossed in watching a spider build its web.
I can’t fucking stand spiders usually, so the fact that I’m not setting the building on fire and running for my life tells you everything you need to know about my mental state.
I stood for hours, naked, shivering, before conceding and picking up the blanket to wrap around my body.
The texture makes me want to vomit; it’s scratchy, coarse, and barely fits around me, semi-covering me from my boobs to my knees.
I paced back and forth trying to avoid any spots that could potentially make my socks even dirtier.
At some point, exhaustion overtook me, and I sat down on the rubber mat cosplaying as a mattress and leant against the cool wall, hoping the contrast to my body temperature would help to ground me.
Spoiler alert, it did not. And the time I wasted finding a patch of wall that was free from blood for me to lean against was a waste of the little determination I had left.
At home, you’ll never find me sleeping in my socks. They make me feel claustrophobic, but best believe I’ve kept those bad boys on this evening!
Scuttling sounds fill my ears, making me jumpy.
Every direction I think I hear it coming from, I turn to the opposite, but it just gets louder.
There’s no escape. I haven’t seen a rat yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in here somewhere, too, waiting to feast on my blood.
I feel things crawling on my skin, swatting them away and then wondering if they were even there in the first place.
It’s time to do it, Quinn.
Kill yourself.
It’s the only way to save you from the hell you’re about to endure.
“No. No. NO!” I punch myself in the side of the face, my skull, slapping my thighs and my stomach, doing everything I possibly can to chase them away. But it’s of no use.
Don’t say we didn’t warn you, Quinn.
Outside is completely silent. Rain begins to patter against the glass, the wind howling.
Where the bed—if you can call it that—is situated, I’m directly under the broken panes of glass, so before I know it, my skin is getting wet, and I realise I have no choice but to move.
The blanket drops from my body, and I tremble as my body adjusts to further exposure to the temperature.
I bend down to pull the mattress away, but it’s too heavy for me to move with just my good arm.
I crouch and try again, this time using my bad arm as well.
“Ahhhhhhh, COME ON!” Nerve pain ricochets down my arm, and I let go almost as soon as I’ve started pulling, falling back onto my ass.
Sharp pain stabs the skin on my backside, and I pull myself off the floor using my hands to figure out if I’m hurt or not.
I feel wet, so I can only assume I’m bleeding.
Moving towards the moonlight, I put my hand where I can see to confirm.
Well that’s great. Probably going to die from a rare blood disease now.
I pull out some of the embedded bits in my skin, brushing off the loose bits. The bigger parts look like a mixture of glass and broken bits of wood. The sting from the cuts has me hissing as I try to clean myself up as best I can.
Please. Just this once. Please. Do what I need you to do.
I implore my arm to listen to me. The limited capability of movement, or ability to grip onto the mattress to enable me to dislodge it enough to give me some momentum, is basically impossible, and I resign myself to getting back under the blanket and sitting in the rain.
At some point, the sky starts to lighten, and still sitting up, I give in to the exhaustion. After what feels like mere minutes, I’m jolted awake when cold water is thrown over my head.
“Wake up, fuckface. Time to get to work.” Dickard stands there with the empty bucket, a smirk on his face, thriving on my reaction.
“What the fuck? Was there any need for that?” Pain consumes every nerve on my body; my neck aches and my leg muscles are crying out from the shooting pains coursing through them. I remember I haven’t been given pain meds since before I left home yesterday. Today’s going to be a fun day.
“It’s past 7 am; you were supposed to be up at 6.30 am ready to begin your day.”
“And how am I supposed to know that?”
“It tells you over there.” He points to a poster on the wall.
“And how, pray tell, am I supposed to read that in the dark? You’ve taken my phone so I have no way of knowing the time.”
“I mean, that’s not really my problem, is it, Sweet Cheeks?”
He places the bucket on the floor and puts his hands on his hips.
“How am I meant to go to breakfast when you’ve taken all of my clothes and toiletries?”
“Toiletries can be earned; it tells you so on there.” He points in the direction of the poster again.
“Clothes, however, unfortunately for me, are mandatory. I could get used to watching that ass swing around here, but alas, you at least are entitled to basic human rights. So, if you open your fucking eyes, you’ll see there’s a pile of clothes on the end of your bed.
Just remember, this is at my discretion.
If you fuck me off, I’ll take them off you and make you stand naked in the rain until you catch pneumonia and tell your family you died trying to escape—not that they’d care anyway. ”
Ouch.
“I’ll be a good girl, sir. Don’t you worry…”
Clearly unimpressed by my sarcasm, he goes off on another tangent. “I’m happy to take it away from you if you’d rather sleep on the floor? What basic means to you can mean something completely different to me. I’ll happily showcase the differences if you’d like me to.”
This man is a complete and utter fucking prick.
“No, I’ll get dressed. Just tell me where I need to meet you once I’m finished.”
He looks at me with a look of disdain on his face. “Well, see, if you’d read the rules—”
“We’ve established I don’t have magical powers to see in the dark…”
“That may be true, but you did have some light when I left. If you chose not to be efficient with the time that you had, then that’s not something I can help with, I’m afraid.
It’s a lesson to be learned. But, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me…
According to the rules, you must be accompanied by an escort—either myself or Darla—wherever you go within the grounds.
At night-time, once you are brought back to your rooms, you are not allowed to leave until we come to escort you back in the mornings.
And by the time we do, we expect you to be fully dressed and raring to go.
We’re watching you. And if you try to leave, the fence will electrocute you.
” Well, if I needed persuasion not to test the fence, that was it.
“And what if I need to use the toilet at night?”
“It’s in the—”
“Rules,” I grumble. “Yeah, ok, read the rules, got it. Can you at least turn around so I can change? Surely there’s some kind of policy about male staff and female patients to ensure each of our safety?”
“Nahhhhh. We don’t need any of that nonsense here, Sweet Cheeks. I’ll look after you. Don’t you worry.” He winks at me. I internally vomit.
“So…are you turning around, or?”
“You know, ordinarily I would, but I quite like a show. Usually they’re a bit more expensive, though. Making it rain is a hobby of mine.”
That tracks. Nausea sweeps through me, the muscles in my stomach tightening like I’m about to spew at the realisation I’m going to have to dress myself in front of him. Naked in front of a man for the second time in twenty-four hours is a record for me. I wonder if it comes with a medal?
I whimper as I move. “What’s all the noise for?”
“I haven’t had my pain medication.”
“Oh, you’re right. We had to have the doctor overlook your scripts before we could approve any administering of medication by facility staff.
You should receive it either before or after breakfast, and then again for your evening meal or lights out depending on when it needs to be taken.
We’re not medieval torturers here, you know.
We like to treat our patients humanely.”
I don’t even have a response. As I twist and turn to try and stretch my body before carefully moving myself to get up from the mattress, I realise I’m stuck.
“Can you help me up, please? I’m not sure if my mother made you aware of the fact that I’m actually disabled.”
“You look perfectly able to me.”
“Appearances can be deceptive.”
“Yeah, that much is obvious. You’re a lot more attractive with your clothes on than with them off, let me tell ya. Your mother did no such thing; in fact, she told us that it was all in your head.”
Why doesn’t that surprise me? It quickly becomes apparent that he has no intention of helping me, so I have no choice but to pick a side to cover, either the front or the back, to preserve my dignity and then try to get up myself.
I roll from left to right to gain momentum, keeping hold of the blanket with my bad hand.
Because it’s a lighter object, it’s easier to keep a grip on.
Nerve pain slams back through my body, and my skin feels like it’s on fire to touch.
It’s such a painful side effect of my accident; the amount of tubes of pain creams I go through just to take the edge off is ridiculous.
I wonder if that would be considered contraband and make a mental note to ask Darla later.
If I’m going to get a straight answer out of anyone, it will be her.
After a few rolls, I pull myself over onto my knees and catch my breath.
Stretching my back into a cat pose, I try to curb some of the pain I feel for long enough that I can get to my feet.
I lift one leg and put my arm on the wall to give me some support as I pull myself up, my legs clicking as I stand, unable to stop the whimpers from the pain escaping me.
I turn around to face Dicky, whose eyes are glowing at this point.
I move towards the clothes, having no choice but to bend down to grab them. I hear him mutter, “Mmmmmmm.” As I turn around, he makes the gesture of rubbing his dick and laughs at himself.
I finish dressing myself, slowly, carefully, trying not to cause myself more pain than I can already feel.
“Can I at least have a moment to read the rules before I go to breakfast?”
“Sorry, no can do. We’re on a tight schedule round here; you’re lucky you’re even still getting breakfast. Not that you couldn’t afford to miss a few meals. There’s a copy of the rules in the cafeteria. I’m sure you’ll be able to read them there. Chop chop.”
Fat shaming, too, nice. He turns on his heel and stalks out of the door, leaving me with no choice but to follow him.
I never realised until this very moment just how much I didn’t want to die; now I’m determined to do nothing but survive.
Somewhere out there is a life that’s perfect for me, and the realisation that I want to work through the healing stage and discover who I am away from all of the toxicity has me almost thanking my family for abandoning me in a derelict mental hospital.
And I say almost, because without my family, the hatred I feel for myself down to my core would never have existed in the first place.
For my entire life I’ve searched for acceptance and love; but I was searching in the wrong place.
Never understanding that until I learn to love and accept who I am myself, healing is just a figment of my imagination.
I know myself well enough to know I’ll never heal inside this place; it’s designed for people like me to fail. But, with someone like Harley in my corner, I may just stand a chance.