Chapter Twenty-Four
Quinn - Present Day
Breakfast finished over an hour ago, and I was escorted back to my room. I cannot get those rules out of my head. Consequences?? What consequences? No talking? Different houses for people? What criteria is used to decide who is worthy and who is not? Who the fuck do these people think they are?
It’s at this point I’m wishing I’d hidden my phone in the toilet tank so I could contact Harley again, although based on the rules I wouldn’t be allowed there without an escort anyway.
Still not having had my medication, the withdrawals are starting to kick in.
Sweat coats my forehead, and my body is shivering despite the fact that I feel like I’m overheating.
My pain is off the scale, radiating through my body in waves.
I reach for the scratchy blanket to pull it over myself in an attempt to combat the shivers.
I know it won’t work, yet it’s a cycle I start every time.
It’s not the first time my medication has been withheld from me.
My mother does it for fun, but I have yet to find a way to minimise the symptoms of withdrawal.
My t-shirt is soaked from the sweat perspiring from my body.
Within seconds, I throw the blanket off of me and switch positions, trying to find a comfortable spot, to no avail.
I try to distract my brain and think of other things.
Another few seconds pass, and I switch positions again, pulling the blanket back over me as my shivering increases.
It’s a vicious cycle, finding a position that eases my suffering to then have to switch it all up again almost immediately.
I’m pulled from my thoughts by Darla’s voice. “Quinn, are you ready for your meds?”
“Yes, please. My body is crying.” I almost sob from relief.
She laughs. “I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but okay. Here you go.”
She hands me the pot of medication, and I look at the tablets.
They all look familiar, so that’s something.
I tip the contents into my mouth and use the remainder of my water from breakfast to wash them down.
One thing you get used to when you have a chronic illness is swallowing bundles of tablets all at once.
At this point it’s a party trick. “Tell me something, Darla. Do you suffer from chronic pain? Have you ever been hit by a car and your body destroyed for the rest of your life?”
“No. I don’t believe in chronic pain. Pain is pain. We’re all in pain at some point in our lives, Quinn. Most of us just have to get on with it. We don’t have the privilege to lie on our backs and do fuck all all day.”
“Wow. How ignorant of you. I hope you never know what it’s like not to be able to trust that your body will look after you or praying to things you’ve never believed in, that you’ll be able to do basic everyday things and not be stuck in your bed unable to walk for days on end.
I hope no one close to you ever has to feel the trauma that many of us feel at the betrayal of our bodies and the inability to enjoy life as a ‘normal’ person would. ”
“Sounds a bit dramatic if you ask me, Quinn.”
“Good job I didn’t ask for your opinion then, isn’t it?”
“Don’t get it twisted.” She stalks towards me, a fire in her eyes that shows she isn’t the pushover she shows on the surface.
“I may be the nicer one out of Richard and me, but if you push me too far, trust me when I tell you, you’ll know about it.
No one is coming to save you, Quinn. No one. You’re at our mercy.”
“That’s what you think,” I mumble under my breath.
“What was that?”
“I said, ‘It won’t happen again, Darla.’”
“Good, that’s what we like to see. You’re learning already.”
“You have an appointment with the doctor in an hour after your exercise. I’ll take you to the exercise area now and will escort you to see her afterwards. Remember the rules: no talking to the members of the other house, and during exercise hour you must be continuously moving.”
“I need an aid if you want me to continuously exercise for an hour. It’s impossible for me. If I do that, I won’t be able to walk for days. My body doesn’t work like everyone else’s.”
“Use the wall.” How original. Not the first time I’ve heard that one.
“What about water? Can I have some?”
“You’ll be given water after your session. Can’t have you skipping the session because you keep needing the bathroom, can we?”
Despite the comfort of knowing I’ve taken my tablets, the withdrawals are kicking my ass. The wet patches littering my shirt have gone from warm to cold, and my head is beginning to pound. Whether that’s from dehydration or lack of medication, I don’t know.
“Come on, get off the bed.”
“I don’t think you understand. I’m trying to.”
“Well, try harder. If you’re late to exercise, you won’t get the full hour, and that will result in a consequence from Richard. Trust me, you don’t want one of those.”
I roll from side to side, trying to grip onto the mattress to pull myself up.
Because of the sweat, it’s sticky, so my skin feels like it’s peeling off every time I move.
I try to ignore the sting and continue building momentum, but each time I go to pull myself up, my body deflates and pulls back into its original position.
I reach up to pull on the rotten windowsill and regret my decision almost immediately when it disintegrates in my fingers, and I fall onto my back with a thud.
“Now you’re just trying to be difficult.”
“I wish I was. Can you help?”
“It’s not worth my job, sorry. Try again.”
I bend my right leg at the knee and pull it underneath my bad leg and use that to push myself up until I’m basically in a variation of the downward dog.
I stop to catch my breath. Deep breathes in and out as I count to four with each inhale and exhale.
I rock backwards and forwards, eventually pulling myself up onto my knees and repeating the process until I’m standing on my feet.
“See, that wasn’t hard, was it?”
This fucking woman needs her face smashed in with a breeze block.
At this point it’s not even worth arguing.
What little fight I have left in me is mine, and I don’t want to waste it on her.
I'd like to get out of here alive at some point, and the only way I can see forward is to fall in line and be a good little girl. The benefit of having lived with voices in my head my entire life is I know how to put on a persona. I know how to convince someone I’m one thing while acting a completely different way behind the scenes.
Some may call that manipulation; I would call it a survival skill.
And that’s what I intend to do—survive.
I follow Darla in silence. Making note of the directions and using visuals to mark checkpoints for future reference.
We walk through the dead garden and round the side of the big house, which, to my surprise, houses a whole other building with an outside exercise area that looks exactly like what you would imagine a prison yard to look like.
Wire fences around the sides, barbed wire on top and signs saying that the fences are electric and not to touch.
The entirety is covered with overgrown trees to ensure none of this can be seen from the outside.
There are exercise machines across the yard, like treadmills and bikes, loose dumbbells and static weight machines. Exercising outside would be a healthy me's dream, but for this version of me, it sounds like hell.
Darla unlocks the gate and gestures for me to walk inside.
There are other residents inside the building, which looks like a dance studio.
Music is playing through speakers, but it’s not your standard everyday music with lyrics; it’s just the music.
Like a repetitive standard beat that I can already feel driving me insane.
“Do I need to show you how to use the machines? Or are you capable of figuring it out for yourself?”
“I can do it myself. Can I just walk around instead of using the machines?”
“You can walk around as a warm-up and a cool-down, but other than that your exercise must consist of weights, or the treadmill or bike.”
“But what about those people?” I point through the door into the building.
“They’re members of Moriati house. They have added privileges which give them access to a bigger catalogue of exercise options. Be on your best behaviour, and you never know when you might be rewarded with an upgrade. I’ll be back to get you for your appointment, Quinn.”
She walks back through the gate before turning to me and smirking.
“Oh, and Quinn?”
“Yeah?”
“Smile, you’re on candid camera.” She points to a hidden camera in the trees and laughs as she walks back towards the big house, leaving me to fend for myself.
I take in my surroundings and the people here, noting some recognisable faces from breakfast on the weight machines. Over on the treadmill is the girl I sat next to. Feeling a little bit more settled with a familiar face, I walk over to the treadmill next to her.
I step onto the treadmill and press the Go button. “Hi—”
She cuts me off with a whisper. “We’re on camera. Don’t talk.”
“I doubt they can hear us. I just wanted to say my name is Quinn.”
“You told me that earlier,” she hisses back to me.
“Well, what’s your name?”
“What part of ‘don’t talk’ do you not understand? I don’t want to get into trouble. I’ve been here for long enough already. You have no idea what it’s like to be here permanently.”
I feel bad for enticing her into conversation.
“I’m sorry, I’ll leave you be.” I press Stop and wait for the rubber to stop turning before I get off.
She looks at me with what seems like remorse on her face.
“You don’t need to go.”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t want to get you into trouble. I was just happy to see a friendly face.”
“No one here is friendly, Quinn. Watch your back. It’s everyone for themselves. My name is Rhiannon. I’ll find you after dark. Get back on the treadmill before they realise you’ve stopped exercising and come back to check on you.”
“Okay. It’s nice to meet you, Rhiannon.”
I step back on the treadmill and start it up again. Each step I take is agony as I wait for my meds to kick back in, but knowing someone else’s name, and the hope of a friend, is enough of an incentive to push me to carry on.