31. Liath
LIATH
Iwoke with a start.
I was alone in my bed, that gray before dawn seeping through the tall window like dirty water. The only sound was the slow, uneven drag of air into my lungs and the blood thundering in my ears.
Oh God.
Under the sheet, I moved my hands over my body, trembling fingers testing my flesh, checking my breasts, up the inside of my legs. Between my thighs.
Nothing.
No soreness.
No bruising.
No tearing.
I jerked upright too fast and the room tilted, a quick wash of dizziness that had me gripping the mattress to steady myself.
I stared down at my body as if it belonged to someone else.
Pain would’ve made sense. Pain would’ve been proof.
This felt like a lie my body was telling to protect me.
What the hell happened last night?
Fragments pushed at the edges of my mind, sharp and slippery.
See you soon, sleeping beauty.
Fighting the dark.
A crash of warning cymbals, metallic and panicked, like someone slamming lids together.
Choking fear.
Blinding panic.
The awful, helpless feeling of being trapped inside my own body, limbs heavy, mouth useless.
Then nothing.
A note from Deargán’s file floated up through my mind.
Patient presents with selective amnesia, especially around trauma.
Had I blanked out my assault? Was my mind sparing me the suffering?
My mind might have that power, but my body didn’t. My body wore the bruises. It wore the aftermath.
I checked again, slower this time, refusing to let myself be rushed by hope. Fingers deliberate, pausing, testing for the smallest flare of discomfort.
Still nothing.
Unease weaved through me.
I shoved the sheet back and swung my legs over the side of the bed.
Something crimson marked the wall opposite, stark against the black-and-white wallpaper. What was that?
I frowned and neared it, leaning in to peer at it closely.
A high, metallic screech pierced my eardrums, the unmistakable scent-sound of violence.
My breath caught. It was blood.
It had dried to a rusty brown, thin at one edge where something had dragged through it. A single strand of dark hair clung to the dried blood, caught in it like proof.
My pulse started thundering.
There were marks on the floorboards, too. Two long streaks started beside the wall and cut all the way to the door, the heels of a man’s shoes marking the floor in parallel lines. No kicking. No struggling. Just the ugly trail of deadweight being hauled out of my room.
Cold rippled over my skin.
I looked at the handle. At the lock. At the space beneath the door and my bed.
I remembered nothing. Only fear, the sick uselessness in my limbs, and that hard blank after it.
My gaze dropped back to the smear on the wall, then to the drag marks.
Something had happened in this room while I was unconscious.
Something violent.
In the dining hall, the noise hit like a blunt object, chairs scraping, low voices, cutlery clinking against plates. The air smelled of porridge and disinfectant, a sickly blend that never quite left the back of my throat.
Dervla caught me before I could reach the table, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me into a narrow space beside the wall where the shadows were thicker and the staff were less likely to notice.
Her eyes swept over me, searching, frantic, like she was bracing herself for the answer.
“Did he…?” Her voice snapped off, unfinished.
I peered around, making sure no one was watching too closely, then shook my head once.
“He didn’t touch me.”
Relief flickered across her face so fast that the sight made my chest tighten.
It felt like something I didn’t deserve.
Like I’d been spared by accident.
At our usual table, I kept my gaze moving, scanning the room for him.
O’Shea.
I didn’t want to see him.
I needed to see him. Because if he was there, then I could brace.
Bláthnaid leaned in with that smug tilt of her chin, eyes bright with mean amusement.
“Are you looking for Dr. Deargán?” she asked, like she was teasing me about a crush.
“No,” I said too quickly.
Fiona’s brows lifted.
I forced my voice steadier, lower. “O’Shea.”
Their expressions shifted. Bláthnaid made a face like she’d bitten into rot.
“I’m trying to avoid him, ye eejits,” I said, but even to my own ears it sounded thin.
Bláthnaid’s spoon clattered against her yogurt bowl and she smacked her palm on the table, nearly knocking over her tea.
Fiona grabbed my wrist, nails biting into my skin, both of them grinning so wide it looked wrong.
“Oh my God, you haven’t heard,” Bláthnaid hissed, eyes glittering.
“Heard what?” I asked, though my stomach had already started sinking.
“He just quit,” Fiona said around a mouthful of porridge.
Bláthnaid snorted. “He didn’t quit. I heard he died.”
Fiona laughed, sharp and ugly. “I heard he fecked off. Up and left Ireland without telling anyone where he’d gone.”
My mouth went dry.
Dervla was already watching me, frowning now, as if she could see the exact moment the color drained from my face.
“But…” My voice caught. “When is he coming back?”
Fiona smirked. “No, ye daft eejit. He’s gone.”
Bláthnaid giggled. “And good riddance to that fucking creeper.”
Gone.
My fingers curled under the table.
Gone, after I’d woken to a rusty smear beside my bed and marks on the floor like someone had been knocked out and dragged from my room.
Relief hit first, hot and savage.
Then came the wrongness.
This place didn’t punish men like him. It protected them. It swallowed complaints. It buried girls and kept moving.
If O’Shea was gone, it wasn’t because anyone here had suddenly grown a conscience.
It was because someone stronger had decided he no longer got to stay.
Strong hands.
A powerful presence.
Corrupted morals wrapped in control so absolute it made other men vanish.
I stared down at my untouched breakfast and repressed a shiver.
That night, Nurse Murphy returned to the front of the pill line like nothing had changed. Her face was the same tight mask, her hands with the same brisk movements, her voice the same clipped impatience.
My meds reverted back to one pill.
One.
The small white disk sat in the paper cup like a sign.
The asylum felt marginally safer. It was still full of monsters. But maybe some monsters only hurt other monsters.
When the corridor outside my room finally emptied after evening meds, I slipped out my door barefoot, my heart battering at my ribs.
In the dim light, the scuff marks continued out of my room and down the corridor.
Between them, a few dark drops had smeared into thin, rust-brown streaks, as though drops of blood had fallen first and then been smeared by the weight pulled over it.
I pressed my fingertips into the wood beside the marks, as if the floorboards might hand over the truth if I touched them long enough.
They gave me nothing.
But my mind did.
A body limp and heavy.
Deadweight hauled down the corridor while the rest of the asylum slept.
I got to my feet too fast, bile rising hot in my throat.
Someone had dragged O’Shea out of my room. And God knows what they did with him.
In bed, I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling until my eyes burned.
I tried to unbury my memory of last night. To scramble around in my head and find the missing pieces by force.
Fragments surfaced.
First the warning cymbals, clashing and frantic, O’Shea’s sour scent-song, the one that had turned my stomach since the first day I’d found him outside my door.
Then another instrument cutting through it.
Lower.
Controlled.
A cello.
That was the moment something in me had loosened. The moment my body had stopped fighting the dark as if it had recognized, somewhere deeper than thought, that the danger had shifted.
My throat tightened.
I saw the smear on the floor again. The scuffed wood. The marks outside my room where someone had been pulled away.
Deargán had been there.
Not just watching.
Intervening.
The image rose in my mind. Deargán in the dark, broad and silent and merciless, stepping between me and another man.
The thought moved through me in two sharp waves that made no sense together. Relief first, deep and ugly enough to shame me. Then heat, curling low in my stomach.
I pressed my thighs together and hated the rush that followed. Hated my own body for learning the shape of safety in a monster’s hands.
Then a thought arose and unsettled me so deeply I went cold.
Whatever happened in my room had not ended with a warning and a gentleman’s retreat.
What, exactly, had Deargán done to O’Shea?
At our next session, I walked into Deargán’s office like I was stepping into a predator’s den.
I could barely sit still. My heart skittered, my attention snagging on everything, his hands, the way he held the pen, the calm line of his shoulders, the deliberate stillness.
God, could he really have done something to O’Shea and be so calm?
I chewed my bottom lip as I debated whether it was wise to bring it up. And how? If I were going to ask, I couldn’t just come straight out and ask, “Did you do something to O’Shea,” could I?
No. Too obvious.
If I asked outright, if I even let his name slip with accusation in my voice, Deargán would shut down. Or worse, he’d see exactly how much I’d been thinking about it.
“Go on.” Deargán’s voice cut through my thoughts.
I jolted. “What?”
Deargán tilted his head. “Whatever it is on your mind. Spit it out.”
I froze. Shite.
My pulse thudded in my ears.
Now or never.
If Deargán had done something, if he’d made O’Shea disappear, then this was my only chance to catch him off guard.