2. RYAN #2
Water covers my head, as my lungs tighten, throat locking, and several wars rage within me. Don’t panic, don’t move, don’t think of everything that could go wrong.
The need to escape is the loudest, but battling against bonds is a fruitless waste of oxygen.
The more I move, the faster it’s used up, and the sooner I’ll need to replace it.
But it’ll be three minutes before I can do that.
The average person can hold their breath for thirty to sixty seconds.
I’m not average. I’m a top-level athlete.
Father expects more, so he made me work my way up.
There’s a reason I’m not a fucking swimmer—holding your breath is hell. But I start the count to take my mind off everything else. The immobilization, the need to run, the growing need to take a breath…
At thirty seconds, my lungs burn. Breathing has become the most important thing there is—the only thing there is. The rest of the world falls away, and it’s just me and the starving need for oxygen. At two minutes, my diaphragm spasms.
Keep calm. Keep calm.
Usually, I take a breath to calm myself. That’s not an option. Instead, I think about getting back to Griffon. He needs me.
I hear the drain at my feet let out, and water climbs down my skin too slowly, hair sticking to my forehead.
It’s not moving fast enough. All manner of “what could go wrong” echoes in my mind—clogged drain, drain mechanism doesn’t engage—but I have to push those thoughts away.
If something goes wrong, it goes wrong. Instead, I hold the clear image of me walking out of this fucking thing.
The water level hits my nose and mouth, uncovering them far too slowly. I gulp in air, teeth chattering, body shivering, determined to make it through yet another session of Father’s training alive.
But I can’t promise that I’ll be the same.
Is it night or day? I don’t know. But it’s been twenty-five fucking rounds in that tank, each round with an interlude that felt like an eternity while I fought a mental battle with my ever-present claustrophobia.
My muscles ache, my skin numb from being repeatedly submerged in the ice-cold water.
I’m hollowed out emotionally, but at the same time, my limbs are like heavy sacks of lead.
Pull yourself to-fucking-gether, Ryan.
A light turns on outside the tank, the iron around my ankles clicks, and there’s the hiss of pressure releasing as the door opens.
I step out, dripping, and wait as I’m unbuckled.
The straitjacket pulls away, and I can breathe properly again.
I’m toweled off and handed my thick black robe with the family crest embroidered in red over the left pectoral.
There’s an invisible dissolving of the Ryan the Family Disappointment aura, and then Ryan the Heir resurfaces.
I’m in charge again. I take a warm towel off the man to my right, and sop up the remaining wetness from my hair, refusing slippers.
I want to feel the carpet under my toes; I want to scrunch my feet and remind myself that I’m out of that fucking hunk of metal.
Whatever I do, I don’t let the fatigue show. These men are ruthless. They work for my father, but if I look weak, I’m prey.
“What time is it?” I demand, voice cutting.
“Just after ten thirty p.m., sir,” one says.
“Griffon’s been asking for you, sir,” says another.
Griffon hasn’t spoken a word since he found our mother. Dead. Dangling from the rafters. Before that, he spoke three languages fluently. But he doesn’t have to use words to get his point across.
I storm up several flights of stairs, with both men hot on my heels, their boots echoing over the metal steps. “Update.”
“Rosaline’s been trying to calm him down.”
“Why? What the fuck is going on?” When they don’t answer, I turn on them, narrowed eyes, gaze lethal.
They flinch. “We can’t tell you, sir.”
Probably because they know I’ll take my rage out on them. Father doesn’t care what I do to his men, so long as I cooperate when they’re carrying out his orders. Maybe I’ll have one of them whip the other and then let the whipped one have his revenge.
I keep going. It’s another three flights up, a door, and then aahhhh …
a quick moment to scrunch my toes in the fluffy red carpet.
I don’t luxuriate long, moving forward, leaving the carpeted area, bare feet slapping over marble as my eyes adjust to the bright chandeliers.
And then it’s more stairs—a full winding staircase of solid mahogany—until I hit carpet again.
I allow myself one toe scrunch.
Outside Griffon’s door, I hear screeching—Rosaline—and intermittent thuds. Who’s throwing shit in there? Without knocking, I thrust the door open, my quick reflexes reacting, barely dodging the clothing missile flying at my head. I catch the pile of jeans, tossing them aside.
Griffon’s surrounded. Two men in black T-shirts and black fatigues, and Rosaline in a slinky black dress and heels, likely on her way out for the evening.
Which she fucking isn’t, not wearing that. Father will have my head, and I’ll have to murder whoever touches my sister.
Griffon catches sight of me, his green eyes flying wide, and he points to the suitcase on his bed.
It’s laden with haphazard piles of clothing.
There’s something—what’s that on his face?
Blood’s crusted under his nose and his right eye’s puffy with swelling.
Rage heats my frozen veins. I yank at the sluggish half of my consciousness still in that fucking metal coffin.
Hair damp, skin cold. I need as much of myself as I can force to the surface for Griff and Rosaline.
I don’t ever want to be weak in front of them.
I’m their big brother. It's my job to protect them.
“Who the fuck touched him?”
The question was for the two guards, but Griffon answers, pointing to the one bald one. Sweet, sweet Griffon, until he thinks you deserve an ass beating.
Gripping the guard by the shoulders, I headbutt him in the nose and knee him in the gut. He doubles over, blood gushing. “Get the fuck out of here. Touch him again, and I’ll throw both of you out the window.”
He hobbles out on the heels of his buddy, and Rosaline rounds on me.
She’s full of the Savage fierceness, sharp angles to her face like our father, but with Mother’s small, Who-like nose.
We’re five years apart. When she was seven, and I was twelve, I’d always tell her she was the prettiest Who in Whoville.
I also told her that if anyone laid a finger on her, it would be their last day on earth.
Um, that was when she was a little older, though.
“Where the fuck have you been?” she demands.
Exhaustion from fighting for my life in the tank threatens to swallow me.
It shudders through my thawing limbs, clawing around in my brain.
I can’t let it. If I think about it for too long, being there, tied in that paralyzing straitjacket, I’ll break down.
As slowly as I can, I pull in a breath, just to feel my lungs expand to their fullest. On the outside, I make my face stone, so she never suspects the heaving turmoil beneath.
“Out,” I lie. “I’m a busy man with many admirers. Just got out of the shower.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been trying to calm him down for the past hour, while you were out whoring yourself.”
“What’s going on?” I keep my voice hard as if I’m mildly offended by her words, but I’m not. If that’s what I had been doing, she’d have every right to say what she said. Atta girl, Rosaline. Don’t take shit from anyone. Especially me.
She sighs, crossing her arms. Her breasts push into the neckline, just barely staying inside. Yeah, that dress has to go. “He’s flipping out because Father told him he’s not going to Shadowridge, he’s going to North Point.”
That goddamn liar. I take another calming breath. Delicious fucking air.
“I’ll handle it,” I say.
“Good. It’s my turn to go out.”
“Not in that dress, you’re not. Put some fucking clothes on, Rosaline.”
“You’ve got to stop with that bullshit. You don’t get to tell me what to wear, Ryan.”
“Change or I’ll make sure you don’t go anywhere.”
She lets out a frustrated noise. “You’re such a fucking dick. What will you do when I’m at school? Can’t lord over my clothing choices there.”
“I could if I needed to. Don’t fucking test me.” Especially not right now, I don’t say. My patience hangs by a tender thread.
“I get that you’re upset, Griff, but you’re just gonna let him talk to me like that?” she says.
Griffon hardens his gaze, gesturing toward her breasts that are nearly spilling out of that tiny dress.
Rosaline huffs. “Men. It figures. I wish I had sisters.”
She leaves, slamming the door, and I can finally turn my attention to Griffon. He makes stressed motions with his hands and body language I’ve learned to read. I’ll be the first to admit it, I didn’t respond well when he first stopped talking.
He was diagnosed with selective mutism. That’s what they called it anyway, but the term has never sat right with me. It makes it sound like Griff chooses not to speak, like he could talk if he wanted to.
But his brain literally has his voice on lockdown. The pathway is blocked. Something inside him decided that speaking was unsafe. The first therapist never pushed him. Trust would come first, words second. Father didn’t have the patience for that. After a year, he switched Griff’s therapist.
We were told that the sign language Rosaline and I had learned would delay his recovery. That we shouldn’t let him write things down. Every accommodation was outlawed by the new therapist.
Such fucking bullshit, but Father liked what that therapist had to say better than the last, even though Griff got quieter. It was as if it stopped being about what was best for him, and Father was out to punish him.