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I flinch in my frigid wet clothes that only dried a little while I slept. But that’s a gray area, isn’t it? I didn’t really sleep, not soundly, anyway. It was a delirious loop of drifting close to sleep, then waking in an icy panic. I was relaxed enough to close my eyes again, yet I never even heard my door open and shut.
“I thought he would have killed you. Maybe raped you first, then carved your heart out slowly. Perhaps he would have found a way to keep it attached to all major arteries, scooping it an inch above your breastbone, just to show you it to you before he ate it.” Meridei sits in the conformists chair in the middle of the room. Her raven hair still short, styled in a neat bowl cut around her head. That godforsaken navy-blue uniform dress. Her black, soulless eyes.
My dry eyes widen as I process what she’s saying. What she’s crudely implying. She figured Dessin would have done away with me when we ran away.
“Otherwise, I would have volunteered to help lead the hunting party that went looking for the two of you,” she purrs, pleased with the malice of her words, like a cat who’s just had its milk.
I try to sit up but forget my wrists are bound in brass shackles. I forget about the throbbing pain under my right eye, splintering across my cheekbone.
“You two have really been living off the land, haven’t you?” she asks, eyes snaking down my outdoor attire. “You’ll need to be hosed down.”
Fantastic.
“It’s a shame I don’t get more time to play with you. Three days until you’re executed next to your psychotic rebel. That isn’t nearly long enough for me to play with you.”
Three days. Not likely. Unfortunately for me, Dessin will be asking for a priest right about now. His right under oath of the asylum.
A shiver vibrates up my spine at the thought of being Meridei’s pet for any length of time.
Two orderlies collect me from the sodden clump I’m in on the bed, hooking their hands under my arms and dragging me to the hydrotherapy room. I nearly sigh in relief. Even though being blasted with cold water isn’t fun, at least it isn’t Chekiss’s treatment. Simulated drowning.
I can do this. I already know what it’s like after the first time I subjected myself to it as a way to get Niles to trust me.
I miss them, terribly. But at least they’re no longer suffering within these vicious walls. By the hands of these insidious men and women.
Two doors away from our destination, my elbow is yanked out of the way to let an orderly pushing a wheelchair past. But it’s who’s in the wheelchair that has my jaw hanging open.
Sun Ravendi. The patient with the obsessive disorder. The woman with no hair, raw lips, and sunken eyes. A mother without a child. Her mouth is blue, veins bulging from her neck. And she doesn’t even see me. She’s dead behind the eyes. Another chair binding treatment.
Another inch closer to death.
My eyes fall closed. I couldn’t help her. My efforts to make a better place here were lost when I left with Dessin.
And now I’m going to pay for it.
We keep moving, and I’m in a daze. A protective instinct to distance myself from these next experiences.
“Strip her,” Meridei commands the orderlies as she unwinds the hose.
The room is colder than I remember. An ice chest. My boots are ripped away from my feet and I glance down at my naked toes wiggling in a puddle on the chilly tile floor.
My oversized white tunic is thrown to the corner of the room with a wet plop, then my pants. I’m left standing like a trembling baby tree in the dead of winter. Left in nothing but my black lace brassiere and thong, courtesy of Runa.
You know, compared to Meridei, I suppose I kind of like her. I suppose I’d rather be in her presence, flirting with Dessin right about now. I’d take the burn of jealousy any day.
With a rough tug down my legs, the lace drags over my skin, soundlessly dropping to the floor. Because my hands are bound, they don’t try and lift my brassiere over my head. It’s ripped off from behind.
And… I’m naked, chained, and shivering in front of this small audience.
I’m shoved in front of the drain, my backside lightly touching the wall. Maybe Judas will hear my screams, like last time? Maybe I’ll only have to be in here for a single day. One conversation alone will tell me all I need.
“It’s strange being back in the spot, isn’t it?” Meridei muses, aiming the head of the hose at my face. “I couldn’t let you really have it back then, though. I had to let you make your point to that patient. But now,”—she cracks her neck—“now I stop this hose when I feel like stopping.”
It’s the only warning I get. The only moment to close my mouth and shut my eyes. The lever is pulled, and it only takes half a second to whack me in the face, bloodying my nose and sending my head flying back to knock against the wall.
The instinct to cover my face is quick but useless. The water juts past my wrists, shredding my cheeks, my throat, my lungs. So I turn around, face the wall, allow my back to take the hydro-beating. And Jesus, it’s so cold. Tiny needles stabbing my flesh with a vengeance. But the worst part isn’t the ice, the shock, or the devastating pressure. Nope, it’s the panic of not being able to breathe. I had almost forgotten that part. With water shooting at my face in ten different directions, it’s nearly impossible to suck in a wholesome breath.
A true fight for survival. Basic. Primitive. Terrifying.
