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“God, yes! Just turn it off! Please, turn it off!”
She squats down in front of me. “Will you be my obedient little pet?”
Jesus. “Okay!”
“And do everything I tell you like a good slave girl?”
“Fine!”
She pauses for a moment, watching me like a fun experiment.
“Kiss my shoes, slave girl.”
His treatment table is still buzzing with agony. He could already be dead. He should be by now.
I do as she commands, leaning down to kiss the toes of her high heels. Embarrassment and disgust swirl in my stomach, triggering a wave of bile to slosh up my esophagus.
The buzzing from the machine ceases, only to be replaced with the laughter of Belinda. “He’s not going to like that. Everyone knows she’s practically his slave since they ran off.”
Before I can hear Meridei’s response, the side of my head cracks against the tile, slipping back into my fevered dreams and hallucinations now that the adrenaline pumping through my veins has simmered back where it came from.
The darkness sweeps me away, carrying me back to my room. And when I open my gooey, tearful eyes… Scarlett is kneeling beside me, smelling of blueberry pie and rose petals. She looks healthy, glowing, even. And with a smile like a sunset draping over the ocean. She’s happy.
“Hi,” I say, my mouth made of sludge.
“You’re so warm.” Her willowy fingers graze my forehead. “They’re doing their worst, huh?”
I sigh. “Lucky me.”
“It won’t be for long.”
I strain to look at her golden complexion through tears forming in my eyes. Those rosy cheeks, shimmering spring-green eyes, and pouting bottom lip.
“I miss you.” My voice breaks.
She smiles, leaning down to kiss the top of my scalding head. “I’m still here.”
~
Meridei forces me to crawl behind her like a dog following its master.
The fever passed, the aches of the virus have fled, and now I’m fit to take on whatever treatments the priest decided for me.
After finally being fed eggs and porridge, I’m stronger, more alert, and giving myself pep talks every few seconds. But at the moment, this degrading parade is what’s tearing me down. I can only hope that someone will tell Judas, or maybe he’ll see me in my chains and white gown being humiliated in the hallways.
A fool’s hope.
We turn the corner to a hall of vacated rooms. They were too old and condemned to ever make use of. But an orderly opens a door, sending a gust of asylum stench my way. Stale urine. Mildew rags. Rust.
Putrid.
Heavy.
As I pass the threshold on my hands and knees, I freeze without taking another step.
Chains hanging from the ceiling, the walls. Racks of weapons. Metal clubs, pliers, pokers, knives, saws, hammers, and tweezers.
I thought this kind of room was outlawed in the early days of settlement. Dessin’s the one that told me that. They used to hang patients by their toes. They’d torture them in reckless practices that served no purpose (not that they do now).
