My heart pounded as he raised his hand, and then pain exploded across my body, ripping through every nerve. He was tearing me apart. I tried to cry out but no sound escaped my lips.Through it all, my father’s laughter filled the room, mocking me, tormenting me.
Then just as suddenly as it had started, the pain stopped, and I was hanging by my arms, gasping for breath, the ground trembling with the aftershocks. I looked up at my father’s face looming over me, the cold smile still etched onto his features.
“Again,” he said simply.
“No!” I screamed, finally finding my voice. It made no difference. The pain returned, and my consciousness slipped away, falling into darkness...
I jolted awake, my heart racing, and a cold sweat covering my body. The remnants of the dream—or was it a memory?—clung like cobwebs. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the images. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t escape the haunting memory of my father’s twisted smile.
“Are you okay?” Liam asked warily as I stumbled into the kitchen the next morning. His eyes widened and intensified as he took in my disheveled appearance. God, I must have looked a mess.
“Did my old house at Heather Falls have a basement?” I asked, shaking with barely suppressed emotion.
Liam’s brow wrinkled at the question, and he appeared to be searching his memories. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Why do you ask?”
“Last night… I had this dream.” I took a breath to steady myself, the memories threatening to overwhelm me. “I was in a basement, and Josef was... he was torturing me. It was so real, but I don’t remember anything like that actually happening.”
Liam’s face drained of color, and his eyes held a haunted look I hadn’t seen in them before. It was as if he was looking at something far away, something horrifying. My gut clenched at the realization that it wasn’t just a dream but a twisted memory of something that had actually happened.
“Tell me,” I said, my body shaking with fear and uncertainty. “What really happened?”
“You were so young,” he said softly, the pain in his words cutting through me like a knife. “You were just a toddler. Our father... he used to take you down to the basement for training.”
“Training?” I asked, barely able to get the word out past the bile in my throat. “What kind of training?”
“Brainwashing,” Liam spat out the word with a thick layer of disgust. “He wanted to mold you into the perfect weapon, to bend your will to his own, and he thought that by subjecting you to physical and emotional torment, he could achieve that. It was sick, Liza. Wrong on every level.”
My nails dug into my palms as I struggled to process this new information. The air around me thickened, making it difficult to breathe as the truth settled onto my chest.
“Did you know?” I snapped. “Were you aware of what he was doing?” My stomach revolted, and I squeezed my mouth shut, swallowing hard to keep the contents of my stomach where it belonged.
“Hey,” Liam said gently. “I’m sorry you had to remember that, Liza. I’d hoped you were too young.”
“Too young to recall being tortured by my own father?” I spat out bitterly, glaring at him. There was no anger in his expression, only sadness and regret.
“Listen,” he said hesitantly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was gone by the time your… training started. Remember I told you Dad left me a book, though.” He grimaced as if the mere memory left a foul taste in his mouth. “It had all his twisted ideas about how to ‘train’ you.”
“Train me for what? To be his perfect little weapon?”
“Something like that. He believed that because of your unique abilities, you needed to be molded and controlled. It was sick, Liza. I couldn’t let anyone hurt you like that.”
My chest tightened as I tried to process all of this, to reconcile the man in my memories, the one I thought I knew, with the monster Liam was describing. The pain and fear from the dream—no, the memory—still lingered, forming a tight band around my neck, making it difficult to breathe.
“Is there anything else I should be aware of?” I asked. “Any other horrors lurking in my past?”
“Nothing I know of,” Liam said softly, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “That book… I want you to know something.”
I looked at him, my body tense with anticipation.
“I ripped out the pages detailing what he did to you. I burned them,” he said, his blue eyes filled with emotion. “I’d never hurt you like that, Liza. I swore to protect you and be there for you, no matter what, and I meant it.”
A wave of relief flooded through me, causing me to release a shaky breath. “Thank you, Liam. That means more than you could ever possibly appreciate.”
Outside, the wind sighed through the trees, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and pine. I focused on that, trying to keep myself in the present instead of being swallowed by the darkness of my past. Liam’s hand on my shoulder was both comforting and heavy. A reminder of the complex bond we shared.
As the day wore on, I couldn’t shake my unease. My mind kept replaying the nightmare-turned-memory, the sensation of cold metal against my skin, and the insidious whispers of my father. Even the laughter of the staff in the house as they went about their daily routine grated on my nerves. I decided to move my pity party to the kitchen, where I could at least try to do something productive.
With my hands buried in a mound of dough, I tried to push the unsettling thoughts from my mind. The kitchen was mysanctuary, and losing myself in the rhythmic kneading of bread usually soothed my frayed nerves. Today, however, the ghosts of my past clung like a second skin, refusing to be cast off so easily.
