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I was drifting in and out of consciousness, unsure if it was sleep or if my body was breaking down when the sliver of light appeared around the door.
I pushed myself up, stood on two shaking legs, and hobbled to the front of the cell as I began to drool in anticipation of the disgusting gruel they’d shove my way.
I despised how much I wanted it. How much I needed it. They’d turned me into an animal in such a short time. I felt my skin crawl at the thought of being this powerless.
The door creaked on rusted hinges, groaning in protest at the weight of metal dragging it down. A dark figure stepped forward, and I hunched in the darkness, just beyond the bright bar of light that smashed through my cell. I waited for the bowl and the door to close so I could pounce on it and lick it clean.
But there was no bowl. Instead, a voice cracked through my call instead of light, bouncing off my ears like rocks tossed against a rabbit, leaving the sound of my rapid pulse throbbing in its stead.
“Miss Willow Avalon,” she said with a voice that dripped contempt from every consonant. “Are you prepared for your punishment?”
“Prepared?” I replied, but the word fell out like a raven’s dry croak. I hadn’t spoken to anyone for a while, so I hadn’t been using my poor vocal cords.
“Yes, prepared,” she replied and stepped into the cell. She reached around to the wall outside, paused as she ran her hand up and down it, and then said, “There it is.”
A flood of blazing pain exploded into my eyes as she turned on the light switch to my cell. Tears sprung forth, and I squeezed my lids shut to block out the pain of the sudden flash. I kept my eyes closed as she continued talking.
“As I was saying,” she droned on. “This is just the very beginning of your punishment. You brought alcohol to a school function, and Mr. Remington believes you were being sexually aggressive towards his son. Trying to get him to engage with you before the wedding.”
“I was not being anything towards my fiance that wouldn’t be considered perfectly normal,” I replied and thought about how I’d bitten his hand and how he’d wrapped his fingers around my throat… and how good both had felt. That was our normal. Still, I couldn’t let the old bat know about it. I bristled and gathered my dignity around me before saying, “I didn’t think the vodka would be a big deal. This is a college. It’s not like we’re in high school or something.”
I forced my eyes open and looked up to find Matron Baker’s cruel, twisted smirk looking down at me. She wore a crisp, pressed linen gown and sensible, polished black shoes. She could have been a stand-in for a nun if she’d been wearing a wimple, but she was the overly proud enforcer of rules at the Academy.
Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun, and she was a few years of simmering rage beyond ever being beautiful. Resentment clung to her like a cloud of cigarette smoke, and the only joy that sparked in her eyes was the power she held over me at that moment.
“You must have had your head rattled during your accident,” Matron Baker tsk-tsked. “You have forgotten the rules of behavior expected of you as an Upper and a future wife of industry. You don’t understand the implications of this crass, Lower drinking.”
I longed for the strength to leap up and slam my fist into her face. It was a reflex action I knew how to do even though I’d been told a hundred times that I wasn’t a fighter. I was a proper Upper girl, coifed and carefully pampered in preparation for her perfect Upper life.
But in my veins, I felt blood throbbing, the blood of the streets. I was a scrapper; if I wasn’t so weak from hunger and despair, I could have knocked her on her ass then and there.
“The rules are insane,” I hissed from the floor. I must have appeared half savage, part animal. A filthy creature, barely better than something she would find on the bottom of her shoe. At least that’s the way I felt from the sneer on her face. “Why do we have to obey the men? Women haven’t been forced into subservience for decades. Fuck the patriarchy.”
She raised an eyebrow in startled query. I could open my eyes fully then, and they scanned the interior of the cell as she replied. There was nothing helpful that I could see, no easy escape hatch or hidden window for my escape.
I truly was in the middle of a concrete box with a metal front, and I truly was fucked.
“You are heading into dangerous territory,” Matron Baker said through gritted teeth. “You are straying dangerously close to traitorous language. Everybody knows the patriarchy doesn’t exist. It’s a lie invented by unmarriageable women who aren’t content with the freedom they’re given in the outer lands.”
“The outer lands?” I asked, blinking as my eyes finally adjusted to the lights.
“You know of them,” she scowled. “The safe place we send women who serve no function to society. The scolds, brittle-minded, and those who would think they’re too good for our rules. The very rules that have kept our country running effortlessly and successfully for centuries. If anybody else hears you talking like this, you might not be so lucky as to have a cell here at Crimson. You’ll be sent to the outer lands without a second thought.”
I blinked again, my mind racing with a thousand questions desperate to be paired with an answer. Baker didn’t give me that satisfaction. Instead, she looked down at me, shook her head with sympathy, and stepped back as if to leave my cell.
Panic exploded inside, and I struggled to jump to my feet before she abandoned me alone in the dark once more.
She was too quick, and I was moving as if I was underwater. Everything felt fuzzy around the edges and pixelated again as if I was out of focus. Not the room out of focus, but me.
“You will stay here until you comply with the rules,” Matron Baker declared. “Mr. Remington will expect nothing but absolute obedience from you, and it would be beneficial if you bend before you break.”
“Don’t leave me!” I exclaimed as she flicked the lights off and swung the door shut. “Please, god, don’t go!”
My fingers almost got caught as I hooked the edge of the doorframe, but as metal slammed into metal, it felt like they went through them. I was thrown back by force, not metal on flesh but some cosmic energy that pounded against me as the door passed through me.
I fell onto my ass on the cold, hard floor, and my hands fell behind me, bracing the impact. I felt a jagged pain jolt up through my wrist, and the air exploded out of my lungs.
And just like that, all motion and energy were gone, and I was once again left alone in the dark with a sob hitching in my chest and unshed tears stinging my eyes.
