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I can’t think straight. I can barely hear over the sound of the voice screaming in my head. Or maybe that’s me screaming. I can’t tell.
I want to disappear. Vanish. To not exist any longer, because this misery is worse than death.
I hear a loud clang, and the metal platform beneath me shudders.
“How the fuck do we shut her up?” a man says, his voice gruff and hateful.
“I don’t know. Have we got any more sedatives?” another says.
“I’ll get some. We’ve gotta do something. She’s spooking the other girls. And someone might hear her.”
“Here, use this,” a third man says. “This’ll shut her up.”
Rough hands pry open my jaws, and a hard rubber ball is shoved into my mouth and strapped tightly in place.
I can’t do more than whimper now.
I gasp for air and nearly suffocate until I relax enough that I can breathe through my nose.
“Man, it’s too bad she’s off-limits,” the first man says. “I’d love to have me a piece of that.”
I feel a hard hand grip my naked breast, squeezing painfully. Another hand slides between my legs.
I scream over and over.
“Layla!”
My eyes flash open as panic swamps me. I shoot up into a sitting position, but before I can scramble off the bed, firm hands hold me steady.
“It’s okay, sis,” my brother says. “You were having a nightmare.”
The door to my hospital room swings open, and light from the hallway floods the room. A tall, dark figure stands in the opening, tense, poised as if ready to go to battle. He’s backlit, so I can’t make out his facial features. I just get an impression of a lean, muscular build.
“Is she okay?” he asks, his deep voice laced with concern.
“She had a bad dream,” Tyler says as he hovers behind my brother. “She’s okay.”
The tension in the man’s posture eases a bit. He studies me a moment before he steps back out into the hallway and lets the door slowly close.
Jason. My new bodyguard.
He’ll betray you, too. Just like Sean did.
Shut up.
You know it’s true. They all do eventually.
I’m ignoring you.
You’re an idiot if you think this one will be any different.
I spend a lot of wasted time arguing with the voice in my head. She’s mean. Hateful. And she never lets up. It’s like she knows every deep-seated fear I have and rubs my face in them.
Ian presses his palm to my forehead. I’m sweating and shaking, light-headed.
An alarm sounds on his phone, and he grabs it and looks at the screen. “Shit.”
“I’ll get something,” Tyler says. He opens the top drawer of the cabinet beside my bed, pulls out a little carton of apple juice, opens it, and hands it to me.
