Page 72 of Was I Ever Free
I’ve lost track of time. Not that it’s of any use to me here. The room they’ve kept me in is so dark, my eyes can’t even get accustomed to it. Trying to find any meaning from the darkness staring back at me is having a bizarre effect on my psyche. As if my brain is trying to make sense of such a lack of sensory inputs, making up things that aren’t there. I’m barely fed, and given little to no water—my body aches and my mind is slipping.
And Lucy sits in the corner of the room, watching me. Never saying a word.
Or maybe it’s all some misplaced hope that she’s here with me.
But why would she be? I’m the reason she’s dead.
The waterboarding continues, but I still refuse to give Lee the encryption key. He’s been getting more aggravated the more I stay silent; at some point he’ll be moving on to another kind of torture. The wait is the most agonizing part.
As if summoned, the metal door opens violently, and Lee appears in the lit doorway like a fucking demon from hell. Turning on the light, he strolls in, hands in his jeans pockets, and an ugly grin on his face while Derek flanks him as usual. The light hurts my eyes, and while I slowly adjust to it, I realize he’s not alone.
White coat. Holding a syringe. I can only assume he’s the resident doctor… or some kind of overpaid corrupt vet. Who fucking knows.
“Boy do I have a treat for you,” Lee says, slowly enunciating all the words to drive in the point.
My eyes snap to him, but I’m drawn immediately back to the syringe, adrenaline spiking along with the dread shooting down my spine. I know that whatever is inside is bound to soon be flowing through my veins.
“Can’t wait to piss on your corpse,” I growl.
It’s the first reaction he’s gotten out of me since our first encounter.
Lee’s face lights up in delight.
“Interesting,” he hums, motioning the doctor toward me. “Maybe I’ll find your breaking point after all.”
The chains continue to rattle, as always, while I try in vain to distance myself from the syringe. As if I have anywhere to run to in the first place. Derek kneels beside me, grabbing my arm and holding it out. I try to struggle, but it’s no use. Even after a few failed attempts to locate a vein, the needle finds its home and the substance is slowly pushed into my system.
A familiar wave of euphoria overwhelms me almost instantaneously. A poison that feels like home. And so fucking conflicting, it hurts to even think. Like slipping into a warm bath, knowing I will soon drown in those same waters. The surrendering curse barely leaves my lips, as I mourn all the time spent fighting against this transcendent urge.
However, I can immediately tell that this dose is different from the ones I used to chase. I feel my heartbeat accelerate like a false sense of alertness, energy overtaking me, while I simultaneously feel my brain grow drowsy—my body sinking into a forced state of relaxation.
Before I lose myself entirely to the drugs, I realize they must have given me a combination of uppers and downers. Slowly, drowsily, it dawns on me that the drugs won’t let me sleep. Whatever they gave me will keep me awake in this insufferable state of limbo, while my eyes see shadows in the dark.
I barely notice them leaving until the lights flick off. The same fear that’s been stalking me since I’ve been thrown in here, reappears like an old friend. One that used to visit me almost daily when I was a child. It’s only been minutes. Or has it?
All I know is that I can already feel the heightened agitation making my body vibrate and hum, confusion rattling in my brain
* * *
I’munder the covers when my father finds me. He drags me out by the hair, pushing me on my knees, my arms and hands flat on the bed. The terror of his belt whistling in the air is almost more painful than the strike itself. But the leather hits the thin skin on the back of my thighs, and I take it back. I take it all back. The pain is blinding and I cry out, hot tears spilling out immediately. I sob into the duvet which seems to only anger him more.
“I’m sorry,” I cry loudly, choking on the words. But I don’t know what I’m apologizing for. His anger is a poison I can never seem to detect, a scorpion’s tail always ready to strike. At age eleven, I’ve long since given up trying to understand him. His violence is my birthright.
* * *
I hear a warm,soft laugh and I blink through the darkness.
“Lucy?” I rasp, and immediately the shame of even saying her name out loud in this void of a room hurts more than any beating my father ever gave me.
Where did the laugh come from?
I must have imagined it.
Wasn’t I just eleven years old?
On my knees with welts on my thighs?
Nothing is making any sense.