I exhaust myself with questions that I’ll never get the answers to. At least not while I’m stuck in here.
Defeated, I snap the journal shut, and manage to scrounge up enough energy to roll off the bed and crawl to the open slot. Hot tears spill over as I replace the journal back into its hiding spot. And as I seal the wooden plank back down, everything I tried to not think about rushes back to me.
Nearly falling in my rush back to the bed, I curl up in a ball, clenching my fists, my broken nails screaming. My entire body quakes from the memories slaughtering any semblance of peace I found with Molly. With everything I have, I hold on tightly to the sobs shredding my throat in an attempt to escape.
I won’t let them.
It couldn’t have been more than a half-hour since Francesca stormed out of my room, and went to calm Rocco down, who, from the sound of it, went on a rampage and started destroying the house. I immediately tore off my soiled clothing, and dressed in a fresh pair, but it did nothing to soothe me while chaos ensued below my room. That’s when I remembered the journal in the floorboards and found solace in Molly.
For an indescribable amount of time, I stare at the wall. If my eyes even stray towards the dusty wooden floor, all I can see is an image of myself lying on the ground with Rocco mounted over me. I watch the desecration of my soul, like an out-of-body experience. Standing over the apparitions, unable to stop it from happening.
Desperately, I attempt to train my thoughts on anything else-Zade or Daya-but the train derails every time, leading me back towards the beauty room. They’re merely ghosts haunting the hallways of my brain, and anytime I reach out to them, they only fade away.
I squeeze my eyes shut, frustration mounting.
I should’ve listened. Yeah, that’s what I should’ve done. Allow a girl to be mutilated to save myself.
Shaking my head, I thump the heel of my palm on my forehead. How am I supposed to live with that? If I ever get out of here, how am I supposed to be okay knowing that I stood by while awful things happened to other girls, purely to save myself?
They stood by while you were raped.
They did. Do I hate them for it?
I don’t know. Kind of. There’s a morsel of inky blackness unfurling inside of me, and I kind of want to kill them, too.
“No,” I whisper. I can’t expect everyone to be so sacrificial. I can’t expect a girl who’s being abused just as I am to try and save someone else.
Try to.
Because that’s the fucking problem. There is no saving them. Bethany is still going to have that mole cut out of her skin. All of those girls in there-they’re still going to be raped and tortured, no matter how many times I step in.
We’re all just lambs waiting to be slaughtered, and getting myself killed isn’t going to stop the wolves from feasting.
So, what the fuck am I supposed to do?
Zade’s voice whispers in my mind, and my heart clenches painfully.
Pick your battles. Be smart.
Easier said than fucking done.
I startle when my bedroom door slams open about ten minutes later, the doorknob knocking into a perfectly round dent in the wall. There’s obviously a long history of this door being kicked in.
Breathing heavily, I watch Rio enter the room, carrying a first aid kit and appearing calm as ever despite him kicking down the door.
“Already causing trouble, princess?” he asks casually.
I refuse to answer, tightening my lips and glaring at him through swollen eyes. He raises his brows when he catches sight of my face, causing my cheeks to burn hot from anger. For a moment, he looks furious, though I can’t tell who with.
He twirls his finger in the air, indicating that I turn over.
“I have to clean up the mess you made,” he tells me, his face smoothing into an unreadable expression. “You’re getting blood everywhere.”
Huffing, I roll onto my stomach, tensing when I feel his fingers brush my t-shirt up my back.
“It’s not my fau-“
“Everything is your fault here,” he interrupts, his voice deepening with severity. “Don’t ever forget that.”
He rustles through the supplies, sighing like this is a huge inconvenience for him.
“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt your day of trafficking women,” I mutter, stewing in my fury. His response is to place an alcohol-soaked pad on my ripped stitches. The burn is startling, and I hiss through my teeth, curses building on the tip of my tongue.
Fucking asshole.
“Your mouth is going to get you in worse situations than this,” he informs me. “What’s it going to take for you to learn your lesson? Getting a girl killed?”
Swallowing, I choke out, “I’m sorry.”
A loud, booming laugh bursts from his throat. I snap my head to him, enraged as his shoulders shake with mirth. His dark eyes are twinkling with the first real emotion I’ve seen thus far. It’s almost as terrifying as him being angry.
“You’re laughing at me,” I say with disbelief.
“Baby girl, I’m not the one you need to be afraid of. I much prefer that mouth of yours.”
“You just said-“
“You mouth off without thinking it through, and that’s what you need to learn to control,” he cuts in, his smile dimming, but his eyes still alight with amusement. “As sexy as your fire is, princess, that’s the last thing you want in this place.”
I curl my lip in disgust, thumping my head back on the bed while he resumes cleaning up my back.
“Don’t call me sexy,” I snap, only because he’s right, and I have nothing better to say.
“Z gonna kill me for it?” he challenges airily, feigning indifference. Although, that’s not how he sounded when I awoke in that van and overheard Rick and him discussing if the Society will offer them protection from Zade’s wrath.
I shrug. “He’s going to kill you anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”
He’s quiet, and just when I’m convinced that he’s not going to say anything at all, I hear him whisper under his breath, “I know.”
As Rio is leaving, Francesca comes barreling down the hallway, her heels resounding on the floor. Her hand wraps around Rio’s arm, stopping him at the door.
“Is her back worse?”
He shakes his head. “Nah, they’re superficial. She’ll be fine,” he answers, though his last words sound like they have a double meaning. When she turns away from him, he casts a wink over his shoulder before walking off, leaving me confused.
He’s so fucking hot and cold.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.