DaiSzek carried me back to the room with my cage. I didn’t plan on returning. I could lie in that special place for the rest of my days. But my truth, the hidden secret weighing me down, was finally acknowledged. Finally said out loud, or at least in my head. I want to see him again. I have to.
Young Kane told me that the men were gone now. It was safe to go back.
I hugged DaiSzek around his neck and fell back into the body that lay still. Cold and defiled. Trembling and sad.
I remain as I was with my eyes still closed. I don’t want to open them. I don’t want to reenter this reality I just ran from. As I flex my fingers and wiggle my toes, my nostrils fill with the scent of cigarette smoke, a light waft of cleaning chemicals, and the sweat of a man.
“What did you do?!” Albatross raises his voice. It forces my lids to flicker open. The light is back on. The chandelier reflects off of the metal of my cage. I see the red velvet material over his kneecaps tucked away in the corner of the room.
“What do you mean?” I ask wearily.
A teacup soars through the air and shatters against my cage. Scalding hot tea splatters over my skin, fragments of porcelain puncture my arms, legs, and cheeks. I screech, fanning my burning skin while trying to pluck the shards from my new tiny wounds.
“What the hell happened? You were terrified one moment, your vitals were through the roof, and then suddenly you completely leveled out!”
I keep my face composed. “I fell asleep.” I’ll never tell you where I went. Never tell you who I saw.
An angry chuckle. “You fell asle—” His long finger reaches out past the shadows into the light. “You blacked out, didn’t you? Went someplace far away in your mind?”
I shake my head. No. Don’t tell him anything.
“DON’T YOU LIE TO ME, BITCH!” Albatross swipes at a table and knocks everything to the ground with a loud crash of glass and books. “I’ve done nothing but help you since you arrived!”
I grip the bars on either side of me. I know it’s not wise to anger him like this. I could just make up a good lie, but they’ll hurt me either way. They’ll keep me locked up like an animal.
“You still think he’s coming for you, is that it? You were probably there with him… in your head!” he bellows, that nasal voice pinging around the bars of my cage.
That’s technically true…
Albatross sighs now, heavily and with a touch of theatrics. “My dear, I really didn’t want to tell you this… it would only make your time here harder for you. But seeing as you aren’t cooperative in your cage because of a false string of hope that your travel companion is on his way… I’ll have to stop you there. You see, he arrived two weeks ago. He managed to get past the first entrance, but when he discovered everything I told you before, he malfunctioned. He completely lost his mind. He slit his own throat.”
I stare at him, wide eyed, with a parted mouth that lacks the function to speak. The visual of Dessin standing in shock, finding out he wasn’t as powerful as he always thought he was. Taking a knife to his throat and—
“No,” I growl. My teeth grinding down to the nerve.
“Excuse me?”
“No.” A new kind of hatred rips through my core, quick and violent, I fear I might split right down the middle. “YOU’RE LYING!” I scream. It takes more energy than I have in me, but I’m powered by a rainstorm of toxic rage. “He is everything he believes he is and becoming more every day! That much I know is true!”
He laughs with intentional cruelty and belittlement.
“Your travel companion is nothing but a rat in our maze.”
My jaw locks and my entire body begins to shake, tighten, burn. I slam my fists down on the floor of my cage. “SAY HIS NAME, YOU COWARD!”
Albatross clears his voice. “I will not.”
“HIS NAME IS DESSIN! AND WHEN HE FINDS YOU, HE’LL DO UNIMAGINABLE THINGS TO MAKE YOU BLEED!”
Unless I’m mistaken, I hear his throat gulp. Wet, loud, and terrified.
I kick my legs out to the cage door. The peak of adrenaline is enough to give me a second and third wind. I hike my legs up to my chest, then kick the bars as hard as I can with bare feet. I can hardly feel the impact vibrate up my shins, cracking against my kneecaps.
“Let me out!” I scream again. Thrusting my legs full force against the bars of the cage. Once, twice, nine more times. “GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!”
I thrash about, throwing my arms and fists against the sides of my cage. Beating the metal until my knuckles swell, blood spilling down my arms, dripping off my elbows. But I can’t feel the pain or what I’m sure is a monstrous throbbing sensation under my skin. The fury fills up my bloodstream like a downpour of hot oil. It strengthens my muscles and my bones. It jolts through my veins as if my IV were connected to an electric generator. I want to tear this cage to pieces with my bare hands. I want to yank Albatross out from the shadows and clutch his throat, ripping my fingernails through his veins. I want out.
He’s not dead! He’s alive and he’ll come for me.
“I’m warning you, girl!” Albatross finds his voice. But it isn’t louder than mine.
“No, I’m warning you! If you keep me in here any longer, I won’t hold him back! He will look to me for how much is enough. He will wait for me to tell him to stop. But I will watch as you suffer. And I will enjoy every second of it!”
Albatross slams his hands down on a leather chair.
First, my panties feel wet. Soaking. Dripping without my control. I look down and blood is gushing out of me. It happens so fast that my rage winks from existence.
Then, a flood of sharp pains jabs my uterus, like tiny knives carving me up from within. I double over, grip my lower belly, suck in a fast breath through my teeth.
Next, it’s my lower back. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone is massaging me with a hammer. It punctures my sides like hot pokers from a firepit, stabbing my gut, leaving me with a heavy surge of nausea. The sudden dull need to vomit slithers up my throat, coating my tongue with bitter stomach acid.
I lean my shoulder to the side of the cage, holding my belly, wincing at the shards of agony that blast through my back repeatedly. Like I’m being attacked from within. Like my body detected a foreign enemy, and it’s throwing all of its best defenses against it. My eyeballs are swollen and hot. My tongue, heavy in my mouth. The natural instinct to heave is strong, drowning out every thought I have. The muscles in my abdomen contract, forcing my jaw to unhinge; I gag dryly. What’s happening to me? Is he killing me?
My heart rate jumps as another lurch of bile pumps through my throat. I lean over and a stream of pink juice is shooting from my gaping mouth. The pain in my stomach subsides for three and a half seconds, and then returns, gripping my stomach so tightly I can’t breathe.
The pain is atrocious. It’s beyond comprehension. The only thing I can do is hold completely still while my stomach acid sloshes around, burning holes into the lining of my intestines. A single gasp followed by a whimper drips off of my lips with a string of my own bodily fluids. I bear down as my innards churn and twist, and more pink vomit is ejected from me, spraying through the bars, landing around my cage. The smell and taste is sour, like sweet wine and pickles. Like choosing to sit in a decomposing swamp of curdled milk and sewer water. I gag again at the scent that fills my nose, and the fluids spreading across the cage floor, drenching my nightgown.
The thought slices its way through my ongoing hell. Why would Dessin let me suffer this long? I must be wrong about him. The man I know would never let me undergo this kind of unimaginable torture. He’s never coming for me! He’s never going to break me out. I’ll be trapped like this forever!
A flood of more vomit and blood burst from my chest. This time, it saturates my gown down the front of my body. Everything hurts. From head to toe, I tremble, waiting for the next roll of vomit. I don’t know what’s happening to me, or how long it will last. But this can’t go on. I can’t go through this forever. I’ll die. I’ll lose my mind. More so than I already have.
The whole world is dark and I’m falling endlessly through a realm of evil humans taunting me, kicking me while I’m down. I want to leave it. I should have stayed in the safe place. Where is DaiSzek?
Underneath my loud groaning, Albatross clears his throat again.
“All at once, I gave you endometriosis, kidney stones, and a rather severe case of appendicitis. Your poor body is trying to fight. You have a fever of 104, and oh, you’ve also come down with the flu.”
Please make this stop! I moan again in agony as the stabbing pains attack my midsection with impressive combat skills. Please!
I look up through glossy eyes. Albatross stays hidden in the shadows, only the caps of his knees showing in the light of the chandelier. I plead with my quivering lip, hoping he takes pity on me. I shouldn’t have yelled at him. I should have stayed submissive. What was I thinking?!
“I could make the pain go away, dear,” he announces, legs crossing.
I hold my breath as another tub of vomit is dumped across my tongue and out of my mouth. The taste is too close to rotting meat and expired dairy. I want it to stop!
I can’t even look up again to respond to him. A migraine. Hot flesh. Violent chills. My soul is begging him for a warm bed.
“But I can’t make it stop if you’re still in denial.” He sighs. “This all is so trivial and barbaric. I could be spending my time explaining more about my good work here. I don’t like seeing you like this, dear girl. I don’t like it at all.”
I choke on another uprise of bile and swallow it back down. I’ve never felt so weak and horrendous in my life. “I’m not!” I spit the words out before my uterus is being squeezed again.
“Sorry? You’re not what?” Albatross asks.
I whine as my stomach feels like it’s being pinched between a piece of hardware.
“You don’t want to have to keep feeling this way all for a dying cause, do you? It’s just not fair! It’s been over a month since you were brought here. A month! Tell me, would this strong, indestructible travel companion of yours really need months to come break you out? I mean, he’s far too clever for a task this small, isn’t he? But if that’s the truth… then what could have stopped him?” He waits for me to answer, but I’m too busy writhing on the floor aimlessly. “It hurts me to see you giving your best self to a false perception of a person.”
My thoughts, chained down by pain, are clear for a brief moment. He’s right. Even thinking that makes me feel like a traitor. Like the scum of the earth.
But it hurts. I hurt.
Disappointment possesses me, dragging every hope I have to hell. He isn’t coming for me. If my version of this man was the right one… I’d be out already. It’s been too long. I’ve suffered too long. It had all been lies. My connection might have been real, but the lion, the dragon, the great beast that encompassed the all-knowing, master manipulator, the strong-willed warrior he has always been to me… has been a lie. A LIE.
“He’s—not—coming—for—me.” I make out my words evenly through the rapid inhales and exhales. “He’s a lie.” A dry sob breaks through my pursed lips and gritted teeth.
Albatross hums in agreement. “Would you like the pain to go away now?”
“Yes, I would,” I groan. Please make it go away. With a click coming from his side of the room. The pain sinking its teeth into my stomach, my back, my uterus, all lift like a poisonous cloud floating back up to the sky. I force out a shaky, grateful sigh, hooking my hands over the top of my head. It’s all gone now.
He’s all gone now.
