“What’s the meaning of this?” Meridei gasps.
Niles doesn’t say anything. He watches in shock.
I pull my dress over my head and toss it to a dry spot in the corner. My brassiere and underwear come off next. And I cannot help but shudder and take pause. This treatment isn’t foreign to me. My father used to make me strip down to nothing and sit in the cold basement as a punishment for crying.
I swallow down this memory like a pill stuck in my throat. The cold air caresses my skin like the sharp edge of a knife. I walk over to the back wall and position myself the way the patients usually do. One hand covering my breasts, and the other covering my panty line.
“Start,” I bark at Meridei.
She stands there with her mouth hanging open. The ice water surrounds my feet in a glassy puddle, and I flex all of my muscles, getting a small taste of the discomfort that awaits.
“Have you gone mad?!”
“Maybe.”
“What is it you’re trying to prove?” Meridei takes quick looks between Niles and me. My glance falls to Niles one more time. The spite has dissipated, replaced with horror.
“DO IT!” I scream in her direction. My voice echoes the room a dozen times. I’m getting colder by the second and suddenly want this over as soon as possible.
Without another word, Meridei yanks the hose off the ground and points it in my direction. We exchange a look. A look that hardens the limp muscles in my legs and drains the blood from my cheeks.
She’s going to enjoy this.
She pulls the lever, and the hose blasts in my direction, like a bolt of lightning connecting its brazen force with a wilting tree. I fly off of my feet, my body spinning in the air, my cheekbone making first contact with the wall. The smack to my nose causes my eyes to water. The metallic taste of my blood mixed with the salty taste of my tears. The cold water is like tiny needles puncturing my skin. I try to hold in any signs of weakness, but the pressure is too powerful, the temperature is dancing on the line of freezing, and the fact that I am fighting to breathe is unbearable.
I scream as water jets into my mouth, tiny spurts escaping into my lungs.
I panic at the overwhelming sensation of drowning. Trying to cough it out, I turn around to face the wall, so I’m not in the direct line of fire. I manage to clear the pipes, but it hardly matters because the water bounces off the walls and comes from all directions.
Focus.
Focus on when it should be over. But I have no concept of time. I can’t tell if she’s been blasting me for thirty seconds or three minutes. Not knowing makes the panic spread through the rest of my body like a virus, injecting me with small doses of doom.
I hear my knees crack against the tile when I drop down. I brace my head between my knees, trying to find any position that makes this less painful. It helps me breathe; therefore, it helps me scream. I release another scream, even louder than the last, that dwindles to a whimper.
The water shuts off.
My skin stings and the pressure doesn’t go away. My body shakes violently like windows after a strong roll of thunder rattles the glass. A warm substance is wrapped around my shoulders and draped around my body. Pleasure and relief replace the doom, like old friends shooing away an enemy. I look up from my knees to see Council Member Judas—Judasis wrapping my naked body in a large white towel. Niles has lost the rosy shade to his cheeks and the tip of his nose. His skin is ashen, and his eyes are wide with tears.
Judas looks up at Meridei. “Please escort Niles back to his room.”
She looks at Judas, jaw hanging, and grunts in my direction. “Must you try anything for attention?”
“It’sHis Grace,” Niles corrects Judas as he exits the room with Meridei.
Judas helps me stand and walks to the door to turn away while I dress. I can’t stop shaking. Violently shaking.
I dry myself off before I slip into my dress.
“Whose idea was this?” he finally asks.
I use the towel to soak up some of the water from my hair. “Mine.”
“This wasn’t some sort of hazing ritual?”
So he knows how Meridei can be then.
“No.”
