My shoulders are already too heavy with guilt. I can’t take any more. I don’t think I could bear it.
Yesterday I took another pregnancy test and got the expected negative result, but Trips’ father wasn’t happy. He’s started handing them out like candy, so that every week I have to pee on a stick, knowing full well someone is watching me from the camera in the bathroom.
I’d feel violated if I didn’t have so many other, bigger emotions to wrestle against.
Even curiosity is too much for me right now. We went to the county courthouse to get our marriage license, and Tripswhispered something to the bored public employee, slipping the woman a wad of cash. Normally I’d be dying to know where he got the cash and what he said, but instead I smiled like a broken doll and then spent too long staring at the wall of the shower when we got back.
Emotional fatigue has taken even my sense of accomplishment. Finals are this week; it’s the end of my college education, and there’s no pride in me. Or even relief. It’s just another step forward. Another day passing in a haze of stress, boredom, and suppressed terror.
Soon, I’ll know if the plan worked. If I’m getting free or being locked into this horror forever. If we actually get a happy ending, or if everything continues to sink into the dark, forever scarring our souls.
Things aren’t getting better. With every negative pregnancy test, Trips’ father sees me less as a womb and more as a weapon. Neither is good. I got a break from studying a few nights ago when he sent Trips and me to torture a man.
That man got to live.
It doesn’t change the chipped and warped shape of my heart.
That night, I didn’t sleep at all. Nor did Trips. We stayed pressed in each other’s arms, unable to speak under the heavy weight of regret and pain. Time passed without words.
There are no words for the people we’re becoming.
No place to put the pain that’s swelling under my skin.
I haven’t gotten to do more than see Walker, Jansen, and RJ from a distance for weeks. My guards might keep changing, but they’re more vigilant now that I’ve proven I’m dangerous. It might have been self-defense that got me here, but I’vebeen pushed past any line I could justify by the man pulling our strings.
And every beating I take part in tightens his noose around my neck. The more I become his creature. The harder it will be to get free if our plans fail.
A cage in this hellish mansion or a prison cell. Neither appeals.
The wind screams tonight, and I want to join it. Just scream and scream until I’m empty of all the weight I’m carrying.
But I can’t. This isn’t a place for losing it. Not now. Not when we’re finally gaining the trust we needed from Trips’ father.
Trust that I hate I’ve earned.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Trips whispers, his fingers tangled in my curls.
“I need to scream.”
His wry smile coats his tone. “Welcome to Camp Suppression. It’s a shit place. Sorry to have brought you here.”
I hazard a broken huff. “I’m not sure I’m going to make it.”
“We’re almost there.”
“I know. It’s just…”
“Yeah.”
Blinking up through the dark at him, I find him staring at the ceiling. “When we get out of here, will you scream with me?”
“I’m past screaming.”
“What then?”
His sigh is heavy. “I don’t know anymore. There’s so much stuck in my chest, I don't think there's any way to get it all out safely.”
I move my gaze back to the window, unable to offer advice. I’ve never been a picture of mental stability. Self-delusion, sure, but stability? Nope.
