I closed my eyes, losing myself to another daydream. Of Woodrow, waiting for me at pearly gates, our baby in his arms and Nessie at his side. My parents stood in the background. My grandmother, who had passed only a year after my mother, with them. Everyone I ever loved, all together.
I jumped, feeling the stabbing of the needle blade, and then I felt a tingling surrounding the area.
“Sleep well, angel. Never a victim, always a survivor.” Ollie’s comforting touch rubbed my arm, and that was the last thing I felt as the world zoned out.
Olivier stopped me from slumping down to the floor, scooping my limp body up into his powerful arms.
He moved through the rundown building, giving no one a second glance as a few newer guys questioned with their stare what I’d done to deserve such a final punishment.
No one asked with their mouths; they didn’t really care. And they knew if the rumors floating through the walls—that the monster with gold teeth was dead—were true, then, for now, Olivier held the power in this shithole.
His eyes squinted as he reached the back door and someone pulled it open from the outside, blasting sunlight into the monotonous halls.
The face kissed by sunlight didn’t look surprised to see me, all limp and lifeless. He stepped aside for Olivier to pass, saying nothing.
“Keep an eye on things; I have a body to dispose of.” Ollie regarded the man with a nod, keeping me tucked in close.
“I can take her if it’s easier.”
“I got it,” was all Ollie said as he rolled me into the back seat of a black jeep, the windows only one shade lighter than the bodywork.
The doors slammed as he got in behind me, and drove me on my way to a new life.
My eyes peeled open, still feeling heavy after numerous blinks. They drifted from left, where everything was hazy, to the right, where my vision was clear. I lay in a bed in a room I'd never seen before.
I expected clouds,loved ones, heaven.
Where the fuck was I?
I sat up on a soft mattress. The blankets over me fell to my waist, the foreign feeling of warmth going with them. I patted my skin, material still covering me.
I looked down to see I was in a t-shirt, long and black, with a band's logo on the front. It took me a while to think of one of their hits, but then their playlist came to me, and the eighties rockers’ most iconic song started playing in my head, or from some other room in this house.
I swung my weak legs to the edge of the bed and tested whether or not, they'd hold my weight. I crept to the door, slowly moving over the carpet as my knees threatened me with a face-to-face introduction with the soft fibers.
Wrapping my hand around the doorknob, I twisted it. I didn’t push myself straight out into the hallway and into the view of someone who was talking nearby. I only opened the door slightly, pressing my ear to the open space and listening.
The conversation was one-sided and coming from the kitchen. Clunking cups rattled my bones, each little noise feeling scarier in this new and strange environment.
Why was I here?
How was I alive?
Another question came, but it wasn't locked inside my head—it was a voiced question by a man I'd guess to be in his early thirties. He wasn't Olivier, who was a little older than that. It wasn't his voice or his walk I heard moving around the kitchen down the hall.
“How are you doing today? Any tantrums?” He asked another person, mockingly, with amusement in his tone.
Whoever was with him, making noise as he opened and closed the refrigerator, getting on with his morning routine, didn't answer him.
The kettle screamed, and I wanted to scream, too, wondering what the hell I was doing here.
I crept into the long hallway, moving sheepishly towards the voices of could-be wolves. The wooden floor didn't creak, alerting them to my presence.
“Don’t put that back,” the man said, as his friend was about to put away some milk. “I need it for my first coffee.” There was the shortest pause, where maybe his friend nodded. “And Ineed the coffee to deal with you.” The man laughed. “Don’t worry, I won't tell Ollie about your meltdown yesterday. He's got a lot going on right now, trying to shut that place down. But try to behave today, huh? Take your meds and shit, and try to keep Hell in his box.”
“Hell. . .” I whispered, my lip and knees shaking. My heart pounding wildly.My Hell.
Before I knew it, my feet moved quicker, not caring about any threats my body made or any noise I made.
