Fuck! I tried. I went to school with a different name. I never made friends. Goddamnit.My eyes filled with tears at my helplessness, the frustration, already feeling trapped, incarcerated.They have me. Where’s my family?My eyes widened as I tried to remember how I’d gotten there.
“Try to take a deep breath, dear. Your circumstances will not change with a panic attack,” he advised, but I was already having the panic attack.
What had happened? Ember? Mom? Dad? Ash? I was with them… at the house. Where were they?
I attempted to sit up, wincing and moaning, but the vertigo was so severe, I had to put my head back down and squeeze my eyes closed in hopes the world would cease spinning. It took forever. “What happened?”
“Do you remember me, dear? It’s Dr. Laurent. We don’t have much time. They know what you did. Your family—” Despite the dizziness, I couldn’t stop the panic rising inside me. This couldn’t be happening. How did they find us? How did they know what I did?
A clicking to my right grabbed my attention, and a narrow brown wooden door opened into the room. Mael walked in with that nauseating menacing smile.
My rapist, my torturer whom I’d killed six years prior stood before me.
As my heart hammered, I swallowed while slowly distancing myself from him on the couch, crawling back over the thick arm until I had to stand and walk toward the locked door. We studied each other, predator and helpless, trapped prey. He looked so real, but that was impossible, right?
I’d killed Mael on prom night. I remembered stabbing him so many times, and Dad got rid of his body. He’d reassured me so many times that Mael was gone. There was no way. My eyes were as wide as possible while alternating between my hallucination of Mael and the doctor who sat so calmly behind his desk.
He’s not real. Not real. Not real. Not real. I’m going crazy. Maybe they drugged me. Did they think I set the fire and brought me here? There was no way he could be alive. Even if he were… How did he find me? It’s impossible.I slowlyshook my head.Magdalena, breathe so this hallucination can go away.The deep breaths didn’t make him disappear.
My heart drummed in my ears, and I couldn’t stop my body from shaking as I remembered Mael and his friends taking turns on me in the forest that night.I can’t go through that again.“No,” I whispered, and shook my head to erase the images taking over, wishing the moment away and that none of it had happened. I was nauseous, dizzy. The panic attack had gotten so bad I couldn’t fill my lungs at all. I hated it so much, that fish-out-of-water sensation.
“Miss Michaelson,” the doctor called. “This is?—”
Mael interrupted him. “Hi, little darling.” His tongue slid over his bottom lip, and a disgusting smile widened as he took in my state. I was shaking like a dead leaf in a winter storm, like the pathetic victim, prey I was. “I can see why he was so obsessed with the idea of keeping you.”
Huh? Who? I wrinkled my brow. “Doctor? Is… Do you see?” I turned toward the doctor but couldn’t take my eyes off Mael. It was so real. Maybe I had lost my mind after all.
“It’s really me, darling. Why are you not happy to see me? The last time you saw me, I took you to prom. Correct? Didn’t you enjoy the night?” He walked up to me, and I tried everything to melt into the wall. With my right hand, I tried to open the door but as expected, it was locked.
He laughed at me. “Nah-ah-ah.” Mael shook his forefinger in the air. “No running away this time.”
“Doc—” I cried, the horror pouring out with the one syllable and my many hurried breaths.
Within a second, Mael’s fingers gripped my upper arms so aggressively, sure to leave purple bruises.H-he’s real? He’s real. Oh no!He slammed my back and head against the wall and simultaneously, a flash of lighting struck inside the office. After,my brain moved along with the rest of the walls around me. He had to hold me up.
Through gritted teeth, he yelled, “You killed my twin brother, you little psycho bitch. He was so obsessed with you, so determined to make you his wife! You, a Caribbean piece of shit. Now, it’s your turn to die.”
His palm wrapped around my throat, cutting off the scream I had been releasing. “Before we kill you, I’m going to make you suffer in every single way possible. You’ll be begging for your death for years before I grant it to you.” The intensity of the malice radiating from him changed his face. It was as ifI was finally able to see the demon possessing him. The shadows under his eyes, the coldness, the anger, the way he clenched his teeth, none of it was normal, natural. He looked like a rabid animal, almost salivating.
I couldn’t breathe, yet the doctor stayed unfazed. I failed at removing his palm from my throat, at pushing his arms down with my elbows, and at kicking him. He anticipated all my moves. Nothing worked, and I only had seconds. My lungs burned, about to explode from not receiving the proper oxygen. Between that and the headache throbbing from the slamming, I was helpless. With my eyes, I begged him for mercy, but nothing changed in his expression. His eyes remained empty.I must be dreaming. Wake up, Magdalena! Wake the fuck up!Nothing was taking me out of this nightmare.Daddddddy!
His hold tightened even more.He was going to break my neckwas, my last thought before the world started turning black. My eyes fluttered closed and my entire body relaxed, losing all energy. Only then did his hold loosen. I dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes, knowing I didn’t have time. Men like him, like his brother and the sick buddies, only let go to choke harder, to fool us into thinking we’d finally gained their empathy. So, before I fully recovered, I punched him in the stomach withall my might, which wasn’t much; then on my feet, I punched him in the nose while gasping for my third breath. The blood sputtering out of his nose surprised me, such a sensitive nose. With a kick, I pushed him to my left beside the desk.
“Magdalena, none of this is going to help you,” the doctor warned but kept filling out some paperwork on his desk as if I were imagining everything.
Nothing could help me. I knew that, but at least I could try killing him, at least I could hurt him before he hurt me, at least I could act less like a prey and more like a predator so I wouldn’t beat myself if I managed to survive for even a minute longer.
Mael’s twin groaned and held his nose as he stumbled even farther back. Blood stained the hand holding the bridge of his nose. I kicked his balls and punched him again. His back smacked into the wall under the windows. He bent over, groaning and holding his scrotum. “Fuck!”
Yes, little bitch. I actually know how to fight.With an energy and physical strength that surprised me, I grabbed the letter opener from the desk and stabbed the little bitch in his throat.
Blood splattered and sprayed all over my face like a shower I’d been needing for far too many years.I squealed and giggled as if I’d won this round.
“Oh my God. What have you done? What the fuck have you done?” The doctor finally panicked, calling upon his God and trying to help the little bitchy twin. When the door behind me opened, the twin screamed and gurgled blood, then my smile devolved into an uncontrollable laughter as hands grabbed my arms and dragged me out of the room.
A foreign part of me heard and recognized my laughter as psychotic, but I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t know if it was stemming from nervousness or loss of sanity, but even as we approached an elevator and a chill coursed through my body, I couldn’t stop.
The falling sensation and extreme speed of the elevator cart stole my breath. Fear finally broke my amusement and silenced me. Pure horror rushed and filled my veins, making my heart pound. My body knew this place, but my mind refused to remember it.
