The ice skates along my skin with every move, making it feel like I’m trapped with a thousand living things all fighting to keep me prisoner.
“I did some research on the way here,” my grandfather says, patting his bloody cheek with a handkerchief.
I keep hitting and kicking with all my might. The cold has numbed any of the pain that would otherwise be there.
“Psychologists used to think submerging a patient in freezing water could ‘kill’ the mad thoughts. Sometimes, they’d place the patient into near-boiling water before moving them into ice water to ‘shock’ the patient into submission or sanity.”
I kick my knees up, banging against the sheet as hard as possible when the cold has rendered my muscles stiff. “Grandpa,” I wheeze. “Please stop this.” The tears slide down my cheeks, dripping off my chin.
The two guards exit the room, leaving only me, my grandfather, McGill, and Boris.
He raises his shoulders in boredom. “See this however you wish—punishment, therapy, or simply wasted entertainment. Yourviews have no sway in any of this.”
My grandfather condoned the electrocution and the violence. He spent my entire life abusing me with his power, using his money as a means to starve me or keep me leashed to him like a desperate puppy.
I was always aware he was pushing the buttons and calling the shots. We didn’t speak on the phone where I could hear his voice; I only saw him once every few years. Jonathan Whitlock Sr. was a series of letters and numbers that dictated how much misery would be let into my life.
Jonathan isn’t a man behind a screen anymore. He isn’t a myth or a story on the news. He’s flesh and bone with sinister eyes. He’sthere. Right in front of me. Calling the shots, with orders of my execution waiting on the tip of his tongue. It’s real. A living, breathing human being whom all darkness stems from.
Heis the maker of my own personal hell. A conduit for all the bad that’s happened so far.
My grandfather tucks his bloody handkerchief back into his inside pocket. “You were given the opportunity to make a dignified choice; however, you chose not to do so. This is the consequence of your actions, Marie. This”—he nods at the tub—“can be a common occurrence.”
I will not die like this.
I will not die letting men like him survive on my wilted corpse.
“Why can’t you just care about me? Why do you have to do all of this?” My teeth chatter as I say the words.
My grandfather slides his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “Some people weren’t born to be wanted. Existing is the most they will ever receive.”
My gaze cuts to the three remaining men. “If you don’t let me out of here, I swear on my life that you will all die because of me. I will hunt you down and make you regret treating me the way you do.” My grandfather. McGill. Boris. They will all die by my hand.
Jonathan huffs an empty chuckle. “I’ll see you at graduation, Marie.” He toes my blazer that’s lying on the floor. “Don’t forget your jacket. It’s cold outside.”
I pull the hood further down my head as I huddle closer to my bedroom door so none of the squealing girls pay any attention to me.
The perpetual chill from the ice-cold water I was forced into rakes another shudder down my spine, and I can’t hold back the hiss that comes out when I grab onto my keys. My knuckles and knees are a canvas of violet and indigo blotches, with smears of red on the highest points.
Silver lining: I iced my injuries.
Another silver lining: I don’t need crutches anymore.
It’s been over twenty-four hours since I’ve been out of the tub. Almost twenty-four hours with Dr. Van der Merwe in the med wing with a constant IV drip and heat pads. Still, I feel like I’m in the damn ice bath.
The good doctor told me everything from here on out is in myhead. My core temperature is back to normal, the melted ice has been flushed down the drain, and the tub is sitting in the basement, empty. There were two words he used that made me flinch.Trauma response.
Forty-five minutes. That’s two-thousand and seven-hundred seconds they left me in the frozen water. I can still picture the clock directly across from the tub, the way the long hand ticked, ticked, ticked.
The pain stopped after a while. Everything seemed to stop after feeling like I was burning alive. At some point after everyone left the room, I couldn’t move my limbs anymore. Then the shivers stopped, and I thought I saw my mother walk in with a dirty ribbon to braid my hair.
The sound of my bedroom door unlocking beneath the keycard makes me wince as if the lid is trapping me in place all over again. The ache in my jaw has traveled to my neck from gritting my teeth against the phantom shivers.
Dr. Van der Merwe gave me today off and a pass from attending prom tonight. I don’t think I could tolerate the loud music and all the bodies if I went sober. All of it feels so insignificant. None of it matters.
Taking a deep breath, I shoulder the door open and stumble into the room. My feet don’t make it much further than that. The weight of everything that happened makes me crumble to the floor. The carpet drags against my sensitive cheek, both grounding me and unleashing me with the pain it brings.
When I close my eyes, I’m back in that tub, back in the room that smells like death. My grandfather’s disinterested blue gaze is on me, reminding me I will always be more insignificant than a speck of dust on his designer coat. I’m a shadow of my ghost of a mother, but evena wraith would have more importance.
