Pulling the vial from my pocket, I prep her last dose and get her arm ready. She has bruises and needle marks on the insides of both arms. I’ll be glad when they are gone, and she returns.
“This is it,” I say to her as I line up the needle with her vein. “After this, you come back to the world. You come back to me.”
I push the plunger down, and she sighs in contentment. Laying the needle on the table, I watch her for a moment, remembering her smile and laugh. It’ll be nice to see and hear it again. I take great care in undressing her and ease herback on the cot. Stripping free of my clothes, I kneel between her legs to enjoy one last day with her like this. One last time before the fear and hatred returns. Just me and her willingness to accept me.
Hazel reaches out her hand and I take it, kissing her fingers.
“Make me feel something,” she whispers on a breathy sigh.
“Your wish is my command, lover.”
HAZEL
Warmth swiftly permeates my body as the drug courses through my veins with a vengeance. Beads of sweat cool my heated flesh as the drug takes effect. Joseph said that it would since it’s concentrated. Its pill form will be timed-release, using the body’s metabolism to evenly disperse the drug over a period of time. Joseph wanted to tamper with the formula, but we knew that Phil would never take the first dose. He’s too smart for that. I also knew that he would never allow Dustin and Joseph to take it, because he would lose too much if one of them died. I was the only viable solution to ensure that we didn’t poison him or his precious drug. Joseph agreed, but he thought that planting a seed of doubt in Phil now would make him believe this would be our only attempt at freedom. And it worked.
Phil pulled his power card and thought he’d squashed our hope of escaping. The more we cower to him andpretend to have our spirits broken, the quicker he will dismiss us and not think that we will act out against him. Now, we sit and wait for the perfect time to strike back and make our escape. Only problem is, I’ve become Phil’s personal pin cushion for his syringes, and I can’t recall how much time has passed since the first one.
Time has been a vortex of sluggish proportions. I can’t function, can barely walk or talk, and am almost begging for the relief of the needle before it’s poked into my sensitive veins again. Phil wanted something to snag the masses, and he found it. In a short period of time, I’m becoming addicted to my new reality and the way it makes my body feel; especially when Phil’s hands are on me. At least then I know what I feel is real.
I never know when I’m dreaming or awake anymore. Everything feels like a dream, except when my body reacts violently with need. I know then that I’m awake. Those moments I want to die. But the others, I’m not so sure. At times, I thought Cash was here with me, and Bobby too. Comforting moments blended with my own personal torment. My own personal hell. I don’t know what to cling to because I don’t know what’s real.
My nerve endings are on fire as the drug burns its way out of my system. This is what I would equate Hell to feel like. As the feeling returns to my body, my muscles spasm and my joints ache in agony. Nausea rolls my stomach as pain rips through my head. The cot I lie on is drenched with sweat as my legs scissor in an attempt to ease the pain. I’m drowning, and the only saving grace I have rests in the hands of the manholding me under. He can take away this pain but makes me feel another. I prefer the other.
Shouting on the other side of the curtain makes my head throb. It has to stop. All of it has to stop before it shatters me into a million pieces. I crawl from the bed, and the cracked, concrete floor digs into my hands and knees as I listlessly sway back and forth. The need to purge the agonizing rolls in my stomach slow me as I reach the sheet hanging in front of me. Not caring where the opening is, I push on. The fabric drags over my head and down my back as I break through the barrier.
The metal door slams shut, and my brain feels as though it’s imploding. I wrap my arms around my head and drop it to the cool concrete, pulling at my hair to feel something other than the ripping and tearing inside my skull.
“Hazel!”
He’s still here. He didn’t leave without me. Joseph’s voice ricochets in my ears as he kneels down beside me and lowers his face to the floor so his is even with mine. His frantic eyes dance back and forth between mine as his lips move soundlessly. My ears ring as the pain intensifies even more, and I clamp my hands over them, trying to alleviate the pressure. Joseph leaps up, the pounding of his feet against the concrete matches the pounding in my head.
He effortlessly scoops me up and carries me back to that unforgiving torture device I’ve called my bed. The lumps in the cot make my body hurt more. I grab at hisarms but don’t have the strength to grip him.
“It hurts.” My voice sounds foreign to me.
“I know.” Joseph dabs my face and neck with a cool cloth. My skin feels like it sizzles each time he presses it onto my flesh. “I’m so sorry, Hazel. I fixed it. This won’t happen to you anymore.”
The fuzziness begins to clear as I focus on him. His eyes are bloodshot, and his clothing and hair are disheveled. It looks as though he hasn’t slept in days. The pain wracks my body again and I curl on my side moaning. Joseph hesitates, not knowing what to do, and then his hand runs down my back.
“Why am I naked?” I push the words through my chattering teeth.
“Do you really want me to answer that?” he asks, as he covers me with a thin blanket.
The fibers feel like sandpaper against my skin, but it soon brings minimal comfort, helping my body to calm.
“How long?”
Joseph apprehensively picks at some fuzz on the blanket, not wanting to answer. He sighs when he sees me staring at him and laces his fingers together and squeezes, forming a giant fist. “Twelve days.”
It takes a moment to register what he just said. Twelve days. Twelve days of…I’m not even sure. It’s all just euphoric bits and pieces. It only felt like a few days. I reach up to wipe away the stray tears and hiss when pain shoots through my cheek and eye.
“You were very…compliantunder the effects. He enjoyed it and took advantage of you.” Joseph stares off, as if seeing another time before him. “You seemed to enjoy it as well. But the drug wasn’t right, and Phil wanted to keep you that way. So, I’ve been working nonstop to correct it.”
My fingertips glide around my cheek and eye feeling how swollen and tender it is. “If I was so compliant, why does it feel like I have a black eye?”
Joseph half smirks and half frowns before answering. “Because you told him that you loved him,” he pauses to take in my grimace. “Then you called him Cash.”
My eyes jerk to his, and he smiles sadly knowing a truth I hadn’t even admitted to myself yet. Cash’s face drifts through my mind, and it breaks my heart. I should be happy that I finally met someone who makes me feel alive and would tear open their wounds to help me heal mine. But I worry that in doing so, his darkness may eat him alive. By ripping off the bandage that held him together for most of his life, he has opened himself to be consumed by his anger and hatred. Maybe it’s a good thing, because it could take every bit of that to save us. But if something happens to me and Joseph, I fear that he’ll be left alone and take it out on everyone around him, turning into the demon that he has battled so long not to become. None of us will ever be the same when this over, and some of us probably won’t be around to see the end.
