Just like last time I was locked up down here, time has lost all meaning.
The dim light in the corner never goes out, making it impossible to know if the sun is up or not, and aside from the regular meals Ronan brings me, there’s no routine I can make sense of.
Every time he comes, he tries to talk to me, tries to convince me to eat, but I refuse.
Maybe it’s petty, but I don’t want to take anything from him. Not when he’s the reason I’m here in the first place.
He saw me with Ryker, and he let his jealousy get the best of him.
Most of the time I try to sleep. The drugs are long gone, but with mind-numbing boredom comes tiredness, and I’m grateful I’m able to escape reality.
But when I’m dragged from a dreamless sleep, my tired eyes blinking at today’s three meals sitting untouched beside the mattress, I can’t quite work out what woke me.
There’s no sound in the cellar. No footsteps. No voices. Even the drip from the first day I was here has been fixed.
But if it wasn’t a sound, what could it be?
Then I feel it. The sharp pain that slices across my lower belly.
Fuck.
My period.
A scoff escapes my throat, because of-fucking-course they couldn’t kill me before my period. They had to hold off until I’d been through one more agonizing cycle.
Glancing around the room for something I can use as a sanitary pad, I come up empty, and my chest tightens with panic.
Maybe it’s stupid that this is what breaks me. That waking up chained to a flimsy mattress in a cell a few doors down from the one I watched my parents be brutally murdered in didn’t crush me, but getting my period is the straw that breaks the camels back.
And yet tears fall against the pillow, my body already racked with exhaustion.
The idea of going through days of excruciating pain, heavy bleeding, and bone-deep fatigue without anything I need is far more horrifying than my impending death.
Endometriosis has taken so much from me, but most of all it’s taken a normal life. Because no matter how well you plan things, how meticulously you track your cycle, this disease doesn’t give a fuck.
Even after two surgeries to remove it, it came back with a vengeance.
One of my first specialists told me that symptoms can be worsened by stress, and if I were a betting woman, I would think everything I’ve been through in the last week is going to make this period the worst one I’ve had in years.
Perfect.
The ache in my bones makes it difficult, but I manage to push myself up as a wave of nausea hits me so hard I barely make it to the toilet before the minimal contents of my stomach empties.
Maybe I should have eaten some of the food Ronan brought, but now the mere idea of food has another wave of nausea hitting me.
The next time someone comes in, I might just beg them to get it over with and kill me. It would be a kinder fate than this.
CHAPTER SIXTY
RONAN
NOW
Istumble into the hallway, tugging my pants up as I hit the wall across from my bedroom.
There’s something wrong.
The camera in the cell is shitty quality, but not even a bad feed can hide the fact Chloe’s bent over the toilet losing what little she has in her stomach.
