Page 3 of The Little Shop of Curiosities Cursed Object 1, The Music Box

Although I’m practically feral, they manage to wrestle me into the bathtub and shove me down into the water. It’s so cold it robs the air from my lungs and I can’t even scream. The icy temperature feels like thousands of needles stabbing all over my body.

One of the orderlies grips my hair painfully and forces my head under the water. Sound is muffled in my ears and I thrash wildly, but brutal hands pin me down. My lungs burn from lack of air and my heart pounds from the sudden shock of the ice water searing my skin.

My vision begins to waver with the desperate need for air. Just when everything starts to turn hazy, my head is yanked above the waterline. I barely have enough time to suck in a breath before I’m plunged back down. The pattern repeats several times until my body is so numb and heavy from the cold that I can’t fight anymore. For a moment I wonder if this is it, if this is the time they finally kill me, but there’s no peaceful acceptance.

All I feel is rage.

Suddenly my head is yanked above the water, and I’m shoved back against the lip of the tub, my body wracked with painful shudders. My hazy eyes lock on the bloodstained form of Dr Whyte.

“Y-you’re going to d-die in a-agony,” I whisper to him, my teeth chattering loudly while my body shakes. “I swear it.”

Whyte looks over at Sister Agatha and nods. She leans forward with something in her hand. My head is roughly shoved to the side and there’s a sharp scratch to my neck as a needle pieces my skin. But I don’t even flinch, keeping my hate-filled gaze on Whyte until my vision goes black.

I don’t know how much time passes. I slip in and out of wakefulness. I can’t move but can feel the heavy leather belts chafing against my body where I’m strapped to the bed. My vision is blurred, but I recognise the room that has been my prison for years; it’s as familiar to me as the pain.

My stomach seizes, cramping the way it does when they withhold the measly portions of food they allow us. My mouth is dry too, my throat spasming when I try to swallow. I have no idea what they’ve done to me while I slept nor how long I’ve been under.

When the fog surrounding my mind finally begins to clear and I begin to feel every inch of my body screaming in agony like an abscessed tooth, I realise two things.

One. I’m not alone.

My head lolls to the side and my eyes slowly begin to focus. I see that Dr Whyte sits stiffly on a chair beside my bed.

Two. At least a day or so must have passed.

I glance down at his mangled lip. His once attractive face is now permanently twisted into an ugly grimace. They’ve obviously tried to stitch his lower lip, but with such a large chunk of it missing, it was impossible to reassemble it. Instead, they’ve stitched the two sides together, leaving his mouth a misshapen mess that probably makes it difficult for him to eat. The wound itself is partially healed, scabbed over and marred with ugly black stitches.

It makes me smile. Something I’m sure he can no longer do.

“So finally,” I rasp, my voice barely above a whisper, “they will see you for the monster you truly are.”

His dark eyes glitter with malice and he stands abruptly, the legs of the chair scraping against the floor in a squeal of protest. He leans over me and strokes my head, a mockery of tenderness he is incapable of feeling.

The sensation of his touch feels not only unwelcome but strange. Due to the sluggishness of my drug-addled brain, it takes me a moment to realise why.

My hair is gone. I can feel his palm against my bare scalp, and it makes me cringe. Not for vanity. I’ve been naked, tortured, dehumanised, raped, abused, drugged…the list goes on. I no longer give any mind to how I present myself, which is usually dirty, with tangled, matted hair and stinking to high heaven. Not that I believe there is such a place.

Not anymore.

“Cordelia, still so defiant,” he mumbles. His mouth can no longer quite form the words he’d use to charm and cajole the upper echelons of society. “You’ve always been my favourite.”

His fingers trail across my chin and down my throat. I shift and feel the restraints at my wrists.

“So much fire,” he slurs, and I struggle to understand him. “I always thought I’d break you in the end, but here you are…” His fingers skim over my breasts and then toy with the wide leather belt pinning me to the bed. “Here is where we part ways, but I want you to know your sacrifice will not be in vain. I will be able to learn so much from you, be able to learn how your mind works. That indomitable will, that spark of fire that refuses to be extinguished.”

“What do you mean, my sacrifice?” I reply.

The unsettling look in his eyes tells me he’s smiling even if his mouth isn’t cooperating.

“I’m going to cut open your skull,” he mutters, his fingers tracing patterns across my scalp. “And then…I’m going to dissect your brain.”

“You can’t do that,” I hiss.

“Who is going to stop me?” he answers callously. “The official records will show that you died after a short illness and that I performed a post-mortem. It’s all very aboveboard. I’m sure the Royal College of Surgeons will commend me even further on the addition to my research into the diseases of the human mind.”

“You think you’ve won,” I rasp in a harsh whisper, “but your pain is only just beginning. I am going to make you suffer more than you’ve ever believed possible, and then when you’re screaming in agony, I’m going to make sure you relive it over and over again.”

“Delusions, Cordelia,” he tuts. “I hold all the power here, and you have nothing but empty threats and delusions. But not for much longer.”