16
Iwake in a bath of golden sunlight, it streams in through the window, the curtains pulled back and a window open to let in a gentle breeze that caresses my overheated skin. My body hurts, bruises, and cuts and old wounds, pulsing with new and old pain that I fear will never go away.
A glance at the clock tells me it’s a little past one in the afternoon but I have no idea what day it is. I don’t know how long Marcus kept me locked in those cells beneath the house, how many days, weeks or even months passed before I was finally freed.
It’s tough to remember everything, it’s like since I’ve been back with Lex my mind has shut down on itself, as if, now it knows I am away from the imminent threat it can take a seat and turn off, no longer having to think too much in order to survive. I didn’t blame it, part of me wanted to curl right back under this blanket and shut off.
Sitting up in bed, I stare around the room, the room I’ve shared with Lex on so many occasions but cannot remember the last before the blast. So much has happened, so much still happening and I can’t work out my left from my right.
I run a hand down my face, frowning at the needle sticking out the back of my hand, strapped down with white medical tape.
My eyes narrow, I don’t think so.
Ripping the tape off, I gently slide the needle out of my skin, watching as blood wells from the new hole in my hand. I press a hand to it to stop it from dripping everywhere and climb from the bed, heading across the room to the bathroom. Scents of Lex fill my nose, spicy and intoxicating, a familiar aroma that helps memories of his hands on my body fill the blank spaces inside my head.
There was one emotion pumping through my system, one feeling that kept my heart a steady thump inside my chest and that was having my revenge.
Lex might think he’ll get to strike the final blow, but Marcus –my father– will die by my hand. He doesn’t get to do this to me,I will kill him.
He has severely underestimated his own daughter and instead awoken something inside of me I feel has always been a part of my soul. A darkness that matches Alexander’s. I always wondered why I felt attached to him somehow, always worried about why his breed of brutality spoke to me in ways I was never able to understand but now I know. And it’s because I was born to be like him. To stand at his side. To rule and reign.
I stand before the mirror, in nothing but a tank top and a pair of white panties, all my wounds on show to me. The bruising on my throat, the shadows cast across my face from the number of hits and beatings I took at the hands of both Marcus and his men. At the gauze covering the slice in my side and another covering my thigh.
I stare at that one.
I can see dots of blood seeping through, staining the snow white bandage red but I can’t remember what’s under there. My head cocks to the side as I try to piece together the events that left me with this particular wound. What happened here?
I should probably leave it, but I have to shower anyway –I really need to shower– so unwrapping these bandages is a must.
I peel the tank top from my torso and do the one on my side first, keeping my eyes trained on the task rather than the scar that mars my abdomen from where I was shot. The wound in my side is still too raw to be left open but I can get away with it for an hour or so. I move to my thigh next, grabbing one end of the gauze, I start to unwrap it, taking each inch as slowly as possibly. My heart starts to pound furiously inside my chest, a sweat breaking out on my brow and between my breasts.
I know this is going to be bad. I already feel it, a sense of dread settling into the pit of my stomach as I continue to unroll the white material. Around and around it goes, only a few layers left before I can see what damage is lying underneath.
Finally, it falls away from my skin and drops to the floor, a puddle of white material mottled with red splotches.
Tears prick my eyes as I get a look at what that bastard did to me.
My own father.
I stare for the longest time, the tears welling in my eyes never spilling over, tracing the deep cut in my thigh, shaped in a V. He fucking branded me. Like livestock. Like cattle.
I am forever marked down as a Valentine. But I am not a Valentine.
I am a Silver.
Bile rises in my throat, a burn as my stomach churns, threatening to heave up anything that’s in there though I doubt there will be much.
This can’t stay. This needs to go.
Taking a deep breath, I meet my eyes in the mirror and realize what I must do.
Steeling myself, I nod and turn the shower on, letting the water heat to a near point of scolding before I step beneath the spray. It feels good, the water cascading over my overly sensitive skin, my muscles beginning to relax as the water soothes away the tension.
Other than the sound of the water, the bathroom is silent and even beyond that, I can’t hear anything. It’s in this moment the sounds of screams haunt my waking hours, shrieks of pure terror, of pain and suffering, it’s the sounds of male grunts accompanied by the cries of the women they’re torturing and the noise of blades and gunshots that fill the silence.
My knees are weak, too weak to keep me upright beneath the spray as these memories, memories that bounce around inside my head, one moment they are there, a pure vivid video replaying itself, the next they’re gone, replaced by something else. Faces. Voices. Smells.
Rory.