CHAPTER THREE
Pet
Fear pierces my gutlike a knife. I take a deep breath. It’s as if I’m breathing through lungs full of tar. My joints scream, my ribs beg for mercy with every inhalation, and I can’t get enough air. Around me, there is only darkness.
Where am I?
Wh-whoam I?
I keep my breaths shallow in hope I won’t be hit with that blinding pain again, but I don’t know how to make it stop. I gasp and claw at the floor beneath me. My bones ache from my concrete bed. I push up onto forearms that are sore and likely painted with bruises. The lights come on.
I close my eyes tightly against the intrusion, the throbbing in my skull. When I open them again, I wish I hadn’t. The floor beneath me is wet and grey, tinged with my blood. My arms are thin, too thin.How long have I been here? Purple fingerprints stand out against pale alabaster flesh—flesh that’s opened like ripe fruit. I poke at the gaping, red maw, and hiss in pain. Nausea pangs in my stomach, and hunger too. The cold in my bones runs deep, right to the marrow, but there is fire in my veins, an urgency that can’t be smothered by pain.
I lift my head and peer through a curtain of dark, limp hair. Clear glass walls box me in on all sides. Beyond them, there are more cells, more beds, but they are all empty.What is this place?Where am I?
I come up on my knees, and glance around. Behind me there’s a steel door. I get to my feet and stagger towards it. There’s no handle so I push on the smooth, cold surface. It doesn’t budge. I race to the glass wall beside it and pound my fists until they sting. It’s not glass at all, but a thick Perspex.A hamster cage.
I’m cold, bereft, and terrified. My eyes dart around the room. There is a bed in my cell, but no mattress, no pillow, no blankets. I limp towards it, and grab the leg, pulling with all my might. It’s bolted to the floor. I try anyway. I yank until my arms protest in pain, until the agony in my ribcage is so great, I’m gasping. I slump to the floor, and I kick. The cold metal edge of the bedframe bites into my feet. Feet that are misshapen, and red raw in spots.
I’m naked and bruised, too thin, and I do not know this body. I stand and stare at my reflection in the glass walls, touching my slender fingers to the girl mirrored back. Her eyes are hollow, her skin pale, her breasts and hips too small to be considered womanly, and her long, dark hair falls in greasy strands around her face.
A man stands behind her, his features distorted by the reflection.
I scream and spin around, my gaze frantically surveying the stranger. A lazy smile flits across his face as he studies me from beyond the glass. His hair is pitch black, his clothes are too, and a tattoo plays peekaboo with the collar of his motorcycle jacket. Dark eyes bore into mine, unyielding, unrepentant.
“Please,” I beg, hammering on the wall. “Help me. Please let me go.”
He studies me for a beat, and when I think he’s not going to answer he opens his mouth and a low gravelly voice fills the space between us. “I can’t.”
“Yes, yes you can. I don’t know where I am.” I shake my head, trying to recall even the smallest detail of myself, my life, but it’s like looking at a blank canvas. “I don’t knowwhoI am. I won’t tell a soul.”
He cocks his head to the side, his brow furrowed and his eyes tight with skepticism. “You don’t know who you are?”
I shake my head. “I don’t. I-I don’t know what I’m doing here. Please,” I beg as he steps closer to the glass. “I don’t know anything.”
He makes a humph sound, as if he doesn’t quite believe me. “That’s good. It will be much easier to break you if you don’t remember where you came from.”
“W-what are you talking about? What do you mean?” I bang on the glass, louder now, as he begins walking away. “Please, let me out. I’ll do whatever you want.”
He stops in his tracks, turns slowly, and with a smile more wolf than human, says, “Whatever I want?”
All the blood in my veins turns to ice. My hair stands on end, and I shiver in my cold, little cage. Swallowing hard, I nod. “Just let me out. Please let me out.”
He rushes the glass and pushes his body up against it. I jolt, taking several steps back until I fall against the wall behind me. “I’m going to hold you to that, little one. And I can’t wait to let you out to play.”
A sob breaks free of me. It hurts my lungs, my ribs, my dry scratchy throat. “Please?”
“Get some sleep, Pet. You’re going to need it.”