Even though I knew from the sigil Vane showed me on my door that he couldn’t find me, it was hard to shake the awful feeling of abandonment. One man, even one who dealt with demons, shouldn’t have the power he did.
Vane hadn’t shown his face, but I was never truly alone. I had crippling depression and hallucinations that were nonstop to keep me company. My whole body ached, and I barely moved from my bed. The food they brought once a day was untouched so far, and I wasn’t even hungry. I felt empty. Hollow. Like they’d taken pieces of me I couldn’t get back.
My eyes drifted to the corner and locked onto my current stalker. The shadowy figure took up the entire space from floor to ceiling. I couldn’t make out much except clawed hands that poked out from under his robes, even his face wasn’t visible. Yet I could feel him watching me, waiting for something.
But he’d get nothing from me. I felt like a shell of a person. As if I were watching myself from the outside, not able to control my body at all. The rare moments I tried to shift or move, my limbs felt heavy like they were filled with lead.
He couldn’t keep me here forever, right?
* * *
Hiro and Drakestood across the room, screaming down at me. Hiro’s soft features were gone, and his beautiful face was contorted in rage as he threw every barb he had at me.
“You’re useless, you can’t even move right now. You know we never actually liked you, right?” The cruel laugh that fell from his lips was wrong. Hiro wouldn’t laugh at me like that, would he?
“I only fucked you because it was an easy fuck,” Drake added in. “What a lousy lay too. I’m used to much prettier and curvier women. I had to picture someone else just so I could get it up.”
My heart broke then, each line they threw at me only shattered it further until I knew I’d never be the same.
“You were my only friends,” I said in a barely audible voice. The lack of food was really starting to hit me now. My head barely lifted before I had to rest against my mattress again.
“We were never your friends,” Drake corrected. “We used you. That’s all you’re good for anyway. To be used and cast aside like the trash you are.”
Tears coursed down my cheeks, and I didn’t bother to wipe them away. They were right. I’d always been thrown aside like trash. Why would Dark Haven be any different? Put here by Vane, tossed aside by them.
All I could do was curl into a ball as they continued to throw insults at me for what felt like hours. Occasionally Layne, Crew, and Roman would pop in to pour salt in the wound, but it was Hiro and Drake that kept momentum going.
The nurse popped in occasionally, acting like she couldn’t see any of the creatures or people here with me. She sounded distorted like she was speaking to me through a bubble, and I never responded since I wasn’t exactly sure what she’d even said to me.
This time she took the tray and left, not bothering to care that Drake had now perched on my bed, ready to strike.
The moment the door closed, he leaned in so his lips brushed my ear. I curled in further on myself, revolted by his touch, not turned on like I was before.
“You’re useless, Harlow. That’s all you’ll ever be. A burden to those in your life and a failure to society. If you died here, you’d be forgotten, never having amounted to anything in life. Your grandmother would be proven right. You’re an abomination.”
Every single fear or self-deprecating thought I’d had was tossed out into the open. My mind had always been a toxic place but it was contained. Having them said out loud like this was the worst possible torture that anyone could attempt on me. Even worse, the words coming from the two people I genuinely thought cared about me in some capacity.
“We never wanted you, Harlow,” Roman said as he crouched down in front of the bed to look into my eyes. His face blurred behind my tears and a sob broke out as his features twisted in disgust, like even the sight of me was pathetic.
I was pathetic.
I was a reject, a girl with no friends or family, no purpose in life, and not a single thing to be remembered for. I’d fade away like a leaf in the wind, never to be seen again. No one would care enough to miss me.
My body felt heavier, and I let my eyes slip closed. Unable to face them any longer as depression constrained me, crushing me under its pressure.
Vane chose that moment to walk in. He looked downright gleeful as he closed the door behind him and dragged me ruthlessly into a sitting position. When he tried to let go, I fell back on my mattress with no will to support myself. He growled and left me there but there was also a look of satisfaction in his face. He told me he’d break me, and he did. Though he could hardly take credit for the horrors my own mind inflicted on me.
“I thought I’d come and let you know that your protector won’t be an issue. My contacts overheard Ivar talking to Hel, and it seems I’m in the clear. She knows I have you and doesn’t care,” he said. The triumphant, condescending tone was like nails on a chalkboard. “Oh, I’m sorry, you know him as Monty, don’t you?”
Monty.
Ivar.
A few pieces fell into place in my foggy brain, but I couldn’t get much further before another wave of bone-deep exhaustion hit me and I gave up.
“That means you won’t be leaving this bed or this room anytime soon. If ever.”
I’d die in this room. And right at the moment, I couldn’t find it in me to care.