“It was our favorite thing to do,” Sadie said fondly. “It’s how we passed the time.”
“But he didn’t like it,” Amnesia said, her voice low and afraid.
Sadie nodded solemnly. “Oh no. He hated it. We weren’t supposed to do anything he didn’t allow. That’s why it was our secret.”
“But he found out.” Amnesia pressed. “Didn’t he? And I cut my hair?”
“You remember that?” Sadie’s eyes widened.
“I think so. So it’s true, then?”
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to have to rely on other people to tell you about your own actions. Your own life.
“Oh yes,” Sadie’s voice dropped. “He was so angry that day. I don’t know why you had to make him angrier. You should have just let him punish you. But you didn’t. You fought back… I thought you learned not to fight back.”
Chills ran down my spine. The way she talked. It was so normal to her, as if she didn’t realize how twisted it was that she learned to allow herself to be “punished” and not fight back.
“I did fight back, though, right? I got a pair of scissors and chopped off chunks of my hair.
“We both got punished for that, you know,” Sadie intoned, her eyes going blank. “He might have broken your arm, but he punished me, too.”
“How?” Amnesia sat forward. “How did he punish you?”
Sadie turned her dark, emotionless eyes on Amnesia. “You know how. You know.”
It took everything inside me to stay rooted on the bed. To not grab Amnesia by the waist and haul her the hell out of the room.
I didn’t want to know any more. I didn’t want to hear. The thought of any of this shit happening to either of them made me want to puke.
“I don’t know.” Amnesia’s voice wobbled. “That’s why I’m asking.”
Sadie tilted her head and studied Am. “You don’t remember anything?” she asked. “That’s what everyone says.”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking to relive it all over again!” Amnesia exclaimed.
“Am,” I said softly.
“I’m sorry,” she said, directing the words at Sadie. “I know how hard this is, and I know you probably don’t want to relive any of it either. It’s just…”
Sadie watched her. “Just…?”
“I need to know.”
Sadie leaned back against the pillows, set aside her coffee, and pulled her knees into her chest. I watched with trepidation as she wrapped her arms around them and stared ahead, as if she were seeing nothing but what was in her mind.
“I was the first.” She began, low. “He scooped me out of the water one night and locked me in a bedroom in their house. I spent the first few days screaming and begging him to let me go. I would hear arguments somewhere in the house. Yelling… a lot of yelling. Sometimes screaming. One day, he came inside and dragged me through the house. At first, I thought I was going home, that he was tired of my screaming and was going to let me go. Instead, he threw me down into the hole in the ground, shut the door, and locked it. I heard people searching the island, people calling my name. I screamed for them. I screamed so long I lost my voice.”
“Sadie,” I whispered.
“He came back when everyone was gone, told me I was his and this was my new home. He, uh… beat me… Raped me and then chained me up, naked.”
“He never let us wear clothes,” Amnesia murmured.
“Only when he let us out,” Sadie answered. “I don’t know how long I was down there. I couldn’t count the days because it was always dark. The only times he brought me up out of the hole, it was dark outside. I fought back at first. Tried to escape. Each time, he beat me. Raped me. Sometimes he did, uh, other things…”
“You don’t have to tell us,” I said, my voice savage.
“She needs to know,” Sadie echoed.
“It’s okay,” Amnesia said, her face pale and withdrawn.
“I don’t know how long I’d been there, a long time, though… Maybe a year? Or more. I, um… stopped bleeding every month. I stared getting sick, throwing up a lot.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I said and jumped off the bed, pacing.
“What was wrong?” Amnesia asked naively. My sweet, innocent Am.
“She was pregnant.” The answer ripped out of me like a roar. “He got her pregnant.”
Amnesia covered her mouth with her hand.
Sadie nodded, that blank look on her face. “It took him a while to notice, but when he figured it out, he was mad. So mad. He said it was all my fault, that I knew better than to get like that.”
I wasn’t sure how much more I could hear. How much more I could take.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Am said, trying to comfort Sadie.
“Maybe it was.”
I groaned.
“I can go get Dr. Kline. Maybe you should talk to her and not us. She can help you. She helps me.” Amnesia pushed up from the chair and leaned over to set aside her drink so she could go get a doctor.
Sadie moved suddenly, lurching forward and grabbing Amnesia’s wrist. She cried out in surprise and tried to jerk back.
“Don’t you want to know?” she intoned. “Don’t you want to know how you got to the island?”
Red dots swarmed before my eyes. I didn’t think, only reacted to the fact that someone put their hands on Am and she was struggling to get away. Lunging forward, I brought my forearm down over Sadie’s and dislodged her hold.
Amnesia stumbled back, and so did I. I fell into the chair, Amnesia on top of me. Breathing heavy, I sat forward, wrapped my arms around her, and held her against me.
“Don’t touch her.” I warned, trying to sound as unthreatening as I could. “Just don’t, Sadie.”
“You love her,” she said, her eyes meeting mine.
It seemed cruel to say I did. It seemed somehow disloyal. I nodded instead, because not voicing it somehow seemed kinder.
Sadie’s eyes flashed back to Amnesia, who was still sitting in my lap.
“He beat me. He beat me until I lost the baby. I bled so much, was so badly injured, he thought I was going to die. I almost did… That’s where you come in,” Sadie told her. The expressionless way she spoke creeped me the fuck out.
“Me?” Amnesia asked, her voice quivering.
My arms slid tighter around her as if I could somehow shield her from what Sadie said next.
“You were my replacement,” she said. “He got you to take my place. Except I never died. Instead, we became sisters.”
“This is all your fault. All your fault, Sadie.”
“Saaaadie. Saadieeee.”
The sounds of him coming were unmistakable. His intent even more so. He always came around this time. And every time, he said the same thing.
Over on the other side of the place he kept us chained was another girl. Someone who barely ever moved. Someone I had yet to even see.
I knew she was there because I could smell the blood. I could hear her whimper in pain. Sometimes an old woman would appear, carrying a bucket of water and some rags. She never came over here. I never saw her that clearly. She would go over to that side of the room, and the crying would start.
They never spoke. All I heard were the sounds of dripping water as though it were being squeezed out of a rag. And the crying. I could never tell who was crying, whether it was the girl who barely moved, the old woman… or both.
Then she would leave. Take her bucket and climb back up the ladder. The slivers of daylight I sometimes saw physically hurt because I knew above us, out there, life went on.
I was naked. The cold rocks beneath me were uncomfortable and dirty. He told me I could earn some blankets, maybe even a cot. He never said how I would earn it, but judging from the fact the girl across the cave had a cot, I always figured I didn’t want to do what she did to earn a thing.
“Sadieee. Saaadiee.”
I shivered every time he sang that name. I knew it was hers, but whenever he said it, I kne
w he was coming for me.
I scrunched up against the cold, hard wall, trying to make myself as small as possible. Hoping and praying he’d forget about me and maybe go to the other side of the room. Something I knew was wrong to hope for, but I did just the same.
He didn’t, though.
The beam of his flashlight found me. I was dragged away from the wall, my legs cut relentlessly by the jagged floor. The sound of rattling chains turned my stomach; the weight of the metal cuff around my ankle was like an anvil.
The last time he came, I fought back. I tried to get his light and bash him in the head. I ended up with a swollen eye, a bloody lip, and a stinging bite. A bite in a place that made me shudder.
This time I just lay there, so taut I knew I would hurt tomorrow. But I would hurt tomorrow regardless. There was nothing about me that didn’t hurt anymore.
“This is all your fault, Sadie,” he yelled across the room as he spread my legs. “If you hadn’t gotten pregnant, I wouldn’t have needed another you.”
I blacked out while he assaulted me. The entire time he grunted and groaned and sweated over me, he called out Sadie’s name.
When he was done, he left my body but kept me pinned down. The splatter of his seed spurted all over me. On my chest and belly. He grunted and moaned. I gagged in the back of my throat.
When he finished, I tried to crawl away, but he grabbed my ankle.
“You know better, girl.” He hit me across the backside, my skin stinging wildly. I lay back as he expected, my eyes watering from the hit. Or maybe from the assault.
His hand was rough when he swirled his finger around in the mess he made of my chest, and I recoiled as he lifted the saturated finger toward my lips…
“Ahh.” I gasped, catapulting out of Eddie’s lap and racing to the door. It was a heavy door, hard to yank open, but I did it, rushing out into the hallway, barely seeing anything, just desperately trying to get away.
Tears streamed down my face. My hair floated out behind me, and my knees threatened to give out.
Someone yelled my name, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. The images wouldn’t leave me alone. The memory… the sick torture…
The sign for the bathroom came into view. I abruptly changed course and bashed my way inside. I didn’t even look to see if anyone else was there. I rushed in and hit my knees in front of the first toilet I saw.
The stall door banged behind me; all the stall walls vibrated with the force of my entrance.
Vomit spewed out of me. My back hurt with the force of it, and my throat burned. I coughed and gagged as I threw up everything inside me, plus some.
I wished I could throw up that vile memory. I wished it would go back to where it came from…
Hell.
“Oh shit, baby,” a familiar voice said from behind. Air whooshed around me as the stall door was yanked open. Eddie crouched behind me. I felt his palm on my back.
“Don’t touch me,” I said, then heaved some more. His hand left me, and I didn’t turn back to see if he left.
I just cried and vomited until there was literally nothing left inside me but memories and pain. Collapsing against the wall beside the toilet, I leaned back and let it support my weight.
Movement out of the corner of my eye made me jump and put a hand to my chest.
“It’s just me,” Eddie said softly, holding his hands out in surrender. He was sitting in the door of the stall, just sitting there.
“Eddie,” I moaned.
“I’m here,” he said.
“I can’t go back in there,” I said, “I c-can’t.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Is everything okay in here—” Mary Beth said, coming into the bathroom. She stopped short when she saw Eddie, then slowly crept closer to peek around at me.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice hushed.
“Sadie, uh… was telling us how she knew Amnesia,” Eddie said, his voice flat.
Mary Beth paled.
“You might want to have Dr. Kline speak with Sadie.” Eddie went on.
“Would you like me to have Dr. Kline come in here?” the nurse offered.
“No.” The word ripped from me. I coughed then leaned against the wall. “I can’t talk about it.”
“Then you won’t,” Eddie said, soothing.
“Tell Dr. Kline if she would like to speak to me, she can call my cell,” Eddie told Mary Beth. “Amnesia will be unavailable until further notice.”
I felt rather than saw Mary Beth hesitate. A moment later, her voice reached out to me. “Remember what I said about a friend.”
I looked up. She offered me a smile.
“Thank you,” I croaked sincerely.
She left the bathroom soundlessly.
“Am,” Eddie said. His voice sounded as broken as I felt. “I just…”
I knew what he wanted. I crawled over the floor toward him (If I were in my right mind, I would cringe, too. A public bathroom floor and toilet. Ew.). His body opened immediately, and I let him fold me into his embrace.
I started to cry. His comfort just trampled what was left of the walls I was using to keep me from totally falling apart.
“I got you,” he murmured, clutching me close. “I got you.”
“I don’t want to know,” I wailed. “I don’t want to know anything else.”
“Shh.” He tried to soothe me.
You couldn’t soothe a person after that kind of vivid memory.
“I’d rather have no answers than any more of that,” I blubbered, grabbing his shirt by the fistfuls. “Please, no more,” I pleaded. “No more memories.”
I was still crying when he picked me up, cradling me against his body, and kicked open the bathroom door. He carried me out of the hospital and slid into the driver’s seat of his truck, all the while keeping me in his lap. I was so closely plastered to the front of him, not even a pound of grease and a giant spatula could have gotten me loose.
He drove to the lake house, parked as close to the back porch as he could get, and carried me inside.
His muscles were vibrating against me as he kicked open every door in his way. In the bathroom, he sat me on the sink, moving between my legs.
I looked up at him, and he cupped my jaws in his hands. “He used to tell her it was her fault when he raped me.” My voice cracked. “That’s why I thought my name was Sadie.”
A tear, glistening and actually quite perfect, slipped out of his eye and trailed down his cheek. I’d never seen him cry. He was so laidback, so strong, I never thought I’d see the day. In fact, it never even occurred to me there was anything on this planet that could illicit such a reaction.
“If I could take your pain, your memories… Hell, if I could’ve taken your place in that hellhole, I would do it. I would do it in a fraction of a heartbeat.”
I grabbed his wrists, squeezing them tight even though I was so weak my grip was laughable. “I would never let you.”
With a groan, he gathered me close. “I’m not letting go of you the rest of the day, Am. Not even once.”
“Promise?” I whispered.
He vowed, “Cross my heart.”
Her body trembled like the last leaf clinging to a bare tree on the cusp of winter.
Hours upon hours.
So long I actually internally debated if I should disregard her wishes and call a doctor.
Whatever memory crashed into her mind was worse than anything she remembered before. She wasn’t ready to speak of it. Hell, I wasn’t sure she ever would be. The small piece she told me, I knew, was only a tiny sliver of the whole.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the details. Just seeing her this way, knowing the little I did, cut me deeper than I thought anything could.
Am had to live with it, though. The memory would always be there in the back of her mind, haunting, waiting to remind her. It made me feel like a wimp because if she had to live with it forever, then I should as well.
>
“Amnesia?” I murmured.
“Eddie,” she replied instantly. I didn’t think there would be much sleep for either of us tonight. Her voice was hoarse from all her crying.
“When you’re ready, I’d like to know what you remembered.”
“You don’t.” She protested.
“I do.” I kept my voice passive and caressed her skin with the back of my knuckles. “We’re in this together.”
“If I was stronger, I’d let you go,” she murmured as she dragged her finger over the fabric of my shirt. We were in bed, but after everything, I’d kept on my clothes. It seemed like the right thing to do. The honorable thing.
“What?” I said, my chest seizing. Lifting my head, I gaze down at her, shocked by that response.
“I would,” she said again.
Slipping my hands under her arms, I lifted her torso so she was slightly above me. Her hair fell around her face and jaw, shading her slightly, but I was still able to stare into her eyes.
“Why would you say something like that?”
Her lower lip wobbled, and for several moments, I stopped breathing.
“I’m such a mess,” she confessed. “And now you are, too. You’re too good for a mess, Eddie. You deserve so much more.”
“Look at me,” I demanded. Her eyes lifted. “Don’t say that ever again. If you’re a mess, then I’m a pig who revels in mud. You belong here with me. In my arms. No matter what. Even if you let go, I’ll still hold on. You hear me?”
“But—”
“No buts.” I cut in.
“You don’t understand.” She reached out, trying to cuddle close.
I relented, letting her press near. Her hand clutched my shirt.
“Being with me puts you in danger. But I’m not strong, Eddie. I’m weak. I need you.”
“I’m here,” I murmured. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” Her voice cracked, and I was terrified she’d start crying again. “He’s going to come for us,” she added, a strange tone in her words.
I stilled. “What?”
“Him.” Amnesia warned. “Sadie was right. He’s going to be so angry with me. For leaving. For my hair. For loving you.”
“Don’t you worry about him,” I said, heat in my voice. “I won’t let him hurt you.”
Amnesty: Amnesia Duet Book 2 Page 15
