Ferocious

by Paula Stokes

  “Stop it,” I say. “This isn’t going to work.”

  Baz grips a handful of my hair and pulls my head back so that I’m looking up at the ceiling. “Isn’t it?” He yanks harder on my hair, until individual strands start to snap loose from my scalp. “This is how you like to be treated, right? You like when men rough you up.”

  “Shut up,” I rasp. My eyes are watering from the pain.

  “Dude. This is seriously not okay.” Jesse’s words are soft and unclear, like they’re coming from a radio in another room.

  Baz presses the barrel of a handgun against my temple. “I could kill you right now and no one would care. No one would even notice. You are less than worthless.”

  I don’t respond. His words have brought back a flood of memories from another time. Another life. A life I thought was over. My breath sticks in my throat as I swallow back a sob.

  “Aww, are you going to cry, you little bitch? Guess what? Some guys like it when you cry. But you know that, don’t you? You know just what guys want. Want to hear what I want?”

  “No,” I say hoarsely. “Shut up, Baz. Just shut up.”

  “Sebastian. You are way out of line.” Jesse’s voice is louder now, but it still sounds so far away. Where is he? Why isn’t he helping me? You are less than worthless.

  “Get her headset,” Baz says. “She needs to see this.”

  Darkness swirls beneath my skin. I fight it, but it’s too strong. Baz spins me around so we’re facing each other. He slaps me and I taste blood. He grasps my throat with one hand.

  “Stop,” I whisper feebly.

  “We’ve come too far to stop,” he says grimly, tightening his grip on my neck. I try to beg him again to let me go, but I can’t choke out the words. Suddenly the room goes black.

  CHAPTER 33

  LILY

  I snarl, struggle, lash out. This one doesn’t stink of evil like the other men. But his words. They cut Winter. And so they cut all of us.

  We are tired of being cut. It’s our turn to draw blood.

  I am teeth and claws. My hands rake against his face. My fist feels the softness of his mouth.

  “Who are you?” he asks, pinning my arms.

  “I am Lily,” I say.

  A second voice. Gentle, a lighthouse, a swarm of fireflies in the endless dark. “Why are you part of Winter?” Someone slips something over my head, tightens it gently.

  “She needs me. I am the one who doesn’t feel pain. I do the things no one else is strong enough to do.”

  “Like what?” The first man again.

  As I struggle to escape his hold, more words fall from my lips. Red and black words. Death words. I tell them some of the things I’ve done. I tell them what I’ll do if they get in my way.

  I try again to break free. A clock ticks in my brain. Fast. Slow. I’m not sure. Time passes, or does it? Someone else inside me is fighting for control.

  Both men are on me now.

  Holding.

  Confining.

  They are snakes wrapped around my heart, squeezing. Squeezing until I can’t breathe. Squeezing until I can’t see.

  All I can do is feel.

  And be.

  And destroy.

  CHAPTER 34

  I wake up on my stomach with my hands tied behind my back. Not tied. Zip-tied. The hard plastic cuts into my skin. There’s a heavy weight on my legs that prevents me from moving. I struggle to turn my head. Jesse is sitting on the floor next to me, a look somewhere between concern and awe on his face.

  “Winter?” he asks.

  “What happened?” I croak.

  “Lily happened,” he says.

  The weight slides off my legs. It turns out to be Baz. He rolls me over and leans my body against the side of the sofa. There’s blood on his mouth and what looks like claw marks under his right eye.

  “Are you calm?” he asks me.

  “Yes,” I say. And then, “Did I do that to you?”

  “Well, it sure as hell wasn’t Ramirez.”

  “What exactly happened?”

  “I grabbed you. I threatened you. I said horrible things,” Baz starts. “Then you turned into a tiger and said you were going to kill everyone who got in your way, even Winter.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring.” I twist my wrists back and forth. “Any chance you’ll cut me loose?”

  Baz pulls a knife from his pocket and cuts through the plastic tie.

  I sit up and massage my wrists. “How long was I … out?”

  “You were Lily for about five minutes. Then I forced you to take a sedative and you went another twenty without speaking and another fifteen where you appeared to be sleeping,” Baz says. “What do you remember?”

  I press my fingertips to my temples. “I remember you pushing me up against the wall, saying something about how some guys like making girls cry. And then, nothing. It’s like I lost consciousness and woke up on the floor.”

  Baz hands me my headset. “Check it out.”

  Jesse is still staring at me like I’m a sideshow freak. Something tells me seeing Lily wasn’t quite the same for him as seeing Rose. My breath sticks in my throat and my chest starts to feel tight. I slide the headset over my ears.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t … I mean, you’ve had a rough enough day already.” Jesse looks nervously at Baz.

  “I need to see,” I say.

  Baz shrugs. “You can’t protect people from themselves.”

  I rewind the footage and then lie back on the apartment floor. It’s not ideal for vising. The hard wood digs into my hips and shoulders, making it difficult to empty my head of sensations. Still. I need to know.

  “She needs me. I am the one who doesn’t feel pain. I do the things no one else is strong enough to do,” I say. Heat courses through my blood. My muscles coil in anticipation.

  “Like what?” Baz asks. Three diagonal claw marks are beginning to swell on his face.

  He’s got my arms pinned. I twist and turn violently in an attempt to break his hold. Beyond him, Jesse stands. He’s not saying anything, but his mouth hangs slightly open.

  “Like kill you, kill both of you if I need to, if you stand in our way,” I rasp.

  “What do you mean, our way?” Baz asks.

  “The hated man. He dies. Only after he’s dead can Winter live.”

  “Kyung? What if you can’t kill him?” Baz asks.

  “I can; I know I can. And I will, even if it means killing Winter.” I struggle in his arms again and Jesse steps forward to help hold me. His grip is hesitant and I easily shake him off. I spin around, kicking out with one foot, teeth snapping, saliva flying from my mouth.

  My body is forced against the wall again. “Hold her like you mean it,” Baz barks. “Help me get her on the ground.”

  Jesse and Baz force me to the hardwood floor. I am facedown, with all of their weight on me. It’s too much weight. I struggle to take a breath. My arms are yanked roughly behind me. The zip tie engages with a harsh series of clicks.

  Then I can breathe again, but I can’t move. I wriggle back and forth. “Let me go,” I bark. Tears form in my eyes.

  “No chance,” Baz says. “Ramirez, get her sedatives from her room, will you?”

  A couple minutes later a pill is forced in my mouth and a cup of water is pressed to my lips. I spit the pill out twice before Sebastian forces it down my throat. He clamps one hand over my nose and chin to hold my mouth closed until I swallow.

  I fight it until I start to choke on the water. Then I give in and swallow the pill.

  Then for a while, I just lie there, my chest aching, tears dripping silently down my cheeks. Then everything starts to go numb.

  I rip the ViSE headset from my head and toss it onto the coffee table. A slight shock moves through me. “I need to get out of here,” I say. “I’m going to go run some stairs.” Without waiting for a response, I hop to my feet and head to the front door, stopping just inside to pull on my running shoes.

  “Do yo
u want company?” Jesse asks.

  “You mean besides the crazy people who live in my head?” I ask. “No. We’ll be fine.” I yank the door open without even taking the time to finish tying my shoes and let it slam in Jesse’s face. I hit the stairwell already running and take the steps two at a time on my way to the top floor. I touch the handle of the door that leads out onto the roof and turn, heading down to the ground floor at full speed. I hit the bottom and turn back without even stopping to rest. In no time, I’m at the landing of the top floor again. After the third lap, the pain in my chest starts to dissipate. My extremities tremble from the exertion.

  I blink and find myself out on the roof.

  I blink again and find myself at the edge.

  I look down on the street below. So many people.

  Whole people.

  I blink again. The wind makes deadly promises to me. I could fly. I could fall. Why look whole if it’s all a lie? Why not break my outside to match my inside?

  Pain is not the answer.

  I reach up to touch the pendants around my neck. A rose and a snowflake, side by side. “Then why do I have so much of it?”

  Because you don’t share it.

  “Share it? Everyone I have shared it with is dead. You think I should put this on more people?” I climb up on the ledge of the building. I hold my arms out, dare the wind to take me. “I have a better idea. Maybe you should let me go.” It would be easy. Too easy.

  Don’t let your sister’s death be for nothing.

  I sigh. That argument always works. Rose—the real one—would be so angry if she saw me now. For that matter, so would Gideon. As much as I miss them, as much as I want to see them again, I don’t want it to be like this. I don’t want to dishonor their memories.

  I drop my hands to my sides. “Are you really talking to me? Or am I just imagining this?”

  Does it matter?

  “Kind of. I’m trying to figure out how screwed up I am.”

  Exactly as screwed up as you’re supposed to be.

  “Funny. Look, I need your help,” I say. “Lily—can we fight her?”

  We are her.

  Lily, I think. I need you to talk to me. I need you to trust me.

  No answer.

  “Please,” I whisper.

  “Winter?”

  Slowly, so as not to lose my balance, I spin around. Jesse is standing a few feet away from me. He rubs his scar. The wind blows his hair forward. “Are you all right?”

  “Your hair is getting long,” I say.

  He steps closer to me. “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” He reaches out one hand. “Come here. Come down from the ledge.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re scaring me.”

  I shake my head bitterly. “I remember when I was afraid of you. Before we met, I used to see you at Krav Maga and you scared me. You always looked so … intense.” A tear leaks out of my left eye. “And then we were friends, sort of. But then in Miami I found out you were lying to me and you scared me again. I was afraid of you, and at that time it felt like one of the most terrible things ever.”

  “Winter—”

  “But now you’re standing here saying you’re afraid of me, and I can’t decide if that’s even worse.”

  “I’m not scared of you. I’m scared for you,” Jesse says. “Please come down. You could fall, and I don’t want to lose another person I love.”

  “How can you love me, Jesse? How can you even stand to be near me?” I hop down from the ledge but turn away from him, back to the street below, back to the wind that wants to claim me.

  Jesse’s hands encircle my waist. He pulls me back from the edge. “How can you even ask that question?”

  “I know you think you love me, but why? I’m so broken. I have to be the most broken person you know.” I still can’t bring myself to look at him.

  “You think you’re broken,” Jesse says. “What I see is someone unbreakable.” He bends down and rests his chin on my shoulder. “The shit you’ve been though could’ve wrecked you so many times, but somehow you’re still functioning.”

  I lean back into him, grateful for his warmth. “You’re really not scared of me? Of Lily?”

  “No.”

  “I’m scared of me,” I whisper.

  “I know,” he says. “But that won’t always be the case. I promise.”

  I want him to be right. For a second I don’t say anything. We just stand there, two people wrapped together as one, looking out into the lights of the city.

  “How can you promise something like that?” I ask finally.

  “I don’t know. Faith, I guess.”

  “In God?”

  “In you,” Jesse says. “Though if God wants to help, I won’t turn him away.”

  I don’t believe in God. I didn’t go to church as a child and even if I had found religion growing up, the things that happened to me in L.A. would have driven it out of me. It’s hard to imagine a benevolent higher power who would allow innocent girls to suffer the way we did.

  “What time is it?” I ask abruptly.

  “Around ten p.m.,” Jesse says. “Why?”

  “I’m going to try to reach Dr. Abrams before she starts seeing patients.”

  “Good idea.” He bends low and gives me a kiss on the forehead. “But let’s go back inside where it’s warm.”

  I follow Jesse back inside and we take the elevator down to our apartment.

  “I’m sorry I clawed your face,” I tell Baz. I study the angles of his nose and jaw and the shape of his lips while I pretend to examine the damage I did. There’s no way for me to be certain he and Erich Cross are the same person.

  Unless you ask him.

  It’s too risky. Right now Jesse and I are depending on him.

  “No worries,” Baz says. “You’re not the first girl to draw blood—I assure you.”

  Jesse and Baz start talking about how to assemble one of the guns, and I shut myself in my room and call Dr. Abrams. It’s only a little after seven o’clock in St. Louis, but maybe she’ll do an early morning session.

  She picks up right away. “Winter, are you all right?”

  “Yes. Did I catch you while you were driving? I know I said I was going to wait and make an appointment with you when I return to St. Louis, but I just have one question.”

  “I’m getting ready to leave for my office, but I have the time. Go ahead.”

  “You said there’s no medication for my condition, no drug that will prevent my alters from taking over at times, but what about nonmedicinal tricks for suppressing them? Meditation, hypnosis. Something like that?”

  Dr. Abrams exhales slowly. “Not really. They’re essentially highly complicated defense mechanisms. If they take over, it’s because some part of you thinks you need them.”

  “But sometimes I feel like there are varying degrees of control. Like I know that Rose has taken over my life for hours at a time, but other times I swear I just hear her voice in my head. Like she wants to impact me, but in a less aggressive way.” I pause. “And then sometimes I’ll zone out, just for a few seconds, and come back and wonder if maybe that was an alter too, like maybe they just needed a tiny moment of control for some reason, so small that before I knew about my DID, I probably didn’t even notice it. Is that possible?”

  “Sure,” Dr. Abrams says. “I have to be honest with you, Winter. I’ve seen episodes of dissociation in some of my other patients, but you’re the first full-blown DID patient I’ve ever treated. When Mr. Seung told me he suspected it, I did a lot of research into clinical case studies. Everything you’re saying here has been reported—feeling like you’re not yourself, hearing voices, blocks of lost time, losing the moment for just a few seconds and then coming back to feel like some small thing has changed.”

  “So maybe if I try to stay calm and focused, they’ll be content to stay in the background, whispering suggestions instead of taking control themselves?”

  “Perhaps,” she says. �
��But keep in mind that healing is not about suppressing or weakening your alters, but about accepting them and trying to get to know them in a safe environment.”

  “But what if one of them tries to hurt me?” I ask.

  “If you’re worried you might hurt yourself while you’re dissociating, then you really need to be in an inpatient facility,” Dr. Abrams says gently. “Are you afraid of that?”

  “So it’s possible? That could really happen?”

  “DID patients have committed suicide in the past, yes. We have no way of knowing if they were dissociating at the time.”

  “All right. Thank you for the information.” I don’t want to go to an inpatient facility. That sounds like a fancy term for prison. I remember the hospital again—being pinned down, people yelling, people injecting me against my will. What if I get better and they don’t let me leave? What if they isolate me from the people I care about and I actually get worse instead of better? Or maybe they’ll medicate me so heavily that I lose myself completely. There has to be a way for me to help myself without giving up all my control to a bunch of strangers.

  “Winter. My job involves more than just giving you information. If you tell me where you are, I can call someone to come get you and take you someplace safe.”

  “I can’t,” I say. “Not yet. But I promise you that once I’ve finished dealing with a few things, I’ll find a safe place to go. Right now I trust my friends to look out for me.”

  “So these friends—they don’t leave you all by yourself?” she asks.

  “They don’t,” I say.

  One more way that Jesse is helping me. He thinks he’s not doing enough, but he probably just saved my life up on the roof. I’m so tired. I need to figure out a way to do what I came here for, and soon.

  I can feel the darkness inside me growing.

  CHAPTER 35

  Yoo Mi and I are leaving work the next day when I notice one of the security guards from Baz’s list heading for the smoking area.

  “I need to get a present for my sister. Do you want to stop by Kyobo Books with me?” Yoo Mi tosses her pigtails back over her shoulders. Today she’s wearing dark-purple tights and lavender ribbons in her hair. She looks more fairy than human.