by Monty Jay
Bloodcurdling.
They make my teeth ache.
I toss and turn in my sleepless state, covering my ears with the flimsy sheet while waiting for the night shift nurse to come on shift and knock her out with medication.
That’s the worst side effect of the meds.
The insomnia.
The nightmares.
Lying awake hearing the cries, the screams, and knowing I don’t belong here.
We make it into the dining hall, where the smell of cinnamon is pouring from the kitchen.
Circular tables, the grayscale decorations, and an older gentleman whose wheelchair is parked next to the only window.
His name is Eddison, and he has schizophrenia.
It had gone untreated until he was well into his thirties, and now they keep him so doped up, his brain can’t even form complete sentences. There are rare times when he doesn’t seem any different from me, but most of the time, he sits silent, trapped inside of his head.
Sometimes, I like to think it’s better in there, that he’s happy and not locked inside of a facility, but I know that’s not the truth.
I’ve spoken to him once, and in that one conversation, I swore that I’d never say schizo ever again even if it was a joke.
“Pip.”
Trauma stabs its claws into my heart.
With my routine panic attacks, it’s a gradual plunge into different bodies of water. Sometimes it’s a lake; other times it’s the ocean. More often lately, it’s inky black sludge that absorbs me, eating me up limb by limb until I disappear beneath.
This is anything but gradual.
I can feel his sticky hands on me, just before he shoves me completely under the surface. The abrupt water my lungs inhale catches me by surprise, so much so that my eyes start to water.
Sitting next to each other, across the room from me, are two of the men I hate most in this world.
Two faces I had never wanted to see again, two faces that I want to obliterate off the face of this fucking planet.
I’m angry that they’re even able to breathe oxygen right now.
One of them stands, stepping a bit closer so that when he reaches his hand forward, his pointer finger with the class ring around it swirls a piece of my hair.
“What did you do to your hair, Pip?” His face is filled with sorrow, and I know it’s because he actually cares about it. I remember just how much he used to like my hair.
“I stole a pair of bandage scissors from a med cart and hacked it off before the charge nurse sedated me,” I say, staring vacantly. “And if you don’t remove your hand from me, I will bite your finger clean off.”
Cain McKay was what some might consider an honorable guy. Once a small-town officer for Ponderosa Springs, he’d worked his way up to the FBI. Everyone here could not have been prouder, yet the day he left for training had been like waking up from a three-year-long nightmare.
A lucid dream I had no control of. One I was fully aware I was stuck inside of and could do nothing to wake myself up.
“You’ve gotten bigger,” he breathes, making me feel slimy inside. Probably thinks I’m joking about ripping his finger off with my teeth. What he doesn’t know is that wouldn’t be the craziest shit I’ve seen around here. It would be another day at the Monarch psych ward.
I tongue the inside of my cheek, noticing that the years had started to age his face. Most women who don’t know him would call him handsome in his button-down shirt, neatly knotted tie, and slacks.
Most women don’t know he isn’t into women at all or men.
He prefers little girls he has power over. Ones that wouldn’t tell anyone, that couldn’t.
Little girls that have everything to lose.
“From when I was thirteen?” I cross my arms in front of my chest, wanting to shield myself. I’d been too young to stand up to him before, too afraid, but now I have nothing to lose. “Yeah, that is about the time you stopped coming into my bedroom, wasn’t it? I thought you’d just gotten bored, but it’s because I hit puberty, isn’t it?”
I watch the way his face changes, how only a moment ago he was composed and looked like a caring family member coming to see me. I watch as the filth and spiders that fester beneath his skin begin to sneak out.
The number of times I’d thought about the moment of pure joy that would run through me as he was publicly castrated was infinite.
The mask he wore was my least favorite.
One of the protectors, the guardian, the one who is supposed to keep you safe from the monster under the bed.
Yet, the only boogeyman I ever faced in life was him.
“That’s how this is going to be? After everything I’ve done? You used to love me so much when you were little.”
I tilt my head. “Did you expect it to be any different?”
“Sage, can you sit down, please. Cain has driven a long way, and we have so much to talk about.”
My father speaks for the very first time since they arrived, ignoring my announcement of Cain’s sexual advances towards me. It doesn’t faze him though—why would it?
One, he probably already knew about it.
Two, he’d sold his daughter into sex slavery without even blinking.
Three, he doesn’t care.
He looks the same as the day I was taken away. Not an ounce of guilt or remorse has affected his ability to smile for the people of Ponderosa Springs.
I bet he even uses it to his advantage.
I bet the woe is me act is gaining him tons of sympathy. The man who’d lost his wife to an affair, the father who’d lost one daughter to death and the other to mental defect.
How fucking sad.
“I’m not sitting down.” I stare at him, really looking into his eyes so that he can see the reflection of what he has done. I want him to feel it, to see what his actions have caused. “What do you want?”
I’m not stupid—he didn’t come here to check on me or to see how I’m doing. He’s the reason I’m locked inside of here in the first place. The reason I’ll never get out.
Not because I’m sick or I need help either. He shoved me in here to keep me quiet so that I can’t tell anyone what I had found out.
What I know he did.
Frank Donahue had painted me as the crazy daughter who lost her mind after the accidental death of her twin sister.
Even if I’m let out, no one would believe a word I said, and that’s exactly how he wants it.
“Please.”
Chills decorate my spine, little bumps of irritation along my skin.
“Please?” I spit out at him. “I should kick you in the balls right now for even thinking you could say that word around me. Please? You don’t deserve to ask for anything.”
“You always did have a flair for the dramatics, even as a little girl,” Cain mutters as he waltzes past me, returning to his seat next to my sperm donor. “Sit. It’s for your own good.”
One thing this place has taught me or, well, what I have learned is I really just don’t give a fuck anymore. I do not care about what people think of me, how others view me, or what is expected of me. I have no regard for anyone else but myself.
So, I don’t care to show my anger or my disgust when it comes to these two. There are no cameras to act for, and even if there were, I would do the same thing.
I slam my hands down onto the table, fuming beneath my cool exterior. I’m in shock at how entitled they truly are. The man who molested me as a child and the man who’d had my twin killed to pay off his debt—how could they think for a moment I would do anything for either of them? They have nothing to hold over my head, nothing to bribe me with.
My teeth start grinding together as I spit out, “Either tell me what it is you came here for, or I’m going to stab you both to death with a plastic spork.”
There is no bluff. No fabrication.
My dad looks at my extended arms. Self-consciously, I look down as well to make sure my horrible orange zip-up hoodie
is covering them. Then I think, why should I have to hide the scars he caused?
Rosemary died on April twenty-ninth, and almost a month later, I was admitted to Monarch after having a “psychotic break.”
Everyone was told it was because of the loss of Rose and the abrupt divorce my parents were getting. It had been too much for an eighteen-year-old girl to handle, and the town thought I’d finally snapped.
What had actually gone down was something far more sinister. I’d gone innocently into my father’s office with the intention of printing a paper for school. Something I’d done a million times before, expecting the same blown-up image of our family portrait on the monitor.
But that time was different.
When I’d logged in to the computer, there was a video pulled up, already halfway played, and I remember thinking it looked like a Jason Statham movie.
My dad sat tied to a chair, hair disheveled and clothes filthy, while Greg West, a professor at Hollow Heights, interrogated him for money that he owed his boss. Money that he’d borrowed from a sex ring, and now, they were short on product.
And when there was no chance of payment, he gave my father a choice.
“You die, or you sell one of your daughters as settlement.”
I wanted to be surprised, but I hadn’t been. I knew that my father was capable of corrupt things. Willing to do whatever he had to in order to keep up appearances. To stay on top.
With ease, he chose Rose.
Like she wasn’t a human being, his own flesh and blood, as if she was just a name.
I wish he would’ve picked me.
My sister had been killed to settle my father’s debt, and I’d never tasted anger so bitter in my mouth before.
Retaliation. Vengeance. The hunger to make him pay.
I would do anything to have it.
“We need a favor, Sage,” Frank says gently as if soft-spoken words will make me forgive him.
I sneer. “Go fuck yourself.”
“I wanted to be civil about this, Pip. Remember that.” Cain calmly folds his hands together. “Your father is asking nicely. I’m not. You are going to cooperate with us, or I’ll send you somewhere a lot worse than a mental institution.”
Pip.
I hate that name.
“Like where, a sex trafficking ring?” I laugh, not needing to hide it from either of them that I know about it. “You know, I’m not even surprised that you’re involved in this, Cain.” I lean down closer to him, the smell of his aftershave making me nauseous. It’s the same one that clung to my sheets at the lake house. “Do you buy little girls from them? Is there a video of you being blackmailed out there too? Is that how they have the big bad FBI agent in their pocket?”
Eyes like pits stare into my own, his jaw clenches, and his composure slowly melts away. “I never hurt you. I loved you, Sage.”
“Is that what kind of sick lie you tell yourself? Is that how you’re able to look at yourself in the mirror?”
My gut twists, entirely bewildered at how fucked in the head a person must be to justify what he did.
“Regardless of what happened in the past, you will help us, or you’ll be wishing you did. There are people out there who are capable of things a lot worse than I am, trust me.” His voice is scornful, something he probably uses on criminals on a day-to-day basis. He thinks he will be able to scare me into helping him.
“Leave.” I glare. “There is nothing I can do to help you and nothing you can say that will change my mi—”
“Rook Van Doren.”
A pen drops in the corner of the room.
And I choke on everything I wanted to say before this moment.
My agitation becomes fuel to his memory.
Being trapped inside padded walls with nothing from your past life means your mind is your best friend and, for me, my worst enemy.
I feel him like a third-degree burn all over. My skin blisters in remembrance. My charred bones rattle as they turn to ash all over again.
His name, a thought of his face, a nightmare, it shoves me into an incinerator every single time.
The worst part is he’s the only relief to the stinging.
The flame and the extinguisher.
“What would I know about a Hollow Boy?” My interest is piqued, but I keep that to myself.
“Easton was nice enough to let us know about your…relationship with him last year. We know you were involved.”
Fucking prick.
“Even if I was—” I shove my hands into the pocket of my jacket. “—I don’t see what it has to do with you two or your fucked-up lives.”
If they found out about Rook, I would have to play this smart. They can’t find out how much I cared about him. They would use him as leverage, and he’s the last bit they have.
He’s the last thing I have any regard for.
“Certain members of the Halo—”
“The Halo? You’re kidding, right? You named a sex trafficking organization the Halo?” Shock is on my face, but neither of them bats an eye.
All those girls missing, their lives ended for cash, and there is no one looking for them, while these assholes walk around calling it Halo as if it’s just another business.
“The name is trivial, Sage. Members have gone missing. One of them has just turned up dead.” He clears his throat, pushing a cream folder towards me to look at. “Greg West, his body completely dismembered and soaked in bleach, left at the same place your sister’s body was found. Whoever did it is trying to send a message.”
It takes me a few moments to really hear what he is trying to tell me.
I’m confused why this has something to do with me, why they are telling me this. A part of me is happy that he’s dead—it’s the least he deserves.
I open the folder, flinching a bit at the pictures. You think you’re desensitized to enough things that death won’t bother you until you see what certain people are capable of.
Greg’s body is on the rotten wooden floor, perfectly laid out even though his limbs are not attached to his torso. Legs, arms, thighs, head, it’s all sliced into sections.
I cringe at the eyes, how they are just empty sockets with dark red splotches, completely gouged from the sockets.
More than the gruesome state of the body, I notice how methodical it all is.
It’s cut pristinely, not hacked off or chopped with an axe. They look almost surgical. And there isn’t any blood; the body is almost white.
They took their time, and they knew what they were doing, minus the trauma to the eyes, which look to be done with aggression.
It’s then all of it clicks together.
I shift my eyes to my father.
“They found out, didn’t they?”
He doesn’t say anything, only stares at me with eyes that are swelling up with fear. The wider they become, the more they resemble growing fruit that is ripe for the picking.
My tongue tingles with anticipation, my body unable to stop the grin that spreads across my lips.
I bet he’s spent every second looking over his shoulder. Heart pounding, hands sweating with anticipation. The waiting is killing him, constantly wondering when they are going to take their pound of flesh from his body.
Nothing is more enjoyable than watching a man who always thought of himself as a wolf become the scared, frightened lamb in the pasture.
Real wolves are coming for him now.
“Oh, you really are fucked,” I add, laughing almost joyfully.
“Yes, we believe your friends have found out about the organization, and that has posed a problem for us.” Cain looks like he wants to begin discussing the logistics of what he needs from me, but I don’t let him get that far.
“No.” I shake my head, chuckling. “They found out what you did to Rose. There is nothing I can do to help any of you now. Silas Hawthorne is not just some heartbroken boyfriend. He will slaughter anyone who had a fraction of involvement, and his friends will be right behind him.” I
roll my tongue across my bottom lip, meeting my father’s gaze. “You killed the wrong twin, Dad.”
A flare of hope kindles in my stomach, knowing that even though I can’t do anything inside of this place, there’s someone out there getting justice for my sister.
Silas knew. He knew Rosie, and she wouldn’t have just overdosed, and now he could prove it.
“No one would have blinked if you’d picked me. Easton would have been married to Rose. You still would have got your money from the Sinclairs. Mom wouldn’t have left your sorry ass. You would never have been in this position had you just picked me,” I continue, the heat in my voice building.
Jealousy cures in the pit of my stomach, envious that I can’t help them give him his due.
That I can’t be the one that ends the man who’d given me life.
“Now you’ve got hounds from hell coming for your throat, Dad. And they aren’t going to stop, no matter what you do.” I look over at Cain, driving my point home. “Not until everyone who hurt Rose is dead.”
They both stare at me, one scared of the death he knows will be coming for him soon and the other warily, not knowing if my words are truthful or a bluff.
“Good luck,” I finish, stepping back from the table so I can ask my nurse to take me back to my room for the day. There is nothing else that needed to be said.
“Not so fast, Sage,” Cain speaks, “They won’t be killing anyone else. Because you’re going to help us put them behind bars.”
I shake my head. “Oh, you think?”
They must be fucking stupid to think I would help stop them. They’re doing the job I wish I was doing.
“If you want out of here, then you’re going to go back to Hollow Heights and work for us. You’re going get them to trust you and figure out their plan. You’ll be providing us the evidence we need to convict them, and then you’re done. You’re free to do whatever you want with your life. We can help each other here,” he offers, bribing me with freedom that I no longer want.
“I’m not helping you. I’ve accepted my fate of staying here.”
The pressure becomes too much. He stands abruptly, the chair squealing and nurses looking at him oddly. He tries to smile at them, but he’s too annoyed to do damage control.
