I shook my head, no longer resisting. My eyes shut as my shoulders loosened. I’d been in this position too many times before to let myself get all riled up. I knew how to calm myself down and just deal. Richard wasn’t behind me, demanding that I call him daddy. I wasn’t in a pit of emptiness where no one would hear me scream. I was at St. Mary’s, and I was fine.
But was I?
“Let me go,” I demanded through my silent protests of wanting anger to outweigh fear. Something thick and hard graced my back from the guy who ripped me away, and I bit down on my lip as I recognized what it was. My eyes closed. An empty black abyss was all I could see, yet somehow, it grew even darker. No. You’re fine, Gemma.
Flashbacks began assaulting me, hidden memories creeping out of their vaults and taunting me in the back of my brain. I felt the tremor in my limbs, my body quaking with my rising stress levels.
His voice was muffled, morphing into something from the darkest parts of my soul. “They say you’re a good girl, Gemma. But are you?”
And just like that, I was snapped back to a place I never wanted to be again.
* * *
The floor was hard and cold. Blood seeped from my bare, wet knees. Misery seemed to be the only thing to keep me afloat. It was the only thing I could feel. I was numb, except for that tiny amount of sadness that was allowing the tears to fall ever so gracefully over my dirty cheeks for the last...however long it had been. Time seemed to pause but move quickly at the same time down here.
A faint glow of light swept underneath the covered window, and that was how I’d been keeping track of the days, but when I was in and out of consciousness, it was hard to know if an hour had passed or an entire day. The only indication that I knew actual days had passed was because Richard’s tie was a different color from the last time he’d come down here.
My eyes drooped again, my wrists aching from the metal digging into them. They were sore and weak as I hung below. Sometimes they’d be lowered, and I could rest my face on the cold dirty ground, but other times, I’d been extended. See? Time kept passing.
I snapped to attention, the metal chains ricocheting off one another, as the door opened and shut again. My brain told me to flinch from fear, but my body must have been too weak, because it didn’t seem to move again after the initial startle from drowsy to alert.
My head hung as my arms were extended high, and the ends of my hair were a dark-gray color from the wet dirt coating them. The strands were thick bands of mud, hardly moving at all. His shoes were the first thing I could focus on, the shiny black of them gleaming and making my eyes hurt.
He shuffled past me, going behind to hopefully unchain me. This had to have been the longest he’d ever left me down here. With Auntie basically dead, no one came to check on me. Not that she did much, but it was comforting to know I wasn’t truly alone when he’d get in these foul moods.
My arms fell with a thud, the chain screeching as it finally let up. My elbows cut as they hit the gritty concrete I’d been resting my knees on, and I cried out as much as I could with the dryness of my throat.
“Was that punishment enough, Gemma? Are you ready to be a good girl?” he asked, a chummy tone in his voice like he was doing me a favor.
I wanted to spit at him, but that would require me to have strength to raise my head, and it would also require me to have actual saliva in my mouth, and I had neither of those things at the moment. Not to mention, he’d broken me. He broke that blazing, fiery spirit I’d had when I’d decided to stand up to him like Tobias had. It was a mistake. I knew that now. But I was hopeful. I was hopeful he’d send me to the same place he sent Tobias—wherever that was—but how wrong was I?
My head was jerked backward as his hand wrapped around my hair. “I asked you a question. Don’t make me repeat it.” He cursed under his breath as a dry yelp escaped me. “I will be damned if you act like your mother. I wasn’t able to break her from that defiant streak she had, but I’ll be sure to break you. You will be what I want and nothing more.”
A strangled cry left my lips as my chest caved. “Y-yes.” The word croaked out of me like a dying frog, and it damn near killed me.
“Yes, what, baby girl?” he whispered into my ear, pressing his core into my back. Something girthy rammed into my spine, and I silently belittled myself for learning what it was—which, ironically, was the start of what had landed me in this stupid predicament in the first place. Nothing got past Judge Stallard. With my Auntie gone, I thought I could be sly and figure out everything Tobias whispered to me in the mere minutes before he disappeared, but I was wrong. Richard checked on what I’d been up to. He knew every last Internet search I’d ever made.
Swallowing back nausea, I whispered through labored breaths, “Yes, Daddy.”
A lone finger traced my bare spine, a shiver of chills coating my skin. He hummed in agreement as his fist tightened around my hair again. My head hurt when he’d pulled on my strands a little tighter. “If you’re curious, just ask me.” His warm sigh brushed over my shoulders. “You’re almost eighteen. The perfect age. I can teach you all there is to know about the human body. Just wait, little one.” And just like that, he dropped me back to the ground, my knees all but shattering with the impact.
* * *
“What the fuck.”
I gasped, my eyes springing open quickly as lights blinded me from above. My palms immediately went to cover them as I moaned, and that was when I realized my cheeks were wet. Why are my cheeks wet?
“Isaiah, back off,” a voice said, sounding seriously concerned. “Calm down.”
A growl sounded. “Calm down?” Then a loud gruff. “What the fuck did you do to her, Bain?”
Who is Bain?
“Gemma?” Sloane whispered. “Are you okay?” Soft hands wrapped around my wrists, and I let out a shaky sigh, and then I quickly snatched my arms away at the thought of my sleeves being pulled up too high. Shit. I flung my eyes back open, clenching my fists so tightly my nails dug into my skin. Despite Sloane’s dark and edgy eyeshadow, I could see that she was truly worried about me.
“I’m…” I began to sit up. “I’m—fine.” Oh my God. Did I say anything while I was out? Did I do something?
She took her plump red lip into her mouth, and she eyed me cautiously. Her hand gingerly went up to my forehead, and she raised her eyebrows, as if asking my permission. I gave her a slight nod, and she rested the back of her hand on my sticky skin. “You’re in a cold sweat. Did you pass out?”