Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly 1)

It’s Grayson’s voice guiding me toward that light now as my fingers claw the floor. Each push forward sends a fire-hot whip of pain across my spinal cord. I absorb the lashes, even welcome them, because the pain is real. I know it exists and why.

But the memories flooding my mind are streaming too fast. Overwhelming. My mind fractures, trying to separate truth from fiction.

He drugged me. Grayson had to have drugged me. I cling to that hope, desperate for the images assaulting my head to dissolve back into the abyss. But where there was once darkness, a light shines, illuminating those haunted corners.

I reach the bars and hold on tight as I tunnel down.

I’m not my father’s daughter.

Not by blood. Not by a nameless, faceless woman who died after I was born. That’s not her garden. That’s not our home. I was born the day he stole me. Brought me into his world of locks and keys and bars. I was born into a dark world—after I was ripped from the light.

“He stole me.”

Even as I delve deeper, the psychologist in me denies it all. Repressed memories aren’t credible. They’re rarely ever accurate. They’re the mind’s way of reshelving memories, sorting too many moments that we’re unable to catalogue. I want to continue to deny it, but it’s as if a shroud has been lifted. Everything so clear, so vivid.

So real.

And I’ve never felt more alone.

You know.

I do know. I’ve always known about the girls, because I was once one of them. Until he pulled me from the cell and kept me for his own. He was a cop. He was the fucking sheriff. Of course, he was also my protector. I stayed in his asylum willingly, and left the other world behind, locking it away forever.

The man I killed was not my father. But the patients I tortured to understand who I am, what I am…suddenly, there are too many of them. The doors crack down the middle, light splintering through the shadows, and the overload flips the kill switch.

I shut down.

26

Till Death

Grayson

Forty-six hours in the cage and London loses the fight.

The mind is a fucked up place.

I push Stop on the recorder, then log the time with my notes. The first half was spent cursing me, blaming me, listing the ways I should die—I enjoyed that part. She doesn’t realize how talented she is—and waiting for the twist. I smile as I jot down her assumption on the drugs. Not a bad idea. Maybe next time.

Her last four hours… Those were her most trying. And the most revealing. Even a strong-willed woman like Dr. Noble can’t keep the demons locked up forever. I watch her on the computer screen now, her arms cradling her body as she sleeps.

Denial is a strenuous mental exercise. You have to be completely, utterly delusional not to bend when faced with veracity in its barest form. Regardless of her behavior, London doesn’t suffer from idiosyncratic beliefs. She’s not delusional. Mastering the art of lying was a survival mechanism to protect herself, to enable her to pursue greatness in spite of the hurt, the harm, to others.

Just had to pull at her thread until the spool unraveled, revealing the truth. I’m pleased with the analogy as my hand flies over the journal page. I want to remember our moment. It will be important later.

Can I claim I knew all the answers before I first entered her therapy room? No, not at all. Not like I typically do. Mounting extensive research on a subject before introductions. But with her—she was different, special. There was only a feeling.

Something I discredited as bullshit my whole life. I work with facts and evidence, not gut instinct or intuition. I trust what great minds before me have tested and studied and produced concrete proof of.

But like I said; she’s different. I sensed that kindred connection to her, and it became a compulsion to tease our relationship apart, dissect it and layer the pieces together in a way I could analyze and understand.

I went against my nature by relying on instinct in this instance. Trusting this strange new sensation that warms my blood whenever I think of her. Love—if that’s what it truly is—decided we were a match, and she’s offered proof. Finally.

I flip the page, resting the ballpoint to the journal as I click back on the footage. Hair in beautiful disarray over her face, she whispers it over and over, rocking against the floor. “He’s not my father.”

I move closer to her image, an anxious thrill squirming inside me. This moment is too visceral to be an act. The admission too specific, explicit. It’s her truth—and her truth matches my own. It’s what called out to me, and why we belong together.

We are the stolen children raised by monsters.