EBONY
Screaming didn’t do anything but give the orderlies permission to be rougher with me, so I stopped. That didn’t mean a stray foot didn’t try and knock them about every now and then. The Matron, Maria—I had learned that was her name—had tried to be welcoming and accepting of my ‘psychosis,’ but now she was a hard-ass bitch thanks to my unhelpful attitude. She’d pushed a needle into my neck as the orderlies had tried to undress me and put me in a gown.
The drugs had begun to kick in, and slowly I lost the ability to kick or struggle. The orderlies had stopped trying to roughly restrain me . I could only watch as they removed my pants and shirt replacing them with a white gown, unable to stop them.
“I am not crazy! Please help me.”
It came out slurred, but Maria understood me. She brushed my hair out of my face in a motherly way and smiled down at me. “We’ve heard that before. We want to help you, love, and so does Mr. Black. He just wants you to get better.”
“He’s lying.”
“He’s a fine man,” she spat back. “You’re lucky he’s looking after you so well.”
It was only then I realized she must be on his payroll. They wouldn’t be able to admit me, or even give me medication without my consent, unless the hospital sent me here. Jett had too much sway here, and she seemed to be completely enamored with him. I could understand that as he was powerful and sexy as hell.
Jett knew a lot of people, but to imprison me in an asylum and force me to undergo treatment? How could this happen? Someone would report me missing, surely.
The only question was who? I’d burned my bridges with Giordy, and my mother wouldn’t care if I disappeared. My sisters didn’t even know where I lived, let alone what I did with my life so they wouldn’t care either.
I had no one to report me missing—no one would even know if I died.
As tears ran down my cheeks, I noticed the lights above me were passing by. It was hard to stay awake as I felt my eyes closing. Unable to open them again, I let sleep claim me as they wheeled me to my doom.
✽✽✽
I heard voices near me, voices I didn’t recognize. Actually, one I did—Jett. Opening my eyes which felt as if they’d been caked together with glue, I caught a glimpse of him standing in the doorway talking to a man in a doctor’s coat. He was as impressive as ever with his tall, broad frame in a suit tailored just for him. He had one hand in his pocket and another running over the back of his neck. The doctor was telling him something important judging by the way he was nodding and focusing.
Suddenly, they both looked over at me. The doctor excused himself, and Jett came to sit next to me.
“I heard you’ve had a trying few days.”
“Days?” I exclaimed, but it came out as a croak.
“Yes, don’t you remember?” His smile was so sadistic I felt like I was going to cry.
“Where’s my family?”
“The family who don’t want you?”
Sobs wracked my body as I felt every glimmer of hope dissipate into thin air. “Why are you doing this to me?”
He didn’t answer which made me look his way. He was thinking hard, his smile gone.
“Honestly, I don’t know. You’ve awoken something in me that I had long since buried. I need to see you broken. Stop holding onto that goodness in you. Stop feeling.”
“Why me? There are plenty of broken souls out there for you to torture.”
He pushed up off his chair and sat on the side of the bed. I could feel his body heat from where I was restrained.
“Tell me why you didn’t report Giordy for what he did to you.”
“What?”
“I saw the report.”
How? I’d retracted my statement. “I was mistaken.”
“No, you weren’t. Stop protecting them!”
“It wasn’t Giordy. It was one of his friends.”
The memory had been buried deep in my soul, the way I liked it. Why was he so concerned with that part of my life?
“You should seek help for your obsession with my uncle.”
He chuckled, adding a grave growl to his tone. “Maybe I should just kill him.”
“You won’t see me stopping you.”
“Why did you retract it?”
I turned my head away from his eyes. I couldn’t bear to see those green eyes barrel into my soul. “He said if I didn’t, he would do the same to my sisters.” I closed my eyes to push out the tears that had accumulated there.
“I was fifteen by the way, and they were fourteen.”
“You did it to protect them?”
I nodded.
“But they don’t care about you. Why would you do that?”
He seemed to genuinely not understand my reasoning. I wondered if he was an only child. Of course, I would do anything to protect my little sisters. How could he not understand that?
I shrugged, but as I was restrained, it didn’t come across as nonchalant.
He pushed off the bed. “I’ll come back in a week to see you.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed, turning back to me from the doorway. I could only see his outline, and it haunted me in a way I couldn’t quite describe. A part of me wanted him to come back, and a part of me wanted to set him on fire for what he was doing to me.
“Don’t lose that fire in you, doll face. It’ll be the only thing you have left at the end.”
Tears reigned free down my face as I fought to keep the sobbing at bay. I couldn’t get out of this predicament. After all those years of manipulation at the hands of those bitches in prison and keeping myself alive while on the streets, I knew I couldn’t get myself out of this, and it scared the hell out of me.
I had to make a promise to myself so I could stay alive long enough to get free. I would focus all my effort on playing the game until I sought vengeance against Jett Black for everything he had done to me.