Numb, everywhere is numb. My insides churn as images replay in my mind, punishing me with the memory of what that monster did to me.

There’s a ruckus outside the hospital room before the door bursts open and my father fills the space between the frame.

He’s breathing heavy, panting like he’s running a race. His eyes drag over me, slow and accessing, before his brows crash down, darkening them.

And then he’s gone without a word.

I don’t need his words, I don’t need anything from any of them but to leave me alone. The sight of his cut, any cut makes me want to throw up.

Seeing Slade wearing his and calling me Princess was too much. My mind couldn’t distinguish what was befalling, and the clouds of a thunderstorm over the ocean crashed into me, drowning me too deep. I couldn’t see the surface. Couldn’t swim to gain air. The darkness pulled me under and warped my mind.

A nurse enters and adjusts my pillow. “Can I get you anything?”

“Some peace.” I croak. But I know I’ll never find peace again. My own mind is my tormentor, and I’m its prisoner.

I thought I knew about the world and about the demons lurking there but that was naïve of me.

Anxiety drums through my veins and the heart monitor goes crazy for a few seconds. The nurse re-adjusts the volume and checks where it’s placed on my finger.

“I’ll make sure no more visitors.”

And with that I’m alone again, visions of him running through my head, touching places that’s not for him. There’s nowhere I can hide from him, he’s all over me. My skin is tattooed with his bruises, my insides invaded by his intrusions, my mind haunted with his words, his scent, his eyes.

I’m going crazy and I can’t escape it. I just want to feel clean, feel safe, feel like me. I’m stranded on a broken road and the cracks are too big to overcome. I want to flee and find my way back, but the trees loom over me, shrouding me in their darkness. It creeps out from every turn and I’m losing.

I’m losing.

I lost.

* * *

Food is tasteless, they keep bringing it in here, but I can’t force it down my throat. I’m not hungry. I’m not thirsty. I’m not anything.

“Let me help you to the restroom,” The on duty nurse says, pulling my blankets down and taking the heart monitor from my finger. She adjusts the drip going into my arm, handing me the tube so it doesn’t snag when I get into the wheelchair.

Cold air rushes over my fevered skin when the sheets are removed from my legs and I just stare, they’re not mine, are they? Black and purple bruises decorate every inch of my flesh like I’ve been dipped in ink. Thick bandages cover my feet from the sole to above the ankle.

He pulls a blade from his boot and grabs hold of my foot as I attempt to scurry backwards and out of his reach. He’s so strong that it’s futile to fight him but I kick out and fight anyway. If he’s going to kill me I won’t die on my knees, or on my back, at his mercy, I’ll go out thrashing.

Pain slices across the back of my foot, setting a blaze racing up my leg. He’s already grabbing my other foot when I realize what the bastard has done. He slices my other Achilles heel with a quick swipe. I scream from the agony and shock. Dropping my foot, blood forms a puddle and I try to use my feet to push myself further away from him, but they’re useless and the cuts burn so bad that I feel weak and want to vomit.

“Good luck trying to run now, Princess,” he spits and a scream more suited to a wounded animal tears from me.

I won’t survive this.

“Come on.” The nurse instructs, and I flinch when she slides my legs to the edge and then takes my arm, urging me to stand. It aches when my feet touch the floor and all my weight pushes down. Almost buckling, I tip rather than sit into the wheelchair. Surgery to repair my injuries was successful but healing is going to be a long process.

The nurse gestures for me to drag along my drip as she moves me the few feet to the bathroom. Needing help to even sit on the toilet would usually be humiliating, except pride and modesty have been raped out of me. This body doesn’t even belong to me, it’s the devil’s, and he’s used it up and discarded it.

“I’ll just be here,” she informs me once she’s helped me onto the toilet. She wanted me to pee in some potty they have underneath the seat part of the wheelchair but why should they have to clear away my piss?

My knees shake, and it takes a while before my body untenses and allows the release of my bladder. The burn reminds me of the trauma inflicted upon me and what could have been stolen from me. Emotions collide with rationality and I find myself begin to sob and then laugh. This is all my own fault. I went back to Slade, to that life, when I should have taken the first opportunity to run and never look back. My heart aches for a brief second at the thought of Slade but then the anger returns. I want to scream all this pain into him, so he can feel a fraction of the damage done to my soul.

Rhiannon comes to mind and I wonder if she’s been found yet, or is she suffering like I am? Has she been put through the same agony and depravity? Is she even alive?

We were both used as pawns. I won’t ever go back to that life. I vow it. Once I’ve recovered from my injuries I’m gone from here to a place where bikers mean people on peddle bikes. I’ll become someone new and forget…them all. I’ll change my name, my looks, my identity. After. After he’s gone, after he has been put to ground. I need to see it with my own eyes. He needs to die. He’s killed me and now it’s his turn. I’m fucking owed his life. And I want it.

Once I’m back in bed, the nurse leaves the room briefly and then comes back with a refill of water. She smiles as she takes my vitals and jots them down on her file.

“I have a woman claiming she’s your sister out front. A Denise Steed?”

I nod my head. “Yeah, let her in, please.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. I’ll just be outside.” She holds up a gadget on my bed. “Press this if you want me. Don’t get yourself all upset and pull those wires out again,” she admonishes but not in a menacing way.

She leaves the room and a few minutes later Denise is standing at the door whispering something to herself before pushing the door open.

“Oh, God,” She weeps turning so I can’t see her face crumble.

“Denise.” I bark. The last thing I need is to comfort her. I’ve cried enough tears to fill an ocean and all it got me was dehydrated, a sore throat and red eyes.

“I’m so sorry. He would have killed me if I didn’t run, and I needed to alert Frost. Otherwise, no one would ever know what happened. I was going to try and come back for you, but my feet just wouldn’t stop, and before I knew it, I was miles from nowhere and couldn’t even remember the direction I ran in.” She waffles on, and I don’t care. I’m so numb that I can’t even force myself to care about anything she’s saying.

“I need a phone,” I tell her.

“Oh, oh, okay, well you can use mine. Keep mine. You can keep mine.”

“I need a burner phone.”

She nods her head and folds her arms, pushing her oversized implants out of the top of her shirt. “They have them in the shop downstairs, I’ll get you one. Do you need anything else? Food, drinks?”

“No.”

“Okay.” She nods her head and keeps looking down at her feet. She can’t look at me and that’s okay. She can get what I need and leave.

“Now, Denise.”

“Oh, sure.” Her heels click on the floor. Her ass is squeezed into jeans a size too small. She looks like a hood rat.

When she returns she hands me the device and puts magazines and snacks out on a bed table next to me. Her lips are moving and she’s talking a mile a minute. Her hands are animated, and she still hasn’t looked at me. It must be bad, she’s seen some hot messes at the club.

The pain lets me know that I’m black and blue. I still can’t see out of one of my eyes and my head feels too big for my shoulders.

“…And I told him he can’t keep coming here drunk. He’s going to end up in jail, but he just loves and misses you. It nearly killed him. I swear he’s aged ten years. They don’t know what to do when their women are going through hell. It’s not his fault and …”

“Denise!” I bark, sending my heart monitor crazy. “Just go!”

“But...”

“Stop! I just want to be left alone.”

“Okay,” she nods quickly. “But call me if you need anything and I’ll be right here. Okay? We’re family.” Why the fuck does she keep saying ‘okay’?

She smiles and finally looks at me. I see the flinch in her face, the twitch of her eye.

“I don’t have any family,” I say how I feel, and she once again drops her eyes to her feet.

When she’s finally gone, I open the cell phone and dial in the number.

“Hello?” Jenna’s dad answers. There’s hope in his voice. However, there’ll be no hope for him anymore.

“Jenna’s dead, she’s never coming home. She killed herself,” I tell him.

“Who is this?”

“I just wanted you to know so you can stop waiting for her to come home. She’s gone. I’m sorry.”

I end the call and close my eyes.

He took everything from me.