The moat filled with creepy crawlies as the steady itch of needing something came back. My mind might be safe, but my body was being eaten alive by insects.
Q sighed, stroking my cheek. His pale eyes never stilled—swirling with so many emotions. “You’re safe. I won’t ever let anything happen to you again.”
The promise reeked of guilt. It was a promise he’d made before and a promise he broke. My emotions were no longer accessible—hidden behind this thick barrier, and I sat there feeling nothing.
Nothing.
My trust in him was broken. My belief that he would always be there for me—my monster in the dark— was gone.
But although I knew it should rip my heart out, I only felt empty, cold, forgotten.
I wanted to ignore the coolness I felt toward him. I wanted the blankness and wall to disappear. I wanted to remember. But if I did, I’d die from the weight of guilt. I’d perish from everything I’d done.
Focusing inward, I rattled the door of this newly formed tower, looking for a way out. But there was no exit. No key to get free. Whatever my mind had done to protect me, it had shut down everything else.
My heart was boarded up and unfeeling. The same heart that tumbled with lunacy and need for Q. The same organ that ballooned with madness for this man who beat me, f**ked me, wanted me.
Now it deflated, a shrivelled raison-like thing, hanging useless in my chest.
Q ran his hand down my cheek, avoiding the fresh bandage on my neck. His fingertips whispered down my arm before capturing my hand. He flinched when I curled my fingers, avoiding his touch.
I didn’t want to be touched. I didn’t want any sort of contact. I didn’t need it. All I needed was to be left alone. Alone forever in my unfeeling tower.
Pain etched his eyes as he swallowed hard. His five o’clock shadow was scruffier than normal, his hair unkept and longer. He kept his eyes trained on my hand before leaning forward, bringing the shadow of his body over mine. His arm tucked under my shoulder blades, gathering me in a crushing embrace.
I squirmed as claustrophobia clawed, then stiffened as I forced myself to allow him comfort. I may not want this, but he did. And I wasn’t such a shallow bitch to deny him.
Somehow, I’d gone from Tess who cared to a blank replica and I had no desire to go back. I wouldn’t survive the past.
Q squeezed me harder, hurting my ribs, flaring my bruises. I didn’t move away, but I didn’t move to console him either. His large body pressed hard against mine and all I could focus on was the vacuum my soul was in. The vacancy deep inside. No longer did I suffer.
You deserve to be in pain. I had no right to forget what I did. Pain was my life-long affliction.
Pain.
“Pain is bad, little girl. Run from pain.” White Man blazed into my mind, stealing me from Q’s arms and the safety of his home and dumping me back into the rank dungeon.
The vacuum suddenly reversed and spewed every splinter of pain into me. The trauma of the drugs, the nightmare of doing their bidding—all came back with hammers, impaling me with stakes.
“No. I can’t take it!”
My throat seized, my lungs drowned with liquid, and I went nuts. I couldn’t go back there. I couldn’t go through it again. I wanted my tower. I wanted to go back to the void and never feel such agony again.
The bugs roared and multiplied, scurrying over me, their pinchers and claws dragging me back to hell. I struggled to run, but something held me tight. Held me firm for the bugs to find me.
“You took my life. You’re just like them.” Blonde Hummingbird floated before my eyes with a bloody bullet hole in her forehead. “You did what they asked. Why? Why did I have to die?”
“Pain used to be your saving grace, didn’t it?” White Man appeared over Q’s shoulder, waggling a finger at me. “What did I teach you? Pain is bad. Don’t make me get the pliers.”
Arms tightened around me and I flipped. “No. No. Don’t. You don’t need to do that. I’ll behave. I promise.”
“Fuck, esclave. Stop it!” Q shook me so hard my teeth rattled. “Stay with me. Don’t listen to whatever figments are taunting you. Please, I beg you! I f**king beg you to fight.”
I opened my eyes at the agony in his tone. Q’s eyes were red-rimmed; shadows darkened his haggard face. His angled jaw was locked tight and forehead furrowed with over-whelming concern.
“Fight. Don’t give in. Okay?” He bent his head, whispering his lips against mine. His eyes imprisoned me. I froze, trying to control my erratic gulps against his mouth. “I’ll do anything. Tell me what I can do to make this better,” he pleaded.
I searched my brain for answers. Something that would help me back from the scrambled eggs my mind had become. But nothing made sense. I saw no quick fix. No way out of the maze I was trapped in.
“Put her down. You’re hurting her ribs.”
Q glared toward the door where a man appeared in a white coat over a casual suit. I curled up, trying to become invisible. I hated strangers. Hated that I didn’t know what to expect—that they might pretend to be nice, but they only wanted to rape and kill me.
Let me back into the tower!
Pain and fear crested and the guilt—shit, the guilt, came at me with the sickle of the grim reaper, hacking me into pieces.
Q looked down at me, dragging me closer, not listening to the man’s orders. “She’s freaking the f**k out. You have to give her something for the hallucinations.”
The man came closer; I whimpered.
“He’s there to finish you off. You disobeyed. He’s here to hurt you.” White Man laughed.
Never again would I go without a fight. Panic made me crazy and I bit Q square on the shoulder.
“Let me go. I just want to go back to the tower!”
He sucked in a breath, but didn’t push me away or strike. Instead, he looked at the doctor with such tragic weariness in his eyes. “Just give her something to ride out the worst of it. I can’t stand seeing her like this.”
The man nodded, and I tried to scramble out of Q’s arms. Not even the pain in my ribs or neck or finger could stop me from fighting. I couldn’t go through more. I couldn’t. My mind was already dead—I’d never find my way back.
I moaned as clammy sweat sprouted on my skin, chilling me. Bright lights erupted behind my eyes as the craving intensified.
The mouth-watering, teeth-clenching need for something. Something thick and syrupy and foggy. Something that I didn’t have a name for, but fuck, my body wanted it.
“Please. I’ll do whatever you want. Give it to me.”
“What’s happening to her?” Q asked but his voice was far, far away.
“She’s hit the second level of withdrawal. They must’ve kept her on a high dose for it to be this bad so fast.”
A tidal wave of insects consumed me, all chittering and chattering as they scurried around in my brain. “Give me it. I’ll f**k you. I’ll do it. I’ll do anything!”
Arms let me go and I collapsed against the mattress. I yelped against the pain, but it could no longer compete with the craving. “You have to give her something. I’m going out of my f**king mind listening to this.”
“All right. I think it’s for the best that she sleeps through the worst of it.”
Sleep. Yes. I could do with sleep. Vacant, never-waking sleep.
Something icy trickled into my veins, moving stealthily through my body. Instead of the horrible smog, this was clear and fresh, and it granted me wings to fly away from the putrid memories and leave it all behind.
I found the tower and returned, locking myself deep inside.
I was safe inside. Protected.
I would never leave my sanctuary again.
*****
After that first morning, my life became a patchwork of fragments.
Waking up with the consuming need.
Going back to sleep.
Waking up coughing my lungs out.
Going back to sleep.
Waking up in the dead of night to find Q sprawled out exhausted beside me.
Going back to sleep.
Each time I woke, the insects were fewer in number, and I no longer wanted to rape someone to get my hands on whatever I needed.
One afternoon I awoke to soulful, tortured music playing through the house.
You told me you were strong enough. You told me you were brave.
Yet now you lie next to me and all I can do is save.
I’m here for you. I’m there for you. I’ll help you with every fight.
But no matter what I do for you, I see no end in sight.
The lyrics tugged at some numb part of my heart, but no emotion cut through my tower. Ever since that first day, where I almost died from the mental onslaught, I made sure to never leave. The tower was the only thing keeping me alive.
Was it shock or weakness that caused me to retreat deep inside? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know because regardless of how I came to live behind my heavily fortified wall, I was never leaving.
I knew what awaited me if I ever did and I wouldn’t survive it.
Q stayed beside me, never ending his vigil. Whenever I woke, he was there to fetch me a glass of water, or massage my temples if I had a headache from the medicine.
He tended to me with all the gentleness in the world.
I smiled and thanked him. I let him know I appreciated his tenderness, but I wished he would leave. Q wasn’t a healer or nursemaid. To the old me he was a beast, a strong-willed man who would never let me ruin him this way.
Every time I saw him, he changed. His pale eyes lost the ferocious glow—they muted, faded, turned inward and unreadable. His body language morphed from itching to touch me, to withdrawn and self-conscious.
If I had locked myself in a tower, he had chained his monster up and forgot who he was. We both existed in another dimension—one that would never have a happy ending and one I wanted to leave as soon as possible.
I knew Q was pulling away from me, but I didn’t care. I wanted to care. But I wanted to stay in my unfeeling tower more. And so I let him care for me, to nurse my body from broken to whole, all the while saying a silent goodbye.
I let him drift away from me.
Hours turned into days and my lungs gradually drained from sickness. Q hardly ever left my side, but we never talked. He sensed I’d left him. When he looked at me, he stopped searching my eyes, stopped bossing me around to snap out of it.
He didn’t talk about his business, or what he went through to find me. We existed as strangers—our roles reversed from lovers to patient and nursemaid.
Thankfully, the bugs had transformed from gnarly insects into annoying moths and butterflies. The craving was still there, aching in my teeth, but I could ignore.
Even my dreams were vacant of emotion and thought. In fact, sleep was one thing that hadn’t returned. I managed to nap, to catch rest here and there, but at night when Q lay twitching with nightmares beside me, I stared at the ceiling.
You know this isn’t normal. You should grieve. Go through the stages of dealing with the guilt and find absolution.
I ignored myself. I was stronger this way. I stayed alive this way.
Q shifted beside me, mumbling in his sleep. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you, you bastard.” His fist gripped the bedding and he snarled, “I f**king love—” His leg struck out hitting my foot. It didn’t hurt, but the moment he made contact, I fell straight back into hell. My tower cracked, letting all the guilt and fear and never ending hatred for myself consume me.