Dark. Musty. I’m in a warehouse. The warehouse.Oz.
My stomach swirls and I try to sit up but I can’t. My sluggish heart speeds up. My breath comes in choppy waves.Why can’t I move?
I lift my head and look down my body. I’ve been stripped to my bra. Grimy silver chains shackle me to a metal table. The weight of them presses into my hips, my legs and around each of my wrists.
“I’m sorry I hit you.”
I turn to the voice. Angelica’s sitting on a fold-out chair, her elbows on her legs and her chin resting in her hands.
“Where’s Oz?”
“Is he your boyfriend?”
I tug at my wrists making the chains rattle against the table. “Angelica, where is he?”
She launches up off the chair and presses her knife to my sternum. “It’s rude not to answer a question.”
I don’t bother pointing out she just ignored mine. My sister’s mind fragmented a long time ago. I’m normally better at getting through to her but it’s been a while, and I can’t think straight until I know where Oz is. “He’s...” I wet my lips and try to slow my breathing. I think of Jude and River and even Eli. “I don’t know what he is, but I care about him. A lot.”
She frowns. “You used to only care about me.”
A tear pools in the corner of my eye because she’s right. For the first seventeen years of my life, she was all I had.
Angelica traces the knife over the crisscross scars on my chest. “We’re not matching anymore.”
The meaning of her words sinks in, and I close my eyes. I knew he wouldn’t have stopped his abuse but her confirmation tears through my chest.
“Look.”
I open my eyes. She’s taken off her shirt. Just like us, our scars are identical, and my gaze instinctively finds the new marks. The ones she has but I don’t. More tears well in my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
She shrugs. “It’s okay. I can fix it now.”
“No. No!” I try to lean away from her, but the chains are too tight. I can’t do anything as she brings the knife to my chest and cuts.
The first slice is the worst. It’s been six years since I’ve felt pain like this, and I couldn’t hold my scream in if I tried.
Any ability to reason with her slips away as she carves into my skin. She cuts over old scars, setting my chest on fire. The pain consumes me. I am nothing but hurt and memories as flashbacks invade my mind.
Warmth spreads through my pajama bottoms as he walks towards me, bloodied knife in hand.
“Your turn, sweetie.”
I shake my head. “Please Daddy, please don’t. I didn’t do anything.”
“I know you didn’t, sweetheart, but your sister did. You know the rules. If I cut her, I cut you. Identical in every way, remember?”
The knife cuts into my hip, the pain even worse against the bone and I slip away again.
“That’s it. Good job, sweetie.” He runs his rough hand through my hair. His hands are always so steady. Mine’s trembling as I make the second cut.
“Nice and steady. Once you’ve finished your sister’s cross, she’ll do yours, okay?”
“Stop, please, stop. Angelica!” I thrash my head against the table until the pain dulls and I’m sucked back inside my memories.
I drop the knife on the floor. “I’m not doing it. I won’t do it anymore.”
The woman tied on the table behind me sobs.
