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Chapter Eight

Branson

Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Saliva. Scopolamine.

My dreams are disjointed and violent. The smell of blood, coppery and rich, fills my senses even in sleep. I feel the smooth drag of a blade across skin, hear the hiss of pleasure as it glides effortlessly. The high-pitched screams of a young girl carries through, only accompanied by a manic male laugh.

I wake with a groan and try to turn over, nausea rising immediately at the movement. Coughing and sputtering I get to my knees, gagging and unable to expel anything in my beyond empty body.

What the fuck happened this time?

As the nausea subsides, I realize I am back in my room. Before I can breathe a sigh of relief, I hear a click and whip around to see my small TV, a VHS player now connected. Static before the tape starts again and that’s when I realize that the screams, the laughs, weren’t in my head.

I frown as the video plays and I see someone step onto the screen. I start as I realize it’s me, the chafe scars from my collar evident and unmistakable. No recollection comes to me and I lean forward, my eyes widening as a young girl is revealed in front of me. She looks disturbingly like Amelia when she was young.

If I couldn’t see my own face, the familiar marks on my body, I wouldn’t believe what I was seeing. Nausea rises in me again as I watch the video play, listen to the girl's screams and my own laughter. Tears are running down my face, and when I bring my hands up, I notice the dried blood caked around my fingernails. My head drops and I heave as the girl's screams rise to a fever-pitch.

“I don’t think she liked that very much,” Jane's voice says from somewhere behind me. My chest is heaving, head pounding from the screams that seem to echo in my mind.

“I would never do that,” I manage to rasp, unable to pull myself up from the ground. My own laugh echoes around the room, a sound I hardly recognize.

“Scopolamine is a remarkable drug. The smallest amount too much and you’ll kill someone, but just the right amount, well. Let’s say it makes the subject highly… suggestible.”

As soon as she says it, I remember learning about it.

“Scopolamine, also known as Devil's Breath, is derived from the flower of the “borrachero” shrub, common in the South American country of Colombia. While commonly used to treat nausea and motion sickness, it is rumored to be able to, at appropriate doses, render the subject highly suggestible….”

Shame fills me with what I’ve done, and I feel something crack inside me as the screams on the video are abruptly cut off. I can’t claim I’ve never hurt anyone. As a child, I more than did my part in Jane’s twisted projects, but at least then I didn’t know what I was doing. I certainly didn’t enjoy it, beyond wanting to please Jane.

Jane knows me well, though. She knows that making me do this, making me watch it, is worse than if she had tortured me with knives.

Raising my head, I look up to Jane. She smiles, leaning down to me. I resist the urge to flinch when she reaches out to grab my chin in her hand.

“If you piss me off again, you touch or ruin her, then next time, it’ll be her in that room with you,” Jane says to me, her voice a dark warning. “You know I’d do it, Branson.”

My teeth clench as she stares into my eyes and I know that she has me. She’s figured out my worst fears and managed to make them a reality between the loss of control and the fact she made me murder an innocent little girl. She’s finally found the ultimate power over me and she knows it.

My fists clench against the ground and it takes me a moment to realize that she’s muttering something under her breath. I slowly raise my head again and look at her and, sure enough, she’s frowning and muttering something to herself. She catches me watching her and stops with wide eyes, turning on her heel and leaving abruptly.

Jane’s mood swings aren’t so unusual, but that was a bit odd. Likely the remnants of all the fucking drugs in my system. Her footsteps fade upstairs. The tape clicks to the end and the whir of the rewind begins again.

I crawl over to the screen and frantically bash at the buttons until it stops. The tape ejects and I tear it from the machine, screaming as I hurl it to the wall, but it isn’t enough. A rage I’ve never experienced seems to take over. Everything within reach is torn, wrecked, and broken. I scream until I have no voice and my room resembles nothing more than a wrecked hamster cage. Ribbons of tape flutter around the room as I finally sit back panting.

By the time I’m done, the already meager room is in shambles and the anger seems to deflate out of me, my pants turning to sobs.

I don’t know how long I sit there like that for before finally raising my head only to see Teddy standing there just watching me. I feel my face heat up at the thought that she saw me crying, but I don’t know why. I’m beyond shame at this point.

“What the fuck do you want?” I ask bitterly, my voice hoarse from shouting.

“I heard the commotion and it sounded like fun,” she replies, kneeling in front of me. She looks into my eyes, searching, never leaving my gaze even as she lifts a finger to take a single tear off my cheek. Still watching me, she brings her finger to her mouth and licks.

“Mmm,” she whispers. “Your tears are almost as good as your blood.”