Page 18 of Deadly Knight

Doctors describe them as being panic attacks, though it seems too basic a description for the memories and their effects. I always believed panic attacks occur when a person is too anxious, and I’m not anxious at all.

Simply destroyed.

By the third day, the medical staff are ready to discharge me, but the psychologist insists otherwise. She’s been trying tosuggest coping methods I can use at home, which I don’t really pay attention to, while encouraging me to not bottle anything up. To speak with her now, another professional afterwards, my parents, and even Dimitri.

I wonder if the psychologist has spoken to him or if they’ve just sent him on his way after seeing he was physically unharmed. Does the doctor not realize a person can be broken in multiple ways? The thought makes me glare at her, because Dimitri should be getting help too.

For an hour straight, between three different visits, I’m told multiple discharge plans that only leave me on edge with the lack of answers.

Mama taps my cheek right over the spot where my jaw is tightest. “It’d be wise to listen to the psychologist, Katya, and stay for a few more nights. You continue to wake frequently. Stay at least until the nightmares clear up.”

Her eyes flick to my reddened arms, which the psychologist is titling a form of self-harm. She won’t listen when I explain it’s only me grounding myself through the nightmares.

I stare at Mama. She didn’t say anything wrong, but her view is too narrow for my reality. The memories won’t go away overnight. Weeks, months, maybe even years. Hell, they might never, so staying here changes nothing.

“I need to feel normal again. Staying in here is a constant reminder.” A half-truth. The reminder won’t disappear at home, but at least there, I won’t be chained to a hospital bed with staff hovering.

Papa chimes in from the recliner in the corner, “She’s right. Being home would be good for her.”

“Besides, legally, they can’t keep me.”

And that’s how, later that evening, I’m being walked to my parents’ car, Mama clutching my hand and Papa on my other side. I feel safe between them. Safer than I have in days, despitebeing inside a building with many staff between me and the front doors, where my villains could return.

Villains. I scoff. There’s not multiple. Four men might have been the reason behind my horrors, but it was one man in particular who designed the entire thing.

It’s the one fact I couldn’t admit to the police. Couldn’t tell my parents. Couldn’t tell anyone.

Because doing so addresses something I’m not ready to accept yet: Ivan has always been right.

I’m not meant for Dimitri’s world.

Dimitri needs a strong woman to make it through any challenge either the Bratva or he is faced with.

This situation has proven that isn’t me.

Diary.

No Dear. Not sure anything can ever be “dear” again. How can it be when the world feels different now?

WhenIfeel so different?

I’m grateful you’re here. This tattered notebook to hide all my thoughts. You’re here when I need you most. When the bad overwhelms the good.

Well…it’s bad. I think I’m now called a victim. Astatistic. That one person on the news others feel sad for when hearing the story of what went down. The ones that have people questioning how another human could do such a thing.

I once asked the same thing after watching the news a few months ago with Mama and Papa. The reporter recounted a killing from the night prior, which police believed at the time was a random attack. Someone broke into a family home and stabbed the parents, but mercifully, their six-year-old daughter was away at her grandparents’ house. Police tracked down the murderer but never learned his reason for attacking. I asked then why he’d do such a thing. What would have happened if the child was home? Something I didn’t want to consider.

Now, I wonder if it was random at all. Is anything random? The attack on me felt random. Four men having “fun”. “Let’s play, boys” is what one said, like it was a game.

No. It wasn’t random. That was proved whenhewhispered in my ear. It was planned. It was intended to torture me in such ways I removed myself fromhislife.

A knockon my bedroom door jerks me back into life so quickly, my pen slips from my hand. Instinctively, I slam the red leather cover of my journal shut as my door parts a few inches, and Mama’s face peers inside.

“Hey,” she murmurs, slowly stepping inside. She’s gripping a tray, her knuckles a bit whiter than a visit to her daughter should normally call for, but she’s being cautious around me. She’sbeen like this since I got discharged from the hospital yesterday. “Brought you tea.”

It’s always tea. Or a snack. Never a meal because I barely finish the snacks. A bite of a sandwich here. A few sips of soup there. Food tastes dryer than usual. Unexciting.

Like everything else.