Page 86 of Judas (The Lito Duet #2)

Chapter forty-two

Beast

“ Y es, her stitches are looking well. We are going to remove the antibiotics today, right after this bag. There’s enough signs of healing that we don’t want to potentially introduce MRSA by not finishing this bag.”

“Thank you.”

That voice has surrounded me for days. Deep, warm—keeps me grounded. Sometimes I hear him talking to himself, perhaps he has voices in his head too. Like me. It would be nice to meet someone like me who doesn’t try to cause me pain, unlike Lucien.

Things are foggy, but I remember chunks.

Well, pieces of the times I was awake and not one of the others.

The cabin, my mom, m… my dad out on the patio talking.

A man who helped my dad get the both of us, that part I don’t remember too much about.

Talking with my mom felt amazing, it was…

I’m not quite sure how to explain it. She took to me so easily, as if I wasn’t ever missing from her life.

In a way, I guess, I never was. She made it sound like she lived through prison for me—that says so much.

She accepts me this way, fragmented.

One memory doesn’t fit with the others, it’s muddled along with my ability to think clearly. The feminine voice I don’t recognize at all, haunting. His, however, blankets me.

Sensing someone close to me, my arms try to do what they can to lift.

Soft cushions comfortably hugging my wrists are so heavy they keep me from being able to move.

Each time I try to stir, they refuse to budge.

Meanwhile, I can feel my legs moving more freely.

I give up almost instantly. The weight is too much and I’m tired enough as it is.

It’s warm in here too, a scratchy texture rests atop of my bare legs where it drags anytime I stretch or shift.

Even my feet are warm, covered by something equally coarse.

The way the world feels around me lets me know I’m laying down—that I’m surely aware of.

Guess that means I’m in a bed, and when the female talks about antibiotics, the clues just fall into place.

I’m being treated somewhere—a clinic, hospital, something.

At least he hasn’t left me, or the staff hasn’t pushed him out.

A cool sensation floods the inside of my arm once everyone goes quiet, tingling a little bit, then there’s a pain on the top of my right hand.

Makes my hands flex. I don’t like the way any of it feels.

Not having control? I experience that every day of my life.

Despite the fog, my mind is my own; rare occurrence, I know.

The least they could do is let me have a say over what happens to me.

Let me wake up enough to open my eyes, anything is better than this.

Slowly the discomfort starts to dissipate but still I’m more so trying to come out of the veil. I want to see, to understand why there are sensations in my body I don’t recall feeling before. Now, though, they are so strong they’re shielding me from life itself.

It hurts, my body does yes, but it’s my heart.

I only want to be a boring girl, nothing special about me, just go to school and eventually sit in a fancy chair in some stuffy office listening to other peoples problems. Being this person, having these…

things… inside of me makes life difficult and it’s so painful knowing I’ll never be just -Sadie.

A familiar level of calm settles over me once the itching in my arm stops.

It’s something I know too well, and now I get why I’m not able to make it out.

They have me back on my medication—drugging me into numbness.

A casing of the person I truly want to be, walking around with nothing going on inside my head other than pulling my mask down and faking every interaction I have to endure.

If there ever comes a day where I finally get to make the decisions, rid myself of the plagues that reside deep within me, I’m going to take it and run. However it looks, it’s better than this. A cut above being a puppet and losing everything that makes me, me—one dose at a time.

Almost submerged in the fray, a roughened hand a bit warmer than mine grabs the back of my left one. There’s something in the way though, like a part of me is blocked from feeling the full expanse of whoever is holding it. Here comes more sensation, what I can deduce to fingers pulling at— ow!

Reflexes kick in, causing me to jerk my hand back. Whatever is circling my wrist, is keeping me hostage now when all I’m trying to do is get away from the pain.

“Shhhh, Sunshine. I’m just removing the bandage. It’s been on long enough.”

That’s him, the voice.

Listening to him is like drinking down a hot cocoa, smothered with Jiffy-puff, oh man and espresso powder dusted on the top.

I can almost taste it if I think hard enough.

He finishes working the bandage off and disappears from my immediate vicinity, the atmosphere doesn’t feel crowded anymore if that makes any kind of sense.

Almost saddens me, not being able to see who that was.

Probably just another person from the staff here, tasked with sitting to watch over me like I’m going to somehow get out of a bed and walk when I can’t even see.

I hate this, please don’t leave me alone. Not when I’m me. The ghosts are gone and I… I need you.

My lip trembles when my heart sinks. The ache of total loss and abandonment—it’s consuming.

Don’t let them come back, the voices. They scare me and… and I feel safe with you.

“Heyyy, what’s wrong?”

His hand slides into mine, versus sitting on the back of it. Squeezing tenderly, a function most typical people follow through with when they’re trying to comfort someone. Why did this have to be me? What did I possibly do to have to live this way? Why can’t I see him…

“Sadie, you can hear me, right? Can you try to squeeze my hand, let me know how strong you are?”

Scraping up every ounce of energy I can manage, I squeeze his hand with all my might and he yelps. A deep rumbling laugh follows. It's one of those laughs from deep within your chest, complimented by a breathy type chuckle afterward. Must have done good if he reacted that way.

“Said squeeze, Sunshine, not break it. Damn, that’s my shooting hand too.

” The way he smiles can be heard in his words too.

Bet it’s half cocked to the side, no teeth though.

That’d require him to seem approachable and if the faint memory of his dealings with the medical staff is any indication, he prefers to be unapproachable.

“Was worried about you. Gave me a rattle, if I’m being honest. Dished out a hell of a beating, I’ll add. Where’d you learn to fight like that?”

What the hell is he talking about? I mean, the gym…

I learned to fight at the gym. Keeps me moving and shadows the pain I inflict on my body.

My parents didn’t think anything of me coming back to the house with a few bumps and bruises on my arms and legs—chalking it up to my sparring.

The ones they didn’t see, however, were the big ones on my hips and thighs from falling hard during practice.

When Kate would start swimming about, picking and pulling at my thoughts, I’d push on the bad bruises and soak in the pain.

I don’t answer him, partially because I can’t when in actuality I don’t want to confess. Some secrets will forever be mine to keep.

“Don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. Now that I know you’re coherent enough to understand what I’m saying, I’ll leave you be.”

He starts to pull away, so I tighten my hand and try to turn my head to face him. Still waiting for the shroud to fade away, where I can be a real girl.

“Alright then, hint taken.”

Relief floods me, knowing he’s not going anywhere. That he will be here with me.

“Injured yourself pretty good. Those gashes in your arms, they’re stitched up pretty but will take a while to heal. Do you know what happened? Squeeze once for no, two for yes.”

I squeeze once to which he sighs.

“Your old man was tending to that interesting uncle of yours while you were tangled up with your mom in bed. Watching some movie. I don’t know what happened before that but you got hold of something sharp in the bathroom and—well, I’ll let you do the math.”

See, that’s why I fight at the gym. So I can feel something when there’s nothing but pain to experience.

Cutting, that’s not something I do. Actually, I’ve never done that.

It would have raised entirely too many flags and if a doctor saw that sort of self-harm things wouldn’t have gone over well.

All this tells me is that one of the three did it intentionally, my money is on Liz. Since blood is her thing.

I give him another long squeeze, lacing my fingers with his thicker ones, hoping he takes that as an invitation to keep going.

To tell me what all happened, be transparent with me.

Some people seem to think I cannot handle the cold hard truth, since I’m still so young.

On the inside, though, I feel much older.

“Want me to go on?”

Two squeezes.

“Took you in to get patched up. Surgery for a few hours, then up on the post-surgical floor for a long nap. Well, that side of you that likes to cause mayhem showed up and gave me one hell of a bruised neck. Shouted for help, staff did what they could to get you under control, now we’re here.”

Fearing I know where this is going, I give him two more squeezes. He waits for a few seconds, then I feel his other hand resting on the back of mine. Cocooning me in his grip.

“Just a few floors north, Sunshine. In the mental health ward. They heard you saying some things in a language they’ve never heard and doped you up on your medication. Said it will help regulate you and get you back to the level you were on before all this shit started to go down.”