Page 105 of Like An Animal

Just raw pain.

I didn’t even have someone there for moral support.

Even though they had the room sterilized after Charlotte was born, it never stopped smelling like she was just born. Not even a month afterward.

I hear the squeak of doors opening and closing around me until I’m shoved into a hard surface. I grunt as pain slices through my stomach, down my limbs.

God, that hurt like a bitch.

The sack is ripped off my head and I look around as the two masked men walk out of the room, closing the door behind them. Isaac stands next to me, his arms crossed over his chest, and he scowls down at me.

“What?” I grunt before using my bruised abdomen to stand up, even as my hands remain tied behind my back.

“Where’s the child?” he asks, his voice level. “I don’t expect you to come out with it easily, but this way you actually have the opportunity to come clean without any punishment. Be honest and we’ll get back to where we left off before you ran away. You have my word.”

I scoff and roll my eyes but the action earns me a back-handed slap across my cheek, one hard enough to sting.

“You’re back home, Mary Elizabeth. You know what is expected of you.Behave.”

He wants me to be respectful, but he’s not going to get that. I broke myself of his training and I’ll never go back to that meek little mouse, even if it kills me.

“Fuck you. I don’t give a shit what you do to me. I’llnevergive up my baby.”

I keep everything gender neutral because no matter how insane it sounds, they don’t know if the child I had was a boy or a girl. No one cared to ask or look for themself. None of them care about children until they reach the age of initiation.

“I fear you don’t understand how deep the hot water is you’re standing in. That child is David Durst’s grandchild which makes them the property of The Fathers of Jephthah. We don’t take kindly to those stealing and hiding our property.”

I raise a brow at him. “And you don’t understand how far a mother will go to protect her child. You forget I know how things work. If I told you where my child is located, you would go grab and initiate them. So, no, I’m not telling you no matter what youdo to me. I ran to protect my baby. It was worth it no matter the punishment or the torture.”

His eyes narrow, rage covering his face, before he grabs a handful of my hair. Nearly ripping it out of my head, he yanks me to him until I can smell his breath.

I nearly gag.

“Have it your way, jezebel.”

He slams my face into the table, smashing my cheek against the mahogany surface, before ripping the blinds off the window in front of me. He throws them to the side before lifting my head, forcing me to look into one of the many torture rooms, but this one makes my heart stop.

There, tied down to a chair with stir-ups, is my Aunt Cheryl. She’s naked with blood and dirt all over her body as she screams against a device attached to her face. It looks similar to a horse bridal but it’s more complex. The mechanism is attached to a pulley system and the purpose of it sinks in.

It’s to rip her fucking jaw off her face.

“You know, no matter how much we tortured her, she wouldn’t tell us anything. Not where you were, how you got there, or even the name you were living under. She wouldn’t give us a single detail about the child either. The protective instinct must be hereditary. It has been delightful, breaking her spirit.”

They have been torturing her for four years.

This is why she didn’t want to know anything about where we were going or what we were doing. She didn’t want the ability to break under pressure.

“She can’t tell you anything. She was in the dark about everything. Just let her go,” I demand and Isaac’s fist slams on the table.

“You’re not in a position to make demands, Mary Elizabeth. You’re in a position to either be punished or follow orders. Now, tell me where the child is,” he growls in my ear.

“Bite me!” He forces my head up by way of my hair.

“You’re testing my patience,” he growls as the door opens and one of the masked ones steps inside.

“Waiting on your word, Father Isaac.”

“Do your work until I give you my signal. It seems my intended needs more persuasion.”