Page 95 of Phobia

I’m going to be sick. I’m going to pass out. I’m sweating and panting, looking anywhere but at the throbbing wound.

My lip wobbles as I stagger to the bathroom and dig into the medicine cabinet above the sink. I grab the bandages and the peroxide and the antibacterial ointment. I know it will sting. I try to center myself, seeing my haggard appearance in the mirror as I close the cabinet. White-blond hair, wet with sweat, has sealed itself to my neck and forehead, and vivid blue eyes are wide in terror.

I can do this.I can do this.

My leg is wet; I can feel the slickness of it every time I move. I bite my lip and groan, tears coming to my eyes at the thought of seeing it. Of seeing that horrid crimson liquid. My insides draining out of my body, my life force slipping out.Seeing it, touching it, smelling that sharp, metal tang … A wave of nausea runs through me, makes my bowels clench and churn.

Slumping down the wall, the stretch makes my knee scream in pain. Still, I avoid looking at it. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I pull my knee toward my chest, making to roll up my pant leg to expose the fresh cut. Maybe I can fix it, apply the salve and the bandage without ever seeing the wound. My fingers shaking, I begin the ministrations, applying first the peroxide on the pad of a cotton ball. It stings, zapping a bolt of electric pain through me. My eyes flash to images of a similar kind, memories I’ve tried for so long to block out. When the pain of a bleeding wound was intensified under harsh treatment.

“Mmm …” I grit out, biting my lip to withhold the scream I know wants to escape. As the used cotton ball falls from my hand, I shiver, knowing what comes next. Dressing my injury with ointment, touching that slippery, bleeding surface to apply the salve.

I can’t think about it.Don’t think about it.I squeeze the tube, apply the viscous, clear substance onto my fingers and then, shaking, bring my fingers to the wound. I make contact, skin on torn skin, and immediately, I retch, upending the contents of my stomach all over the bathroom floor. I throw up and keep throwing up, attempting to get to the toilet. Trembling, I grip the rim to steady myself though my head is spinning.

There’s blood on my fingers. My mind flashes to bloodstained hands, fingernails coated in bright crimson. Laughter in the midst of tears. My brothers. Enjoying my pain. Inflicting it on me in complete elation. Giggling as I scream and wail.

As my vision starts to dim, I feel a cold gaze. See a body approach from the shadows. Then everything goes dark.

“What’s the matter, Adrien? Does the baby need his pacifier?”

I’m six years old, and my father has just died. My big brothers hold me hostage after the funeral, all three of them at least ten years my senior, siblings from the woman my father abandoned when he chose my mother instead.

They’re charged with taking care of me. But they hate me. They resent me and what my presence means.

My mother, younger and more beautiful, replaced theirs. With my birth, I became the prized child. My father loved my mother. Worshiped her. She was his obsession, his treasure. She died giving birth to me, and for the first six years of my life, my father looked on me as the reminder of the love he lost. He doted on me as a replacement for his wife. And in doing so, he turned a blind eye on his other sons.

Angelo. Dominic. Mickey. My brothers. My demons.

My father was a wealthy old man in life. He lived in the country in an old Victorian mansion, newly renovated but still dripping with the extravagancies and ornate detailing of its lineage. Servants surrounded us always, took care of our every need.

But not right now. My eldest brother, Angelo, stands to inherit my father’s business. He’s become master of the house in this extremely archaic hierarchy. But I don’t understand any of this. All I know is I’m alone with my brothers, these monsters who wear my brothers’ faces, and I’m terrified.

I’m backed into the corner of the basement, and they tower over me, leering down at me with smiles stretched as though carved from a thousand knives. And I’m crying. Of course, I’m crying. My father is dead. I’m alone but not alone. I’m worse than alone in their presence.

There are so many things I don’t know, can’t know, the moment it all starts. The first time among many. When they use their hands to hurt me and tools to make me bleed. When they give me wounds in places no one else can see and tell me they’ll kill me if I tell anyone.

Such is my life for the next ten years. I live in constant fear, jump at every noise, every

sideways glance across the dinner table. I sense trouble from a mile away, become an outcast at school. No friends, always eating alone, never making waves for fear someone will hurt me. I fall under the radar, drawing no attention to myself. My grades are fine. I speak when spoken to, always dressed in clean, quality clothing, looking well-groomed and healthy.

A boy from a wealthy family. A child born of tragedy, quiet but well-adjusted, with three brothers who take care of him.

But behind that mask, I’m suffering.

I’m sixteen, and I’m bleeding, bleeding, bleeding. There’s blood everywhere, leaking from my skin, my insides coming out, pouring from me like water from a faucet. I’m dying. I hold my hands over as many of the holes as I can, trying to keep myself from seeping out.

The room is stained with my blood, all colors of red, bright, crimson, turning brown from the hours of torture inflicted upon me.

Tears stain my face, streak through the blood and dirt. I’m faint, light-headed even, as

I slouch into the hard wooden chair to which I’m bound. This moment alone is the first moment of reprieve I’ve had for hours, and all I can do is scan the room for escape, determined to survive. My body, lean and long, fights to survive.

This time is different. The way Angelo struck me, and the way Dominic held me down … The way they both took turns running me through with different sharp objects … It felt different than the other times. If I don’t escape, I won’t make it out of here alive.

The door handle jiggles, and Mickey walks in. The youngest of my three brothers, a man grown at twenty-six, he towers over my much smaller body, his dark eyes drinking me in. They rove the length of me, all the bloody holes: stab wounds, burn marks, scratches in my pale skin.

“Had a little fun, did we?” he asks, and I choke back a sob. Mickey isn’t the worst of my brothers—he likes to watch more than participate. But right now, he’s watching me like a predator, with beady eyes full of raw lust and heat.