Page 50 of Protector

I clear my throat, finding my voice, even though it’s hoarse and painful.

“Some sort of prison. Fuck knows who’s in here, but it’s some sort of secret organisation the Districts have been working on.”

This information is part guess and part what I’ve heard the other cellmates discuss as the day has gone by. But I don’t think we’re ever truly going to know what this place is, or if there’s a way out.

King is quiet for a long time, studying my face, my red eyes, the defeat that has overcome me.

“They killed her, man,” he says finally, his voice cracking, tears of his own trailing down his face.

“I know.” I walk over to him, dropping myself onto his mattress and holding him. “I know.”

Since that day, I never had much reason for living.

King got out after a year, but I was still stuck in my cell for days on end. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned to months, and months turned to years.

The number of times I debated killing myself and ending the torture for good is unending.

But the only thing that kept me going was vengeance.

King had promised me that once he’d kill Carlo, I’d be free, and we could make amends. Try to find a new way of living.

Most days, it wasn't enough, but then I think of Bonnie and her terrifying last moments. How scared she must’ve felt, how hopeless and lost and horrified.

Our baby that never got to grow and see the world.

That never got to see me or its mum.

I never had much reason for living. But nine years later, a young girl came into the District prison and changed everything.

She wasn’t sweet nor innocent. But she was treated poorly by those who should’ve loved her. Discarded by a father who should’ve been there for her.

She needed someone, and I was it.

I knew Bonnie was looking over me. I knew there was a purpose for why I had survived nine lonely years in this prison.

It was so I could protect Theodora Harlow in a way I could never protect Bonnie Rhivers.

And when my time had finally come and I was bleeding out on the cold concrete floor, Theo’s small body crying over me, I didn’t feel an ounce of sadness or regret.

I saved Theo in a way I could never save Bonnie.

And now, after years of turmoil and pain, I can finally be with her. With our baby.

I can finally be with my family and have the freedom of our lives.

We can finally have our Neverland.

Eighteen years is a long time to live with no one by your side. No constant, no family, no love.

Eighteen years is almost impossible to live without any of it.

It’s also a long time to live, when the few people in the world who know you think you’re dead.

But you know what makes it possible? The urge to protect, the urge for revenge, the urge for survival.

Eighteen years ago, Carlo shot me in the shoulder. I passed out, my world going to black, and instead of disappearing through the pearly white gates of heaven, which after eighteen years I’m struggling to believe exist, I woke up in an unknown location, surrounded by unknown people, and some months after that, I gave birth to a baby boy.

He was ripped out of my hands the moment he left my body and straight into the arms of Carlo Rhivers.

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