Page 105 of Hidden Empire

My naive little brain hoped, anyway.

“That night, I woke up because I couldn’t breathe. There was this awful burning pressure in my chest, so horrible I wanted to claw myself open at the ribs just to get some air in. I couldn’t move, though. My hands were bound down, and my ankles were too. I just kept thrashing and trying to suck in more air, but I was only making it worse for myself.”

“It’s a natural reaction,” Apollo says, justifying my actions.

I know he’s technically correct, but in the moment, there was nothing natural about that night.

“There was plastic covering my face,” I continue. “I couldn’t tell if it was a bag or what, but it was covering my mouth and nose, and there was no way for me to pull it off. Then my nose started to bleed, and all I could smell was metal.”

The smell of blood still gives me stomach aches.

“The burning slowed, and every bit of me felt numb. But right before everything went dark, the plastic was removed, and I gasped.”

It was the most painfully relieving gulp of air.

“That’s when I realized it was Bruce. He’d been standing over me the whole time, watching me suffer and struggle. He started taunting me while I was recovering, panting for as much oxygen as I could possibly get.”

“What did he say?”

Bile creeps up my throat.

“He asked if I liked my birthday present.”

There’s the slightest stiffening next to me, and I soften at the display, knowing that it means he cares. Even a little bit.

“The life lesson he wanted me to learn? How easily someone like me can be killed. Small, young, weak. Bruce wanted me to know that he allowed me to live, and he could take that away at any time.” I swallow bile back, feeling disgust wash through me. “And that he would enjoy taking it away.”

I knew he wasn’t lying, I could see the pleased glint in his eye while he watched me become a fish out of water. He liked the struggle, and he loved that he caused it.

“When I started to cry, I heard Kim laughing. I thought I was hallucinating, but maybe I just wanted to be. I didn’t want my mom to be able to laugh at me while I felt like I was dying. I wanted all of it to be a lie—a horrible nightmare I’d wake up from as soon as the sun started to rise.”

But the sun never rose again, really.

Not until Dante held me, I think. Even though it was dark outside and I was still scared, the world didn’t feel so cold anymore.

“Jade, did you tell anyone about this?”

I sniff, shaking my head and holding back the despair as best as I can. “The next day at school, I used a library computer to google the side effects of frequent oxygen loss, and it horrified me. Did you know it can cause permanent brain damage? Just one time long enough without breathing, and poof, it can happen right then.”

“Yes,” he answers. “I knew that.”

“Well, when I found out, I went to our school counselor. We’d had assemblies before where they explained that he was a mandated reporter and there for the students who needed him.”

“You told him what happened?”

A bitter laugh bubbles up my throat. “A fat lot of good that did me.”

“He didn’t believe you?”

“I don’t know if he thought I was lying, but I know he didn’t want to deal with me even if I wasn’t,” I answer, still feeling the same anger I felt that day. “He told me that I’m having a lot of strong emotions at this age and must have misinterpreted what happened. That I should take a few days to relax, and I’d realize how I was overreacting.”

Yeah. The forty-year-old man chopped up the traumatized eleven-year-old in his office as a victim of no more than puberty.

I was done trying to reach out for help after that.

I don’t watch Apollo’s face, but I can feel the rage practically rolling off of him. He may know how to control the way he shows his emotions on his face, but his stiff demeanor says enough.

“When I got home, Bruce smiled at me, and I knew it was going to happen again. I didn’t know why or how, but I knew it would. The games were different, but every goal was the same. Convince Jade that he can kill her and that there’s nothing she can do about it.”

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