Page 1 of Freeing Emily

"How are you feeling today, Emily?” Dr. Morrison sits in the brown seat across from me. Her gray-streaked brown hair is twisted into a low bun at the base of her neck, and her glasses sit on the bridge of her nose. My file sits open on her lap, and a recorder sits on the coffee table between us. Her demeanor is calm, and her body language is warm and welcoming. And yet… All I feel is the suffocating weight of anxiety. My legs bounce uncontrollably, and I twitch like I’m strung out on drugs. My skin prickles and I feel itchy. The need to scratch and pick at the sensation engulfs me and I struggle to keep my hands from moving to relieve it.

“Good. Really good.” My voice is far too cheerful, and she catches my lie with ease.

“Let's try that again, shall we?” she gives me a pointed look with her head slightly tipped in my direction. Her eyes bore into mine.

“I’m not really sure how I feel,” I say honestly.

“Have you been doing the breathing exercises we discussed at your last session?”

I nod and fidget in my seat. Coming to see Dr. Morrison makes me uncomfortable. I know it’s supposed to help me with my trauma, but I just don’t want to talk about what happened to me. I don’t want to have my demons revealed. I’ve been through so much in such a short amount of time that I haven’t processed everything just yet. Every day is a new mountain that I need to climb and sometimes I feel like I’m climbing Mount Everest. Slowly losing air the higher I hike.

“And your sleeping? How is that going?” she asks in a gentle tone.

My eyes bounce between her deep chocolate brown ones, trying to decide if I can manage to lie well enough for her not to push on the subject. Her expression remains impassive but from the look in her eyes, I know she can see the wheels turning in my head.

“I’m struggling.” I concede with a defeated sigh.

She nods and jots something down in my file.

“During your last session, we talked about the possibility of some medication to help with that. Have you thought about if that’s the route you’d like to take?”

“I don’t want anything that will sedate me.” Panic slips through my voice.

She nods and glances down at my leg which hasn’t stopped moving since I sat down.

“We can try something that can treat any anxiety symptoms you might be having but can also help with sleep without being sedative,” she suggests, lifting her gaze back to mine.

My fingers twist the fabric of my gray cardigan and I gaze out of the window of her office as I mull over her offer. Sleep is a luxury I’ve barely been able to afford in my life now. I’m lucky if I can manage an hour of it. The lights need to be on. The room can’t be noisy but also can’t be too quiet. I can’t have the blanket wrapped around me too tightly either. It’s infuriatingthat my entire existence has been altered in such a significant way because of the monsters who kept me.

I know I need the sleep. Declan has started to notice the dark circles around my eyes despite the concealer I use to hide them. He already has so much going on with Paige and her own trauma and running the empire my father built. I can’t be another burden for him to bear.

Reluctantly, I agree with her suggestion.

“We’ll trial a medication called buspirone and see how you respond.”

“Okay, thank you, Dr. Morrison.”

She smiles softly at me, “You’ll be okay, Emily. I know it.”

I nod despite not believing a word that comes out of her mouth.

The deadbolt unlocking echoes through the room, and we all cower as best as we can with the limited room available. I try wrapping the material of the ripped dress over my knees but it’s too ragged to hide any skin.

Igor’s gigantic frame fills the doorway like a villain in a slasher movie. Dark and foreboding. Every fiber of my being screams to run and seek shelter.

Scanning the room, he searches for his next victim. Every day one of us is taken to be used as the guards see fit.

Some never return.

I’ve been taken three times since being placed in this room. Each time, I was raped until I bled from every hole due to the violence in their thrusts. My body has been persistently littered with bruises of handprints and fingerprints from being slapped or squeezed.

I’ve been treated for STIs and STDs several times since my kidnapping, but the men here apparently are not because I keep getting reinfected.

Igor sets his sights on a thin Hispanic woman chained in the center of the room. When she notices that she’s been chosen, she begins pulling on the chain in an attempt to pull it from its bolt in the ground.

I lower my head to avoid watching him take her. Her Spanish pleas echo in the quiet space, and it pierces my heart. My bottom lip quivers as I continue to avoid watching another one of us being taken.

Her cries are silenced with the slam of the large metal door. The bang echoes in my ears like a bass drum until whimpers, cries, and prayers replace it.

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