Page 71 of Lamb

I must have begged for pain relief, vomited every mouthful of water I was forced to drink, and bit Mint’s head off for just breathing about a dozen times.

But there was one thing I had overlooked, the one thing a detox boiled down to.

Waiting.

Waiting until you no longer want a drink, or your body falls apart—whichever came first. Currently, with my raging headache, stomach acid burning my mouth and nose, and a murderous rage that could not be fulfilled or quelled, I was hoping the latter would happen sooner rather than later.

I was not patient by nature, and sitting through over a hundred hours with nothing to do except suffer had long since lost its appeal. We had tried all distractions—the TV was too loud, my headache was too intense to read, and getting out of bed was an overall struggle.

To make matters dire, that was not even the worst bit.

On the outside, I was struggling—my body had become allergic to the world, and my mind wanted nothing to do with it. So, I did the only thing I seemed able to do. The one thing I wished would go away but, contrary to my wishes, had gotten more intense.

My thoughts.

My childhood loomed in the darkness, clawing and slinking its way closer, out from the regresses I had pushed it into long ago. While attempting to thwart its progress, I had latched onto something else instead.

Lamb.

From his confession, to using me as bait, to his admittance about his lack of emotion, to his every action to tend to my wounds and indulgence with my every request. Except for alcohol, drugs, or an execution—those were off the table, apparently.

I lay in a trembling ball on the floor, the carpet swaying like a boat beneath me, out of sync with the throbbing drum ricocheting through my skull. My eyes pincered so tightly shut in a pitch-black room out of a single, improbable fear that a stray beam of light might catch my gaze despite every window being blacked out and every door gap taped over. No phones, no lamps, no light of any kind.

I was both present in pain, but also so far away and distant that I could almost see myself from a third perspective; an outsider looking in. I could not tell whether it was a psychotic break or a coping mechanism, but I took the relief all the same.

But alas, it was only temporary.

The darkness began to gain weight. It pushed on my chest, and I sank into the endless void. Suffocation clung to my throat as water filled my lungs, my gasping breaths turning to gurglesas I fought and clawed desperately to breathe. Just a single breath. Anything.

Instead, fire burst over my skin like I had shoved my face into a blazing flame. It sizzled and burned, and I wanted to scream in agony, but the fire flooded deeper into my chest and lungs. I was being burnt from the inside out, and no matter how I fought, the pain only reached deeper and deeper and—I couldn’t differentiate the pain that zapped across my scalp as my hair snapped taut and my bones cracked as I was torn back.

I could not breathe.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. I cannot—

A sharp piercing noise burst through my ears, darkness swallowing me whole. I fought through the water, wading and struggling, but the noise only got louder and louder. It was insufferable, and my lungs gasped into the water.

Except it was not water any longer. It was air.

And I was screaming.

“ASH!” a deep voice bellowed, a hard violent force slamming into my chest.

I gasped, my throat on fire and my head pounding. I forced my eyes apart, the darkness drawing back inch by inch until my vision cleared and a familiar voice shouted at me.

“Ash!”

Realisation quaked through my brain like a tidal wave and, in a matter of seconds, every piece fell together. I was here, in Lamb’s house. It had all been a dream.

“Calm down, sweetheart.” I felt a pressure on my arm and turned to see soft, pastel green eyes holding steady on mine. Seeing my returning gaze, I watched the intensity soften and a breath rushed from Mint’s lips. “You’re back. You’re here, with us. You are safe.”

I realised I had stopped screaming, the sharp piercing noise melting into a soft ringing in the distance. My jaw hung agape, and I struggled to swallow, my mouth turning into a sandpit.

I took a deep, shaking breath, flickering my eyes away from Mint’s before catching and anchoring onto Lamb’s. His big brown eyes were wide and flickering a mile a minute, his skin pale and clammy, veins threatening to burst from his neck. I wondered how loud I had been screaming to have incited such a reaction.

I reached for my voice to speak, but before I could, my wrought hands sprang in pain. My taut muscles snapped, and I looked down just in time to see them jerk back from Lamb’s arm, five bloodied marks trickling blood down his arm.

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