Page 112 of Amnesty

She didn’t respond. Her eyes remained closed, her body limp against the bed. I launched over her and put my ear to her chest. The sound of her heartbeat was there and strong. With a great heave, I pushed off her.

I wasn’t going to get any more answers out of her. Hell, I was incredibly lucky to have gotten what she said at all.

I raced from the room. Dr. Beck was standing at the nearby nurses’ station.

“She woke up!” I told him, rushing over. “She moved and blinked her eyes. I think she fell asleep, though.”

“Are you okay?” he asked, studying my frantic movements.

“Yes!” I insisted and started to hurry away. “I’m fine. Just help her!”

Running down the hall to the elevators, all I could think of was getting to Eddie, telling him what new information I had. I knew it wasn’t a lot, but it was something.

The middle set of doors dinged open, and I charged ahead. A body rushed out, and we both nearly collided.

“Amnesia!” Eddie exclaimed, catching me by the shoulders. “Thank fuck! Where have you been?”

“I talked to her!” I burst out. “She told me!”

“Told you what?” he asked, giving me a gentle shake.

I looked up into his worried face, but the image began to fade, began to change… until it wasn’t him I saw at all anymore. Until I wasn’t standing in the hospital hallway.

My fingers dug into his biceps as I fought what I knew was coming.

“No,” I said, but it was futile.

I was taken from the present and dragged brutally back into the past.

The musty, overpowering smell of damp earth burned my nose. You’d think by now I’d be used to the scent, but I wasn’t. I might never be.

It was worse when it rained, and tonight (or today), there had been one hell of a rainstorm. Even we could hear it down here. Sadie cried and screamed from her cot on the other side of the room as rain pelted the ground above us and thunder boomed so loud the stone around us shook.

I told her a few times it would be okay, that the storm wouldn’t hurt us down here. I didn’t know if she heard me over the rain and her own cries, but I kept telling her anyway.

I was chained. I think she was, too. The rocks were cold against my flesh, but when I sat huddled in on myself, it wasn’t as bad. My corner of rock stayed sort of warm from my body heat, but I wasn’t sitting back there now.

I’d stretched out, crawled across the floor as far as I could, moving as close as I could get to Sadie.

I hated hearing her cry. It seemed that was all she did. When he came down in the middle of the night as we slept. And now during the storm. There was no peace here. Not for anyone.

Eventually, the storm subsided and the smell of damp earth pressed in. I drew my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around them, and buried my face against myself to try and keep out the worst of the stench. Sadie was quieter now that the rain had stopped. I thought she might be sleeping.

I had trouble sleeping down here. I was afraid he would do worse things to me when I was unconscious. I’d rather just stay awake and know the pain for sure.

The familiar, distinct creaking of the overhead trapdoor made me stiffen. I sat up, plastered my body back against the wall, and stared up. When no sunlight shone down, I felt a pang of deep sorrow. I missed the sun. He didn’t know it and I would never say, but whenever he came down here, there was one thing I liked.

For brief moments, sometimes even a full minute, sunlight would stream down into this damp, dark prison. Reminding me there was life above us, that the sun still shone even though I couldn’t see it.

I wondered if it would still feel warm against my cheeks, if the air would still linger with the scent of sunshine.

All too fast, he would shut that door, though, closing us off from any kind of pleasure, climbing down into this hole to bring us more pain.

I still ached from the last time he’d been down. My body felt torn and swollen. My flesh still bore the sting from his bites. I’d made the mistake of crying out the first time he’d bitten me.

He liked that.

He did it over and over again.

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