Page 131 of Bloom: Part 2

Sweetheart.

That was what Logan called me.

I closed my eyes tightly. “I—” My voice broke as I tugged at the restraints, my skin burning where the coarse ropes dug into it. “Please, just stop.”

“The very opposite, my dear.” He crouched down in front of me, and my eyes flew open. “I’m not finished playing with you yet. You’ve been such a fascinating subject. A real masterpiece of trauma and survival. But there’s still so much more I want to explore. So much I want to do to you. My colleagues have doubts when I tell them about you, so I hope you don’t mind me recording our sessions from now on. This way they can watch our progress. They’re watching you now. Why don’t you say hi?”

For the first time, I noticed the computer screen facing me. He seemed to be on a conference call with several people. I was too far away to see how many were in total. All their cameras were off, but my image filled the screen.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I cried.

A hand cracked across my face. “I will not tolerate your disrespect in front of my esteemed colleagues.”

“Fuck you and your respect.” I spat in his face. “You’re sick. You killed—you killed Max. I’m gonna fucking gut you if Crowe doesn’t get to you first.”

His smile faltered for a fraction of a second, and then his expression hardened. “Gentlemen, if you would excuse me. I will keep you up to date on his progress, but now I must tend to my subject and get him back in line.”

He slammed the lid of the computer down and spun to face me. “Do you have any idea what we are doing here? You should be honored that you were chosen to be a part of this monumental study.”

“You kidnapped me.”

“A necessary evil. You see, I’m willing to do anything to ensure this happens. Nothing can stop me.”

He reached behind him, and something metallic clanged. Before I could process what was happening, the world around me tilted again, the ground falling out from beneath me.

I was weightless, spinning in a void, and then I wasn’t alone.

The touch was sudden, invasive, cold fingers brushing against my bare skin. My breath caught, panic surging as I tried to twist away, but I couldn’t. The voice followed, soft and insidious, slipping into my mind like poison.

“You fear this, don’t you?”it whispered.“You hate it. Because of them. Because of what they did to you. They fucked you when you couldn’t do anything about it, and now you hate anyone who touches you that way, don’t you?”

“No,” I gasped, but the word echoed hollowly, lost in the emptiness.

The boy was back, younger, smaller, and crying. And the shadow was there too, bigger than before, its hands reaching, tearing, hurting.

“No!” I screamed in my mind, a desperate plea. “This isn’t real!”

Was it? It felt like memories but also so distant. Yet not distant enough. The little boy’s cries were gut wrenching, and it came from deep inside me. I felt his helplessness. His fear and pain were my own. The mirage shattered like glass, the sharp edges piercing my mind as I was pulled back to the room. My body convulsed, and I opened my eyes, tears streaming down my face. Dr. Simms stood over me, the camera’s red recording light blinking steadily in the corner. His smile was gone now, replaced with something cold and satisfying.

“See, Bloom? You’ve always been broken. All I’m doing is showing you the truth of what they did to you.”

A noise sounded outside. Motorcycles? Were the bikers here? I opened my mouth to scream, but Dr. Simms slapped his hand over my mouth. He dragged me back along with the chair across the floor to the table where he’d left the gag he’d used earlier. He forced it into my mouth and tightened the strap until it dug painfully into my cheeks.

“You make a sound, and Iwillshoot your precious Logan if he walks through that door.”

He shifted over to the blinds and pried them open enough to survey the commotion outside. The roar of motorcycles got louder until they purred to silence.

“Dammit, how did they know?” he murmured. He picked up the gun he’d used to shoot Max and waved it at me. “One word, and I’ll kill you. I can always get another patient, but you only have one life, and you want to live it with Logan, don’t you?”

The threat hung heavily in the silence. I hated him. I hated what he was doing to me. But the thought of Logan dying in my stead was unbearable.

Dr. Simms continued his surveillance, his body a rigid line of tension as he looked out the window.

Footsteps marched to the door. I closed my eyes, the gun pressed to my temple. The door handle rattled, and his finger flexed on the trigger, but whoever was on the outside walked away.

Dr. Simms was sneakier than any of us could have ever thought. Although they were in the right building, they would never find us. He hadn’t brought me to his office. We were a few doors down.

For what seemed like an eternity, I waited with bated breath, a part of me hoping the bikers would break through the door, and the other part not wanting anyone else to be hurt. My heavy, muffled breaths were absorbed by the gag. Dr. Simms’s gaze never wavered from the door, his hand still gripping the gun.

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