Page 41 of Sinful Embers

Another figure steps forward.

A man—his body covered in open wounds, blood seeping from the whip marks. His skin is torn, raw, as if he’s been flayed alive.

Viktor.

Oh, God.

"You let her do this to me," he rasps, his voice barely above a whisper. "I was whipped until my skin split. Raped. Forced to watch as the love of my life was brutalized." He grabs my hair painfully forcing my chin a little higher, my throat cutting into the hard chin rest. “It doesn’t fee good to be betrayed, does it? I doesn’t feel good to lie and keep the truth from people”

“I didn’t know the truth.” My voice is muffled because my air is being cut off from the awkward angle of my head. My stomach wrenches violently. “It was locked away in my mind. I didn’t know.! I’m sorry—I’m so sorry!"

Just like that Viktor drops my head on to be replaced by a cold clammy hand gripping onto my jaw, forcing my head up once again.

Vivienne’s cruel face fills my vision.

"Don’t lie, you little parasite," she hisses. "You enjoyed it, didn’t you? Watching them suffer?"

"No! That’s why you enjoy, you fucking sadistic whore!”

Thwack! Her palm stings my cheek.

“I’m nothing like you!" I scream, fighting back the tears. I won’t let this bitch see me cry. I won’t let her see me beg. I’ll die before I give her that satisfaction and repeat vehemently, “I’m nothing like you.”

She laughs, the sound jagged and sharp.

"Then how do you explain this?"

The room changes again.

I’m twelve years old and no longer on the cold hard table. I’m wearing jeans and my favorite yellow and pink T-shirt, but it’s been cut open in the front slicing through my brand new training bra exposing my young breasts. I want to cover up, but I can’t. I have no control on the scene unfolding—I’m just a passenger in the mind of a twelve year old me looking through the terrified eyes of younger me—living a memory through a nightmare.

While I have no physical control here, I can feel everything she does like something heavy in my hands. I look down it’s a gun.

Again the world swirls and I hear a blast ring in my ears and echo through the dungeon vibrating through my hands and up my arms.

My eyes scan the room, and my breath catches in my throat seeing the two bodies lying motionless on the floor.

Gunther Mirochin and Vladimir Molchanov.

I stare down at them, my small hands shaking, the gun still warm in my grip. I know I should be horrified but all I can feel is relief—relief that there are two less monsters in the world

Vivienne’s laughter echoes in my skull.

"Tell me again, Leigh," she taunts. "Tell me you’re nothing like me. Tell me it doesn’t feel good taking down those monsters.”

I suck in a breath and—

I scream myself awake: “I’M NOTHING LIKE YOU! NOTHING!”

Sitting bolt upright in the dark cell, my heart hammering, my stomach churning.

Tears streak down my cheeks. My hands tremble as I press them against my face.

For a long moment, I struggle to breathe, to remember where I am.

But the truth slams into me like a wrecking ball as just like that the door to the overflowing closet of my suppressed memories bursts open.

I remember.

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