Page 96 of Mind Maze

What the fuck is happening?

There’s evidence that someone has been here, presumably Theo. On either side of the bed there are empty coffee cups. Beside his is a used syringe.

She was right.

He did drug her.

My mind unravels to a dark, terrible place where Theo hurts her the same way Gareth did. The rage that consumes me is almost unbearable. I get lost in a fantasy of hurting my baby brother.

“You. Don’t. Get. To. Touch. Her.”

Each word is punctuated by my fist in his face. Over and over and over again. My once-handsome little brother’s face is beat to a pulp at my hand. I turn the smooth, youthful skin into a bloody, meaty mess.

I want to kill him.

I want to take him from this earth. Away from her.

After beating him within inches of his life, I drag him away, away, away from the crying shivering girl who belongs to me. He grunts as I manhandle him out of the hotel room and down to the stairwell.

“Don’t,” he begs.

He had no mercy for her as he took what belonged to me.

Ignoring him, I huff as I haul him into a standing position. Then, after spitting on him, I shove him over the railing. His scream is cut short when he slams to the concrete a floor below.

Dead.

He’s fucking dead now.

I snap out of my fantasy and root myself in reality. My brother is very much alive. Until I know what the fuck happened, I can’t just kill him. There’ll be plenty of time afterward if I find him responsible for hurting her.

Scanning the room, I look for more clues. There’s a journal that’s been left on my side of the bed with pictures scattered all about. I quickly peruse the items and determine that they belong to Vivienne.

Why is Vivienne’s journal here?

Is that what Romy was meeting Eva about?

The pictures are of a young child. I pick up one and stare at it.

Everything inside me turns to ice.

I’m frozen like a statue.

How many seconds or minutes or hours pass as I peek into this piece of history?

“More.”

I’m assaulted with more horrible things I’m forced to see. Why does he do this to me? Why does he force me to look at these bloody, gory things? It’s driving me to insanity. He keeps saying it’ll fix me.

I’m breaking.

He’s breaking my mind.

I know I’m sobbing and I know he hears me. He doesn’t care. He never does. The more I plead, the worse it all gets.

Someone screams in agony as though their soul is being ripped from their body. It takes a few second to realize the screamer is me.

How many brutal killings will I be forced to watch on this wicked slideshow in front of me? Torture, murder, rape, bestiality. The most awful things in this world have been culled into a movie meant just for me.

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