Page 64 of Voracious

My cheek hurts as Yulia snatches my hair, the strands breaking and snapping as they’re caught in her ringed fingers. I’ve been fighting like Marlo said so I know how to push my body backwards now and she can’t drag me. Theo is only a baby, I won’t hurt him when he always smiles and he has cute cheeks. He said a word the other day, he’s too little. The smallest out of all the children that have ever lived with us.

She can’t make me do it anymore, I know how to fight now.

My body changes and I grow taller until I’m the same height as her. The cattle prod crackles and I know it’s not real. It’s a dream. But I can’t wake up — if I wake up it follows me.

No, I can’t, I can’t see him again, he’ll cry and I can’t help him.

My hands don’t move as my head is pulled to the side and the smell of burning hair hits me before the pain. I scream out as the brand sears my flesh and pain radiates through my skull, she grabs my jaw, refusing to let me scream.

Move your fucking hands. It’s fake. It’s not fucking real. I can fight now. I’m not the same child.

It doesn’t hurt when she pulls my head back, or when she kicks my knee, because the pain in my skull is worse as she holds me closer to the flame and that searing heat intensifies.

“I told that bastard to leave you, all you are is a problem for me.”

I don’t know if this is a memory that the pain blocked out or if my mind is making it up in the dream, but I focus on her words having never heard them before.

“If that father of hers ever finds out, he’ll kill us all.”

It’s a new voice, male. One I don’t recognize. It’s made up, the story about B having a nice dad who protected her.

Something touches my cheek outside of my dream and I flinch away from it.

“I’ve got you, lisichka. No one’s going to hurt you. I promise.”

Dima’s voice.

I know his voice and he remains in the background as a boot hits my stomach.

“Wake up, it’s not real.”

It is, he’s wrong, he doesn’t know anything, and he keeps calling me forward as Yulia drags me through the house. The voice distorts around the crackles of electricity and then it’s just crying.

Theo.

No.

I can’t.

He keeps crying but I’m back in the 104 days and the voice comes through the door.

“Would you like to leave, princess?”

I do know the voice, it’s him, the guard who would stand there eating and drinking, taunting me, but I can’t talk or move as Theo slowly stops crying.

The guard’s voice gets louder, drowning Dima out.

“All you have to do is open your mouth, and you can leave.”

The door is still closed, and I hug Theo closer. He’s cold and my body morphs again, back to the weak one where he doesn’t fit in both of my arms. I flinch as something touches my forehead outside of my dream and Dima’s voice is panicked.

“Open your eyes, lisichka, come back to me.”

He keeps saying it and I follow his voice until a blurry image of his face is in front of me. Blinking until it clears, there’s relief on his face and he pulls me into his chest. I hate that dream more than the others. I always see it, see Theo’s face every day and he always asks me why I didn’t help him when I don’t see pictures outside of the dreams, but Dima stopped it, and the filing cabinet hasn’t opened to spit out all the details of the 104 days, or the smells as my body shakes. I cling to him, so I know it’s real, as he keeps repeating himself with a lie on his tongue.

“It was just a dream, you’re safe.”

My chest stutters and my words follow as I struggle to breathe.

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