Page 1 of Queen of Hell

PROLOGUE

Slowly I open my eyes wondering where I am and what’s happened to me. I feel different, and it’s not because of the major fucking headache pounding its way through my skull like a marching band on game day. Tentatively, I touch the side of my head. My hair’s slightly damp and matted. I flinch in pain when I brush along the place I was so obviously struck. There’s a huge lump. I can feel the gash straight through the middle.

Why the fuck can’t I remember what happened?

When I look down, it’s like I’m watching a horror movie. I can’t quite believe what my eyes are seeing. I’m sitting in the shower, covered from head to toe in blood. There’s so much my clothes are heavy, weighing me down, anchoring me to the floor. I take an inventory of my body, trying to figure out where all the blood has come from.

I feel like I’ve taken a beating. I know all too well what that feels like. My shirt is ripped at one shoulder, gaping open in the front, all the buttons missing. My whole body aches and it hurts to breathe, but it doesn’t feel like anything is broken. I feel the sharp sting of cuts all over the top half of my body and arms, like I’ve fallen on broken glass, but I can’t see how bad they are underneath all the blood.

I’m aware I should be terrified. Instead, all I feel is a strange kind of detachment to it all. I sit, looking at my body, trying to remember how I came to be sitting here covered in so much blood.

There’s a strange sensation in my head. Murmurs, quiet enough I can’t understand. Swirling on a loop the more I try to remember. It’s like they know I’m not ready for the truth yet. They make my head spin. I try to focus on what I can recall.

I remember spending the afternoon at the library, slowly walking home alone after Clay text me that his dad needed to see him, and he wouldn’t be able to meet me. I was dreading the moment I walked through the front door, hoping my father had already drunk himself into a stupor and was passed out on the couch by the time I got there.

The swirling murmurs start up again in my head as I continue to remember the moments leading up to now.

I remember opening the front door, walking through it, hearing voices in the living room, praying he’d just passed out with the T.V on. I remember taking my bag and coat off and placing them by the door.

I remember walking down the hallway, making my way to the living room, knowing if he wasn’t passed out on the couch it was better to get seeing him out of the way. There was no way I wanted him to find me in my bedroom. It was always worse when he had to search.

The murmurs start to get louder. Getting faster and faster, like a tornado tearing up everything in its unsuspecting path.

I remember walking into the living room finding my father sitting in one of the armchairs, with four other men I’d never seen before taking up the couch and chair surrounding the glass coffee table that sat in the middle of the room.

I remember looking at my father, the unspoken question of who these men were on my face, and seeing the genuinely evil smile on his face as he looked back at me.

The murmurs in my head are now so loud they are nothing more than unintelligible screams, pounding inside my skull trying to shred through the fog that is shrouding whatever happened to me.

I remember the four men turning to face me. Seeing the same evil smiles on their faces. A feeling of dread wound its way through my body, like a snake around its prey. Paralysing. Squeezing my lungs. Making it almost impossible to breathe, knowing there was nothing but danger in the room.

I remember hearing my father introduce me, like the men were regular guests who had come over to shoot the shit with him. But my fatherneverhad guests.

I remember hearing words come out of my father’s mouth as I continued to look at the men. Words like “just turned fifteen,” and “knows how to take a beating,” falling from his evil mouth.

I remember looking back at my father as the words “still a virgin”shot out of his mouth like a bullet into my skull. The dread grew as I started to understand exactly what was going on, not wanting to believe he could be such a despicable human. But deep down I always knew.

I remember him telling me I was going with them and to not make a scene.

I remember I was terrified. My heart pounded in my chest and I wished it had been like the other times I’d come home. The times when I’d felt the pounding of his fists on my body, simply for having the audacity to be alive.

I remember shaking my head and turning to run, realising I had no more time. That I had to get away or I wouldn’t survive. I nearly made it to the hallway before one of the men caught me, clamping a large hand around my tiny arm and spinning me back into the room. He dragged me along with him until I was standing in front of the fireplace, facing the rest of the men.

I remember feeling the pounding of my heart. The terror at facing the men my father had said were taking me.

I remember wondering why it was happening, but knowing I couldn’t allow myself to be taken. I’d been through enough already.

I remember grabbing the poker from the side of the fireplace. Swinging it with all my strength. Hearing the satisfying thud as it connected with the stomach of the man next to me. The other men laughed at his groan. My father shouted that I was always an ungrateful little cunt. He called me the fucking Devil’s whore. Said I had it coming.

I remember the poker being yanked away. Then the agony of it connecting with the side of my head. I fell to my knees. I knew if I was to fall unconscious, it would be unlikely I would wake again.

I remember the darkness at the edges of my vision. I struggled to stay awake. I heard one of the men tell the others I deserved it. He told my father I would be used and beaten. Told him they would break me in before breaking me completely.

I remember trying to stand, being dragged up by my arm and pulled into a hard chest.

I remember biting down as hard as I could on the arm clamped around me, not letting go even when I tasted the metallic tang of blood on my tongue.

I remember the second thud to the side of my head and how I stopped and looked at the man in front of me when he let me go. I knew the second hit changed something fundamental within me when I heard giggling in my mind. A switch flipped on who I was. The giggling got louder. Then there was nothing.

---