Page 43 of Merciless Sinner

I hang my head and cry until I fall asleep and into the dream that always welcomes me when my mind allows me to dream.

I become Alice again, making my way through a deep, dark hole.

The darkness is so black and thick I fear it will swallow me whole.

I’m lost, but it makes me feel like my soul is, too. I keep moving forwards, then that suffocating feeling assaults me.

“Help me!” I cry out to the darkness.

At the sound of my voice, that light pierces through the darkness, and then come the voices. That one main voice that always soothes me, although I can never make out who is speaking to me. It could be a man or woman. I don’t know.

“I got you. Come to me.”

I follow the voice until a hand reaches out to me in the light. I take it, preparing myself to be freed, but then faces flashes before me. At first it looks like one, then it’s two, then it’s too many to pick them a part.

“Olivia, run!”a voice calls out.

“Mom.”My lips move, and I try to say something more, but the sounds of gunfire make me snap open my eyes and out of the nightmare.

There is light around me—daylight.

Virgo steps away from the wall in the corner, alerting me to his presence.

It’s morning. Time to face more of the consequences and repercussions of last night.

My insides tighten with the anticipation of what my complete fuck-up of an escape attempt will mean for me now.

Now that I see Virgo, I realize with certainty how foolish I was. And that I can’t win this. Not the way I think.

True desperation mixed with fear will make you do anything, but I can’t simply run from this situation.

“Morning,Zayka.” He greets me with a name that grates on my nerves.

I don’t answer because I don’t know what he has in store for me yet. As much as I want to get back on his good side, I don’t want to be pleasant if he plans to torture me.

“You were dreaming,” he adds, searching my eyes. “You called for your mother.”

“Did I?” I speak now, narrowing my eyes.

“Yes.”

That’s never happened before, and I’ve also never seen faces in that dream. When it first started happening, I told my doctors, and they hoped it was my memories pushing through, but as time went on, nothing more happened.

“Were you dreaming about the attack?”

“I don’t know. I heard gunfire, and someone told me to run.”

“Did you see anything?”

“Not really. But it came after a recurring dream I sometimes have where I’m searching through darkness.”

Worry darkens his features, and he considers what I’m saying for a moment before reaching for the chains to undo the latches from my wrists.

As my hands come free, all the blood rushes down through my arms, making them sting. I rub my hands together and down my arms to alleviate the pressure.

“Do you need to see the doctor?”

I shake my head. “No, I’ll wait until next week.”

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