Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 103712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
“And what about your mother?”
Pain engulfed her heart. She bowed her head. “My mother passed away while I was committed.”
A moment of silence passed as she fumbled with the bottomless regret of missing those last goodbyes. Big breath in… Deep down, she believed her mother fought to keep her out of that place, but she was no match for her father. And in the end, the fight might have been what killed her.
“Yet here you are,” Hunter sneered. “Free, on the same island your brother had no business visiting, lying about your identity, trespassing through our home, and stealing our things.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Because you’ve been feeding us bullshit lies since you arrived!” Hunter roared as he slammed his fist into the wall.
“I had to lie!” This time, she didn’t cower. “They had no plans of letting me out of that place! They would have let me rot inside those white walls. Do you know what it’s like to have your freedom stripped away so completely that you can’t even choose your meals? I had to swallow whatever pills they fed me, wear soft clothing, stare through barred windows. And when I tried to reason with them, they doubled my dosage and turned me into a walking zombie. If I threw up the meds to keep my senses, they…”
“What?” Stone asked. “What else did they do?”
She rubbed her temples, remembering the way they strapped her down and made her bite into the rubber mouth guard.
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” Her voice turned small as she rubbed away the feeling of having her wrist strapped down. The sensation of five orderlies pinning her to a gurney as she fought with all her might. The indignity of having her clothing tugged and her privates exposed, all so they could get her to submit. And then came the shocks.
The first was always the worst, when the body was still engaged in the fight and every muscle went taut. It was an unwinnable battle, yet she instinctually fought them every time—until she couldn’t.
Sometimes she felt them removing the head gear and pulling away the mouth guard. Other times she saw them as if through a dream as they lifted the padded cot onto another surface and wheeled her back to her room.
Afterwards, she was always still. Not numb, but too overtaxed to truly feel the reality of life for a bit. Her tongue was too tired to move, and her eyes stayed unfocused for days. It was as if her spirit were forced outside of her body and her flesh only held bone to cage whatever remained of her mind.
She didn’t have the words to make them understand everything she’d survived. “It was hell on earth.”
“How did you escape?” At Ash’s quiet question, she straightened and blinked back to the present, forcing those horrific memories away and digging deep for courage.
“I was visiting family, home for the weekend.”
“I didn’t know hell sanctioned field trips.”
She glared at Hunter. He was right, of course, but that wasn’t the point. “Only for well-behaved patients.” Which she was not. “Jordan brought a friend home that weekend. A girl.” She couldn’t claim the girl was a woman. “She looked barely sixteen.”
Hunter hissed what could only be a swear word in Russian, as Stone turned away, rubbing the back of his neck. Ash was the only one not to break eye contact. He wanted the truth and intended to have all of it.
“I tried to help her,” she confessed truthfully. “You have to believe I’m not like him.”
“How did you try?”
“When Jordan was preoccupied, I told her to leave, but she had no interest in going anywhere. She wanted to be with him. Jordan caught me trying to force her out the door and lost it. He called my dad, then they contacted the facility. They were already looking for me.”
“Because you weren’t allowed to leave in the first place.”
“Correct. Jordan…” Those final moments had been her last familiar glimpse of her family. “He said that would be the last time I ever saw home. He promised to have me committed for the rest of my life.”
The walls were closing in on her. Just the thought of wasting away in that place for a lifetime left her claustrophobic and terrified. She still wasn’t safe. These men could turn her in, send her back to that waking hell, and sentence her to rot for the rest of her life.
She was suddenly very tired, as if she hadn’t slept in months.
“So you ran,” Stone said, with something approaching understanding in his voice.
“Wouldn’t you?” She met his emerald eyes without flinching, and he gave a subtle nod.
“Why did you come here, to Kassel?”
“I needed to go somewhere they wouldn’t think to look. I’d heard how exclusive the Isles of Kassel were, and when I found the invitation it seemed almost serendipitous. I’d once heard Jordan mention that he couldn’t go back, but I had no idea why. I just figured anywhere he wasn’t welcome was safe.”