Page 44 of Psychotic Nightmares

Be quiet.

Be a good girl.

Stay still.

Be quiet.

Be a good girl.

I close my eyes, defeated. I can’t fight him. I can’t run away. He might as well just kill me like he did Howard. At least I know where he keeps all his weapons, it will be easy enough to get my hands on something at the warehouse.

No, he didn’t kill Howard. Dante did. He killed him so Julian wouldn’t force me to.

Julian just tortured Howard instead, and that's even worse. Is he going to torture me now too? I assume we arrive at the warehouse when he turns off the ignition, opens the door and lifts me back over his shoulder. I open my eyes and start fighting again when I see he is unlocking the padlock to the room Howard was killed in. I know I wanted to come in here alone. But if he tiesme up, I can’t do what I want to.

“Julian, what are you doing?” I panic. Kicking and punching him with every last bit of energy I have left. I hear Jerry-Lee bark and growl at him. Dante must be here.

“Julian, what the fuck.” Bull calls.

“Back the fuck off.” Julian pulls a gun from his back pocket and points it at whoever is there. “She is mine to deal with, not yours.”

“Deal with? She isn’t a fucking target.” Bull shouts back.

“She will be.” He slides the door open and drops me to the floor.Ouch.“Now be a good girl and stay. And don’t make a noise.”

The room is dark when he closes the door back up. I hear the padlock click back into place. He said I will be a target, but who would put a hit out on me. The only one with any grudge against me would be the chief of police for getting his brother killed, but he would just arrest me. Maybe Pa? Ma? One of the uncles.

Who put a hit out on me? I guess I need to end myself before Julian gets the chance to. I’ll just have to wait until I’m alone.

Seconds turn into minutes. Minutes turn into hours. I’m not sure how long I’m sitting in the same spot I was dropped in. Their arguments quieten down to a talk and finally silence. I have been sobbing quietly the whole time. A few minutes of silence pass, they must have gone out.

Eventually finding a bit of strengthto liftmyself up, I start to feel around the wall I used to stand. I know they’re here somewhere.I saw a wall full of different sized knives, I swear I did. My legs weaken from under me after.No. I sob silently.Get up Natalie, you have a job to do.I force myself up, wracking my brain to remember what wall the knives were on.

The left? I shuffle over to my left and feel, nope this is the wall with the electrical weapons.

The rightthen? Again nope, this is where the fireplace is. I shuffle around some more,yes!My fingers glide along one of the sharp blades whilst feeling for the handle. Just as I find it, I realise it's locked in with some sort of mechanism.

Fuck you Julian and all your safety measures.

My eyes start going heavy. What did I do? I slide down the wall, my ass hits the floor with a thump. Unless this is what his promise is. Being locked in a dark room full of torture equipment is a sure-fire way of making all my trauma seem like a fucking dream. I hate the dark at the best of times, but what’s even worse is being locked in a dark room. Madid it to me often. Mostly for something I was being blamed for by one of her precious boys. But the last time she did it, that was the worst.

“Ma, please don’t do this.” I beg.

“You filthy whore. You have just bled all over your uncle, you’re no good to sell now, Can’t have you breeding. So instead you will stay in here and listen to your sisters being good girls.” she screams at me after yet another beating, this time with her beloved knuckle dusters. I just started my period while being raped by one of Pa’s best customers. Of course he got grossed out, saying I’m too mature for him now. Ma gave me the beating of a lifetime for almost costing them a rich one.

She closes the closet and slides the lock across. I hear the cries of my younger sisters pleading with Ma and Pa. I hear them scream in pain as their purity gets stolen from them, their cries as trauma plants itself into their childhood memories. “I won’t breed. Justdon’t hurt them.” I sob quietly, my hands together in prayer. “Please let them forget. Please let me take their pain instead.”

Please.

If there’s a higher being, let my sisters be saved. Let them forget what is happening to them.

Let me take their trauma.

Within two months I was pregnant with Anya. My adoptive father had impregnated me. Ma couldn’t carry her own children and Justine had died before he could breed with her. So being the eldest girl in the house, it was down to me to carry his child. The birth was so traumatic, and I was so damaged after, so ill. I thought I was going to die. Ma finally had the sense to take me to the hospital, where I was treated for sepsis after catching an infection. Pa wouldn’t touch me after that. I was just used as a punching bag for the whole family until the second I turned eighteen.

I sniff, wiping away the tears with the back of my hand.

“He won’t touch you again, treasure.” He soothes after I tell him a memory of Pa I just dreamt about. “No-one will hurt you while I’m around. I promise.” I snuggle into him. His heated skin warms my chills, I caught him just as he was removing his tee before going to sleep.