Livia Dawn knew it was a bad idea to follow three guys, who were probably criminals, into the woods.
Mistake number 1...
Now, her once quiet life will consist of things she only read in her books. Secrets, Romance, conflict, and maybe, just maybe, s...
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~58~
It's been three days. Three days of sore, bruised and scraped wrists and ankles. 72 hours with a pained neck, tear-stained eyes, a dried-up bloody cheek, and pale skin. I was exhausted, I was broken in every way possible. Everything hurt, my body and my mind. Every breath I took cherished through the panic attacks that felt deadly to me. They lasted until I fell asleep, but even then, I didn't sleep well. Unable to get comfortable with a hanging neck and restricted limbs.
You don't know pain until you've been strapped to a chair for days.
And you don't know broken until you've listed to Mrs. Miller for an hour a day.
She came around 12, from what I could guess. And for 10 minutes she stared at me, and the rest of the time she spoke and I listened. She didn't feed me nor give me any water so I had no energy to even reply, only when she yelled at me to, and even then my words came out as ghostly whispers. It was horrible, listening to her speak for 60 minutes. A form of torture I wished upon no one.
But at the same time, I cherished that hour. It was the only form of human contact I got in a day and when she was here, I didn't do as she expected me to. I didn't submit, though she thought I did. I may have listened to her, but I didn't take much of what she said too seriously. I didn't let myself.
It was hard the first day, feeling overwhelmed by fear and physical pain, but by the second day, I felt numb to a lot. Her words became useless to my tired mind. Some of the things she said not even making sense since I was in and out of consciousness... or maybe I just zoned out.
When she noticed she slapped my arm with a stick, a wooden spoon really, with waves engraved on the handle.
I had red arms after every "lesson", as she called it. They stung for 30 minutes before eventually fading only for them to return the next day.
There were only a few things I really attained from her long lectures.
How I would never amount to Ana. I didn't so much believe it, not because I thought I was better than her but because I didn't feel threatened by her in the slightest. I knew how Colby felt about me, and I knew how I felt about him. She would always hold a place in his heart, as would anyone's late partner, but that didn't mean he didn't like me as well. When Mrs. Miller talked about Ana it was kind of like she was venting to me about what she had lost. In a way it was sad, seeing a mother miss her kid so much, but that remorse for her snapped away when I remembered where exactly I was and why.
She was a heartbroken mother, but a psychotic one.
She also made it clear to me that what happened to me when I was a kid happened for a reason. It constantly sent me into a spiral of memories and heartaches that I thought I'd never revisit. But she kind of forced me to.
