Blizzard

chapter 20

"Tell me more?" Toni removed the old dressing and put it behind her on the coffee table–placing it so the side stained with blood didn't touch the table surface.

"I guess I owe you that, huh." Shelby said, smiling weakly.

"You don't have to if you really don't want to," Toni said. She picked up a wipe and wet it with saline solution, before looking back up at Shelby. "Though, you basically know everything about me..."

"I suppose it's only fair." Shelby looked at her apologetically.

"No–I mean–You don't have to," Toni didn't want Shelby to feel uncomfortable–to force her to tell her if she really didn't want to–but she'd be lying if she said it wasn't eating her up inside not knowing what the fuck had happened to Shelby the past few days she'd been absent.

"No, no, it's okay. I want to."

"Alright, well, whenever you're ready." Toni said as she started wiping the wound clean.

"I'll just–I'll let you finish first." Shelby said, her voice wavering slightly. "It's a little distractin'."

Toni tried not to make assumptions about what Shelby meant by that as she cleaned the wound. It was most likely still about the scars anyway.

After Toni finished applying the clean dressing, she sat back on her calves and looked up at Shelby. "All done."

"Thanks." Shelby quickly pulled her sweater down, covering the dressed wound and the surrounding scars.

Once Toni was done cleaning the wound and had applied the clean dressing pad, she sat back, cross legged instead of on her knees, and listened as Shelby told her about what had happened. She told her about a trip. About the things during which she'd been coherent enough to remember. About a fake priest and his assistant. About them doing shit to her in the pretence of curing her while really just drugging her. About some weird ass bathtub and narcotized tea.

Toni felt sick to her stomach. The more Shelby told her the more the sick feeling in Toni's stomach grew. What kind of parent signed their own child up for something like this? Even if it had actually ended up being what Shelby's father had intended to sign her up for–some fucking exorcism-like shit–how little did he have to care about Shelby's actual wellbeing if he was willing to put her through something like that? Toni couldn't believe how ignorant she'd been. She used to think Shelby had some perfect home life with a picture perfect family; it turning out to be quite the opposite did nothing to quell the sick feeling in her stomach.

"So he has tried to cure you before?" Toni asked after Shelby had explained how she'd escaped, who'd been behind the whole thing—some kind of scientist named 'Dr. Gretchen Klein'.

"Yes. He's been looking for a cure ever since I became... this ."

"I'm assuming it didn't go well? The first time I mean."

"No. I was lucky I got out when I did." Shelby looked down at hands, which were fiddling with the hem of her sweater. "I don't even know if she ever actually intended to cure me. The few months I spent at her facility...The longer I stayed there the more apparent it became what she wanted from me. What I was to her. A subject."

"Jesus." Toni couldn't imagine what that must have been like. She knew what it was like to be seen as worthless and disposable, but to be seen as not even a person, just a subject–something you can experiment on without really caring about the effects it will have on said being–was abhorrent on a whole other level.

"Wait," Toni frowned, "If you're sure no one followed you, how was Linh able to find you?"

Shelby opened her mouth but closed it again without saying anything. She looked down, frowning, as if she hadn't really thought about it before. "I don't know."