Classified || 2 || ✔️ mature

10 | Lilac

MONTHS EARLIER

No matter how hard she tries, her eyes won't open, the dull lights above flickering at the sound of the door opening.

Lilac squeezes her eyes tighter, trying to lift her hands from the bed but the leather binds give nothing. The little energy she has waning, the wounds at her elbow pulling and stretching as she tries to twist it from the binding.

Just one hand, that's all she needs.

A sob wrenches from Lilacs lips when a hand is placed firmly over her own, a murmur assaulting her sensitive ears. "Tighten the binds."

"Please." The broken whisper slips from dry lips, the course skin scratching against each other. Blood blooms, meeting her tongue.

The person ignores her, fingers prodding at Lilacs elbow, looking for a vein.

The woman holds her fingers flat against the spot, the cool touch of a needle piercing the skin, agonizing heat exploding in Lilacs veins.

A scratched, gurgled scream releases from her lips, my body convulsing.

"She's moving too much."

"Just get the job done."

Her body falls still at the second voice, muscles tense and convulsing every few seconds before it shuts down. The needle is removed and pushed back in.

The headache starts instantly, thudding incessantly as the memory of a similar pain but so much worse explodes in her mind's eye. Pain simmers around the edges of her being, bile threatening to spill from cracked lips, crawling up her throat, a stream of volcanic ash.

Her body doesn't feel her own. Her thoughts jumbled and memory stained.

She coughs and splutters as the seething heat burns a broken scream from her throat, the shattered sound no different to the many others these walls have heard over the last month.

Her body convulses once more, bile climbing up her throat, but she can't move, can't save herself.

It pools in her mouth before her body forces it back down her throat, bile bubbling from the sides of her mouth as her body fights gravity.

"Turn her!" A voice barks. "She's no good to me dead."

Rough hands grab at her shoulders, twisting her body so hard she feels her thumb dislocate as it slips from the binds. Lilacs eyes snap open, the vomit in her mouth spilling onto expensive leather shoes.

Airways clear once more, they shove Lilac back on the bed, rebinding her escaped hand.

Brown eyes blink up at the man above her, another sob escaping.

"Why?"

"Don't ask silly questions, Lilac. I raised you better than that."

The man who shares Lilac's blood turns his back on her, walking from the room with his signature swagger. Salt and pepper hair shining brightly under the florescent lighting.

Another man stands stoically at the entrance, his light eyes on me, hand palming his thigh.

"Come Nathaniel."

The man turns and joins his boss, looking back to leer at Lilac before palming the bulge in his pants and stalking after Lilac's father.

The nurse at her side prods her finger against Lilac's elbow once more.