you just seein’ through their wards. Down here no one has to hide what they look like,” she explains, and it sinks into me heavily with the weight of truth.
I run my fingers through my stringy hair, angry and hurt and so incredibly confused.
“Sable, I know this is a lot to take in, but just breathe,” Medley tells me as my breaths become more labored and an angry itch starts just under my skin.
I’ve spent most of my life in one institution or another, and for what? I was never crazy. That realization is heady and disorienting and yet incredibly validating.
Memories slam through me, and I feel them like I feel Morax’s hits: being left behind by who I now know are my adoptive parents, all the fights or attacks from other residents, and sometimes even cruelty from the staff.
My mind assaults me with how hard I worked to see past the terrifying monsters so I could escape and live some semblance of a life. My apartment and the job at a coffee shop that I loved. The man cloaked in evil, and the way he looked at a little boy who was running around one day during my shift. I knew he was going to hurt him. I knew I had to protect him.
But when I tried, it was me who was looked at like I was some evil villain. They threw charges at me like kidnapping and stalking, and they wouldn’t listen about the evil that I saw that was hunting the boy. I would never hurt him, but no one would hear me.
All they saw was crazy. Someone who couldn’t be trusted.
I hear my ex-boyfriend’s voice as he yelled at me, the old words ringing in my ears. I hear him calling me a liar and a bitch because I didn’t tell him about how I grew up or about my issues. He said I was just another psycho and that I deserved to be locked up forever. At the time, I agreed with him. I agreed with them all, thought I was a danger to society, but they were wrong. They were all wrong, and they stole my life from me.
Fury rises around me like steam, and I soak it up, letting it coat my skin.
“Oh, it’s you again,” a velvety voice observes, and it pulls me from the memories bombarding me.
My head snaps up as though the voice is in the room with me, but I recognize the arrogant tone immediately. It’s the man from my head. The dismissive jerk from earlier.
“I told you, don’t call me until you’re ready to prove your worthiness. I’m not ready to settle down, and you can’t just go forcing connections on people, it’s not a good look,” he snarks.
“Get stuffed, you prick! You keep popping up into my head. I already told you to find someone else to annoy,” I snap.
A surprised chuckle tickles down our mental connection. “Whoa, there, Snarls, I like ’em feisty, but don’t take it too far,” he chastises.
I lose it.
“I couldn’t give a raging shit about what you do or don’t like. Unless you’re going to figure out how to get me out of this dungeon and away from the animal with knives and a penchant for pain, then shut up. Keep your opinions to yourself, and stay out of my head!” I snarl, irritatingly earning my nickname as I sneer and breathe hard, screaming in my head to a person I can’t see.
“Dungeon? What do you mean? Is someone keeping you? Hurting you?” the voice barks, but I’m too worked up, and a barrier slams down in my mind as my vision changes to shadows.
Onyx tendrils snake into my sight, and I freeze at the onslaught of my protective darkness as it comes in to help me from my own thoughts. If I’m not careful, the numbness and paralysis will kick in.
“They all said I was crazy,” I whisper to myself, but I see Medley move down the bars to be closer to me.
“Sable, look at me,” she calls out, and my eyes snap right to hers. “It’s gonna be fine. I’ll explain everythin’ to you, but you’re not crazy. You never were. I know a bit about how you grew up, how you’ve been livin’ ever since. But everythin’ you see and feel is real.”
“All the monsters…they were all demons, and I’m in Hell.” I don’t even recognize my own voice. I’m spiraling, and I know Medley is looking at me