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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN...
Let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time a little girl was searching for the stars. She resided in permanent darkness, in a nebula of pain, a shell --no, a cage-- where there was no escape. She lived behind these bars, waiting, watching, hoping that someday the sky would align and she would be set free. She prayed --to no one in particular, just some unseeing force-- that one day she might grow wings and fly from the confines of her head and her heart. She wished to be free of the voices, she wished to gain control of the shadows that haunted her mind. She wanted to be free of the devil that stood outside her door.
That day --the day she would be set free-- seemed to slip farther and farther out of her grasp as the years waned on.
When she was ten a man took her from her home, killing her parents and winning the young girl for himself. He experimented on her, tortured her, cut scars into her skin that wouldn't ever fade. She would never forget the long nights spent crying into her pillow, the days where dark circles brimmed her eyes and she was left sitting in a drab room with a man sitting across from her. The days where all he would do was sit beside her and cup her cheek and tell her of his grand plans, then remove her energy with his palm and smile as she cried out. He would always smile at her screams.
Oh, how she hated that sickly sweet smile.
Yet, all of these memories, all of this pain, all the anger, slowly began to release. Her fear began to dwindle the moment a dark haired man stepped onto a boat and helped her jump off the side. It fell to ruin when she went to a facility where she would be safe and found a group of friends --no, family-- that she could call home. The recollections became just that, remnants of the past, unburdened yet unrelenting. She gained control after years of fighting with herself, of battling the darkness within her. She found family, she found friends, she found guardians and the closest thing she could get to a normal life.
When I thought I would see Sebastian Shaw again, I imagined him on the ground, knees touching the floor with his hands raised above his head. He would be pleading for mercy, begging for me to show an ounce of compassion. In my greedy fantasies, I would turn away from him, denying everything, and watch as he was pulled away to forever rot in a cell.
When I imagined speaking with my captor once again, I pictured a stark white room and a sheet of plexiglass between us, ears to a phone. I would sit in my chair, looking into his blazing eyes, and smile. I would grin, my mouth stretching wide, and I would laugh. Staccato beats of my trill voice would ring out across the room, and he would stiffen and lash out in anger, but he could not touch me. Those hands would never graze my cheek again. Never grasp my neck so hard I would sport bruises the next day. His hands would never push a strand of hair from my tear-stained cheeks, and he would never whisper his plans into my ears, telling me stories as if it would calm me down.
