The lights buzz on, illuminating the sombre surroundings of my cell and I already feel the depression for the day ahead, set in.
“Time to get up, you lazy bastards!” Garratt, the grossly iniquitous lead nurse bellows as he thumps his baton on each of our doors. The hate I maintained for that fucking cretin was inexpressible and I often went out of my way to make sure he knew that.
“Come on Gray, look alive!”
I groan and toss my arm across my eyes. What was the fucking point of getting up just to sit in the lounge area and watch another day pass us by?
I was not only enveloped by a crippling amount of excruciation but depression had made a potent arrival too meaning I would not be doing as I was told today.
The night before had been one of the hardest I have ever been forced to live through and by some unlucky fucking chance, I had managed to endure it. The universe and its sick sense of humour seemed to love prolonging my suffering.
Jase and Silas had made a surprise visit whilst the other captives sat down to eat their evening meal, if you could even call it that anyway. Rotten apples and mouldy bread hardly qualifies as a nutritious diet.
The two of them escorted me to the treatment room where they proceeded to demonstrate just how much they had missed kicking the shit out of me. Jase had held my arms behind my back whilst Silas went to town ramming his fists into my stomach. When they changed places, Jase made sure to assault my head the most, knocking three of my back teeth out and leaving my jaw dislocated.
The two psychopaths eventually grew bored of beating me and chained me up onto what we captives know as ‘The Fence’. The Fence was nothing more than a rusted mesh frame that shot harsh and relentless bolts of electricity through anything that is tied to it. For Jase and Silas it was like a shiny new toy that they couldn’t leave alone. I was left tied to the frame all night and the electricity had been set to shoot through in a sporadic pattern which shocked me if I started to fall asleep.
They both repeatedly drilled me about how worthless I was and how I was only useful for one thing. That part of the ordeal didn’t overly affect me as it was nothing I wasn’t accustomed to hearing, only at that point I was hearing it from other men rather than just Jordan Gray.
Two hours had passed since that last rush of electricity ran through me, yet my muscles still spasmed and convulsed at random.
“Gray! I'm not going to tell you again! Get up!” Garrett, growled for the third time. His nasally fucking voice drove me mad. The prick constantly sounded as though he was suffering from a sinus infection.
Just as he did most mornings, for the sole purpose of adding a dramatic flare to his superior position, the fat, pig-resembling asshole began to hammer his baton against my door.
“Then why don't you fuck off and come back later, Gary?!” I shout, irritated by the loud banging. I knew I was in for some form of repercussion as Garrett hated whenever I would refer to him as 'Gary'.
According to Jordan, I did not maintain the superior rank to mock Garrett and therefore was not allowed to disrespect him in any possible way. However, the hilarious thing was, when I told Jordan how Garrett had kneaded my breasts inappropriately with a knife to my throat as I showered, Jordan didn’t see any issue with it and gave the pervert his blessing to do it again!
That last remark seemed to have crossed a line and my door was unlocked and hauled open.
“On your feet, Gray”
I didn't move. It was partially the fact I couldn't without a tsunami of aches, shocks and stabbing pains shooting through me but more because I simply didn’t want to. I fucking hated Garrett and was sure as hell not going to do as he said.
Losing his shit, Garrett whacked the baton across my stomach, forcing my body to curdle into the foetal position. I really didn’t need any more bruising.
The ache from the assault was dull and rippled right through my core into my spine yet I didn't give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry, no matter how much I needed to. There was a brief pause, only my heavy breathing and quiet moans of discomfort to be heard.
However, after that moment and in one swift motion, Garrett had a handful of my hair wrapped around his fist and hauled me, with ease and lack of tenderness, to my feet. I stumbled unsteadily, my slender arms cradling my stomach as he wrenched my skull back so that my head was pressed against his shoulder.
The body odour emanating from him was putrid and potent. I honestly almost gagged.
“Fucking hell Gary,” I panted, my voice strained as he bent my head back further, stretching my throat to it's full capacity. Any further and my neck was sure to snap.
“You need a wash buddy, you reek.”
I think my goofy laugh at the end was what triggered him the most as like Jordan, Garrett despised being mocked or belittled in any way.
I didn’t have the chance to register what was happening until after I found myself looking up, with blurred vision, to the grinning pig head who had just smashed my head against the wall of my cell.
Weary and weak from the attack and the deprivation of my rations for the last three days, I was pulled onto my knees where my hands were then bound behind my back and a gag was pulled across my mouth. I didn't resist, this was the morning routine for Phoenix and I now. A sullen way of life but one we had both become accustomed to. Perhaps a little too accustomed.
I was dragged outside of the cell and stood beside the door frame, ready for the attendance to be taken. Why they fucking did this I'll never know...a majority of us were kept tied to our beds and our doors were always locked, how the fuck were any of us supposed to get out?
Phoenix was already standing across from me, his eyes dark as a purple pocket of swelling engulfed his right one. As he heard me clumsily fall into place, his alluring stare met with my lazy one. Noticing the blood drying on my face, he tilted his head to the right - looking absolutely adorable as he did so. Given that the two of us spent a vast majority of our days silenced, we'd created our own personal sign language. A tilt of the head to the right meant 'You okay darlin?' and a small nod of mine meant 'Better for seeing you, baby'.
Garrett and his little skivvy, Wren began at the end of the corridor. Wren had shoved Harrison onto his knees before Garrett as they assessed his physical state.
The poor kid was always beaten black and blue and was often kept in restraints. It was rumoured that Harrison’s back story was that his wealthy step-father had dumped him here so that he could marry Harrison’s widowed mother without any obstacle. It was said that his mother had appealed for his release but went missing before they were successful.
By how fresh-faced Harrison looked, I gauged his age to be around the sixteen to eighteen mark which was so fucking young to endure all that he did from the orderlies. In the duration of my captivity, I had seen a great many horrors that by some miracle I had managed to drown out having any emotional viewpoint on but when it came to see Harrison and his constant influx of new, oozing wounds, I felt my heart drop and my stomach churn. He was just a kid and they beat on him for that.
Throughout meal times, when all of us were liberated from being trussed up, Phoenix and I had made it our priority to take Harrison’s place if the orderlies began to beat on him. We both ended up in isolation a great deal but if it spared Harrison pain, we were more than happy to interpose.
Jordan had warned me not to interfere but I wasn’t going to let a child suffer. He was a cold hearted bastard but I refused to be.
As they assessed Harrison, taking note of his swollen eyes, fractured and displaced nose and the latest laceration carved into his shoulder, Phoenix tilted his head to the left. He looked at me in an almost accusatory manner, silently asking what I had done to get my head mashed up so bad, so early. Despite the gag wrenched between my teeth, I smirked back at him. He knew me well and was well aware that I got my kicks off of messing with the nurses and orderlies. Especially Garrett, it never got old messing with that prick.
“Put him on laundry duty today. His shoulder needs sewing and he won’t be able to lift fuck all outside.”Garrett announces, appointing Harrison to Justin, the calmer of the eight orderlies.
Next was Chester who was luckily assigned the chore of cleaning the three bathrooms on the ward. He was rarely injured because he was quite the goody-two shoes and his mother owned a large part of the institution, or so I heard Wren say when he was bitching to his boyfriend on the phone a couple of weeks back.
“Gray?” Garrett calls, expecting my eyes to meet his. Pah! Fuck that!
I kept my gaze focused on Phoenix. My name is Adara James not Gray.
Jordan may have forced me into marriage, he may have locked me up in this messed up psychiatric ward and he may have forced me to take his last name but I would forever refuse acknowledgement of anybody who addressed me as that.
Garrett didn’t give me a second warning, most likely because I had already pissed him off enough. He commands his little weasel to ‘teach’ me what happens when I blatantly ignore my ‘superiors’.
Wren, the little lap dog of the ward swung his clenched fist into my abdomen, only it landed much higher than where it had been aimed. With a repugnant smirk, Wren’s knuckles ploughed deep into my diaphragm and shoved up into the centre of my rib cage. The action both winded me and made me screech and thrash in excruciation all at the same time. The pain was like no other I had ever been subjected to. I fell to my knees and was screaming yet my lungs felt as though they were both burning and suffocating inside of my chest.
I hear Phoenix trying to shout for them to let me be but it was a wasted effort as even had he not been gagged, they would only have told him to shut up and mind his own business.
Wren withdraws his fist as I crumble into a heap on the floor, trying to hold my knees as close to my stomach as I was able to. I feel slight relief that he had retracted but the sense came much too prematurely. Wren threw a kick against my head, knocking my jaw so brutally that my teeth automatically tried to bite down and pierced the centre of my tongue.
He goes for another but before he is able to make contact between his boot and my head, Phoenix lunges forward and knocks Wren halfway down the hallway.
Wren, with his stubby and rather ignorminious height, never stood a chance against him.
Anarchy ensued and the ward was put onto lockdown whilst Phoenix was wrestled to the ground and I was hauled to my feet.
“Declan! Hamish!” Garrett calls as he holds the signature blade of his knife to my throat. Phoenix was eventually pulled into a standing position but is about to cause further injury to Wren who was standing not two foot away from him, a triumphant leer curving his slimy lips.
“Uh uh, Mr Lancaster I wouldn’t cause anymore issues if I were you or little Mrs Gray over here will be having a very bad day,” Garrett mocks in a singsong manner as he presses the blade more harshly against my jugular. Phoenix immediately calms himself and lets Declan and Hamish, the two orderlies big enough to handle him, take hold of his arms.
“That’s a good boy. Take him to the isolation bay,” Garrett commands, pulling me closer against his body.
“Make sure his hands are tied above him, we do not need any further outbursts!”He quickly adds as I watch, wearily as Phoenix is pulled away from me. He looked back at me, his expression one of fear which mirrored exactly how I was feeling too. This had been the first time we had been separated after misbehaving.
“You fucking two are starting to become a real pain in my side, you know that?” Garrett snarls, pressing his very noticeable erection more harshly against my hip. I tried to shuffle away from it but the whole attempt was both entirely pointless and pathetic.
“Perhaps a few days apart will sort the two of you out. You will stay in my office whilst I phone Mr Gray and inform him of your extracurricular activities.”
That sentence had my anxiety hit the roof as I knew what the repercussion would be. Jordan had promised that should I misbehave before his next visit then he would beat Phoenix in front of me and then me in front of him. I didn’t care for my own punishment but I hated seeing Phoenix being hurt.
I shake my head and try to mumble the words “No, please don’t” but the muffled version of that only made Garrett laugh.
“Oh…you don’t want me to call your husband? Why is that?” He tittered, loving that I could barely answer back.
“Is it because you’re a dirty slut committing adultery with your husband’s former best friend? I can see why you wouldn’t want Mr Gray to find out about that, he would most likely slit Mr Lancasters throat.”
I swallowed hard at the possibility. Jordan had ruthlessly shot my mother, he wouldn’t hesitate to skin Phoenix.
I had a fabulous retort about how he, as my assigned Nurse, would also suffer because he had condoned our relationship whilst knowing Jordan had given the specific instruction to keep Phoenix and I away from one another when we were first brought here. I attempt to spit the likelihood of Jordan also coming for him but the gag makes it sound just stupid.
Surprisingly, Garrett pulls it from my mouth and tells me to repeat what I had tried to say. Taking a deep, unobstructed breath, I do as he asks.
“I said, what do you think Jordan is going to do to you if he finds out that you’ve been letting Phoenix and I fool around together.”
Garrett didn’t seem to like that idea and shoved the cloth back into my mouth.
He doesn’t speak again and drags me backward.
Enraged by what I had said or by the fact I had one-upped him, Garrett threw me into the isolation bay where Phoenix was sitting against the wall with his wrists shackled above him. I stumbled over, landing flat on my face.
I hear Phoenix mumble before a searing sting exploded through my scalp from where Garrett had grabbed a fistful of my hair. He pulled me by my roots over to where Phoenix was sitting and shackled my hands above me.
“Treasure this day Princess, because it's the last you’ll be spending with him!”
With that, the light was turned off, Garrett stormed out and the door was shut and locked.
Updated - April 25th 2022
Ooh so Adara and Phoenix are back!
Kinda loving her more spicy side!
Word Count - 2700