"There is no hate such as that born out of love betrayed- and my brain screamed out for revenge."
— VC Andrews
FOURTY THREE
I HAD COME TO REALISE that everything that had happened to me was done on purpose. From the Kauffman release on the day I asked for a sign, to the way Nicholas had known my name on the very first day. It was all an articulate plan to break me down into hysteria. I didn't want to admit it to myself but it was truth that it had all worked perfectly.
Mirabel was a true mastermind. The psychopath I hadn't taken time to consider. She had had me and every other person under her spell, and watched as we played along like pawns on a chessboard.
After I had said goodbye to Nicholas, Hank pulled me out of the room. He had been a little dismayed that Banshee hadn't turned me into a broken and bruised. He handcuffed me and walked me in the direction of the prison cells.
I immediately noticed that I was being led in through the back doors, presumably to avoid any of the security cameras in the main halls. After all, nothing that was going on was legal.
"Where am I going?" I asked, wincing at the way the metal cuffs dug into my wrists. I knew it was going to leave marks on my skin. A constant reminder of the hopeless predicament I was in.
Hank didn't respond and just shoved me a little farther into a dark hallway. Much like the hallway to the interview room, it was dingy and unclean. The smell of mould hit my nostrils the moment I went through the hall.
It took me a moment to realise that I was in a section of the prison that had been abandoned by the State, but specially curated by Mirabel for me. This was my very own Hell.
We reached a dark corner that led to a room which resembled a basement. A lonely prison cell sat still at the end of the hall. It felt grimy, dingy and depressing. The lights in the hall were so dim that my eyes strained to see what lay beyond the cell doors.
"Home sweet home." Hank muttered, humour lacing his words.
At that, realisation hit me hard and I gasped in horror that I was going to spend however long locked in this place alone. I jerked back, stopping in my tracks and bumping into Hank. My heart thudded against my chest so loudly that it ached in my ears.
I spun to face him. "Please, don't do this."
If Hank heard me, he didn't acknowledge. He didn't even look at me. He didn't stop. He walked ahead, confident that I was not going to escape.
The tears in my eyes pricked against my eyelids. My voice was barely above a whisper because terror would not allow me to vocalise properly. "Please, Hank. Don't make me go in there."
Hank stopped.
If I had thought he was going easy on me before, I had been oh so wrong. At my obvious distress, his lips pulled apart into a garish smile.
"Now, why would I do that?" He said, matching my tone.
His pleasure was like a slap in the face. I knew begging was futile but I still couldn't help the son that escaped me.
"I did nothing wron..." There was something hopeless and empty in the way Hank looked at me that my words died on my lips. The hate he had for me was palpable.
He took my falter as defeat and reached for my arm to keep me moving. No! No! No! Panic bursts like a blood vessel in my brain. I wanted to screech. Like a vice, I grasped onto the hand that tried to shove me. "NO! Please!" I all but screamed.
Hank peeled my fingers from his bicep and hissed. "Don't make me hit you."
The trauma attached to his statement made my heart stop. It nearly broke me. Memories of bruises and broken teeth passed through me like a phantom. I was instantly back in my family home with High looking down at me, threatening to bruise me so badly that I would not be able to walk to school without concerned onlookers watching me.
Realising I was trapped, I let him shrug me off and walked with him. I felt helpless. My nose ran, my eyes leaked and my fingers dug so deep into my palms that it nearly broke the skin.
When we got to the cell, Hank stepped in front of me and inserted a rusty key into the metal doors. He violently shook it into the lock until it finally unbolted. The fact that he had to jostle the key could show the state of it. Rusty. Inhabitable. Abandoned. Ancient.
I could see the interior of the cell from where I stood and I couldn't help my tears exclamation. "Jesus Christ..."
"Homely." He responded, winking at me. It was the way he did not acknowledge my distress that scared me the most. How could one be so out of touch with their emotions that they no longer feel empathy?
The smell of decay within the walls of the prison was pungent, forcing its way into my nostrils and nearly making me gag. The room was the size of a mini-parking space, leaving room for one to walk two to three steps alone. The concrete floors were bare, ensuring that I would experience no amount of normalcy or comfort. There were no windows so I would have no concept of time.
At the corner of the room was the metal frame of a lonely bed and a toilet that had not been maintained for a long while. It was useable but I would have to be at the point of desperation. The flattened mattress was propped against the wall.
Mirabel clearly had misery on her mind when she sent me here. She wanted me to suffer for the pain I had caused her. She wanted me dead.
The contrast between this cell and the luxe accommodation I initially had was so whimsically stark that I could've laughed, but the only thing that I was feeling was melancholia.
"Get in." His voice sounded like the lash of a whip.
At that, I broke down and sobbed like a child.
Hank didn't spare me a glance. "You're gonna run out." He muttered, addressing my tears.
Walking in with my arms wrapped around myself, I felt Hank behind me. Before I could turn and plead one last time, he reached forward and slammed the door in my face.
Even when I fought and pulled at the locks until my fingers bled. Even when I banged against the doors and begged for mercy. Even when I screamed until my throat stung that I didn't deserve any of it. Hank didn't once look at me.
He was a man on an unholy mission.
I dry-heaved as I took in my surroundings. I took in the sudden lack of human contact, the sensory deprivation, the deafening silence, and the loneliness. It overwhelmed me enough to cause me to sink down to the floor, knees against my chest and eyes screwed shut.
I didn't want to lose consciousness here. I needed to be on alert at all times. I was a small 24 year old female with no way to protect herself except my bruised fists. If I slept, it would be a terribly thing to do.
The lone bulb above me flickered as though warning me to shut the fuck up.
Once again, I thought.
Did I deserve this?
Did anyone?
I vaguely thought of Frank and fervently hoped he wasn't in the same predicament as me. He didn't do anything. He didn't hurt anyone like I had. He was only trying to help me.
It took minutes for my sobs to die down to whimpers. There was no need to cry when there was no one around to hear, to pity or to help. I absent-mindedly swatted at a fly that buzzed close to my ears and wrapped my arms around myself, careful not to touch or lean against anything.
Despite the heat, I had put my sweater back on so my skin wouldn't be exposed against the mottled walls and flooring of my cell.
It wasn't long until grief made my eyes heavy and I passed out, against my will.
——-
When I first arrived, I had marvelled at the lengths Mirabel went to enact her revenge on me. Surely, she could've simply walked into my apartment and put a bullet through my skull? Hired a hitman? Poisoned my lunch? But then Hank had explained exactly what was going to happen to me while walking me to my cell and I realised Mirabel was not a normal person.
It was why I wept so fervently.
Simply killing me would make Mirabel complicit in a crime. However, if I confessed to the murders, which I inadvertently had, Hank had every right to authorise my arrest.
Of course, it would take months for the whole procedure to pull through whilst he led and worked on the 'investigation' into my case. So, Mirabel wished to illegally keep me in here till then. And because this was an abandoned cell, no one who actually worked in the prison would know I was here.
Once my case was assessed and I was called to the stand, Diana, my mirror image, would take my place on the stand and plead Guilty. Then I would be granted a criminal record and assigned to the Community Jail. It would only take a couple of days for Hank to bribe someone to transfer Diana back to SSCD for 'extremely disruptive behavior'.
Once that happened, Diana would be released after only a few days in jail. I, on the other hand, would then become a true victim to Mirabel's cruel wishes. And if somehow I 'died in prison' — no one would care about the death of a criminal. Especially one who dwelled in SSCD. To everyone, death would simply be what I deserved.
It was going to be a long treacherous journey, and I knew I was going to come out a shell of a person once the months had ended. That was if I hadn't taken my own life before then.
Whoever I was before the Prisoner Project had died. This person was someone else. The light inside of me had wavered to nothingness.
And finally, it took mere hours for my depression to become black enough for me to feel numb.
_____
Hope was the colour yellow. It seemed so beautiful, but colours fade and with time, hope becomes dreary, grim and useless. Nothing seemed to matter. After all, when I closed my eyes and tried to dream of happier times, my bliss was tainted by the agonising truths that I had been told.
Memories of I and Diana playing in the park had been streaked with betrayal, memories of my Father were slashed with adultery, memories of Hugh were touched with wedlock, and memories of my mother? Banshee had lit a match and set them ablaze with regret. Nothing was left unscathed.
If memories were all we had, I was nothing.
Without happy memories, what kind of person do I become?
Without hope, what do I think and dream of?
Without light, what can I see except the blackness of my misery?
As I sat in utter solitude, I found it hard to remember the last time I had laughed. Laughter was supposed to be easy but simple pleasures of life were passing me by and all I could do was close my eyes and wait.
And wait, I did.
Subconsciously, my mind continued to drift to Nicholas. Worry. Fear. Hate. Warmth. Weakness. Fleeting emotions surrounded my every thought of him, but no matter how much I tried, I simply could not get the Devil out of my mind. After all, aside from Frank, he had been the only constant in my life for the two weeks I had been here.
Was he dead? Could they truly kill him? If so, what were his final words? Was he thinking of me when he died? Was he thinking of my final words? Was he currently looking up at me from the gates of Hell?
I sighed, in defeat. I would never know the answers to my questions so thinking them was a waste of time. But then again, time was all I had.
I leaned my head against the mottled wall and tried to silence my thoughts when I heard a sound outside my cell. I sounded so loud against the painful silence I used to.
I sat up immediately. I had no concept of time but I had a vague feeling that a lot of time had passed me by.
"Who's there?" I yelled.
A faceless male voice responded. "Dinner."
A compartment underneath the door slid open and a plate of porridge was placed on the floor before me. It was bland and cold. The nature of it all suddenly made me angry. I kicked the food to the side in a rage. Did I look fucking hungry?!
The porridge didn't even budge as the plastic plate hit the wall. It stuck like glue.
"Fuck you." I spat. "Let me out!"
The voice only chuckled. "You know you don't get anything else till tomorrow. Keep wasting it and you'd die quicker."
It sounded like he meant it.
I heard his footsteps recede down the hall and the deafening silence consumed me once again. That was one of the worst parts of this nightmare. The silence.
I stared blankly at the door for a few bleak seconds before breaking down once again, even if I didn't have the strength to do so.
________
I counted the days I had spent here by the food I was given. Judging from the half-eaten plates of grimy food stacked at the corner of the cell, only three days had passed but it felt like a month. I didn't know how Nicholas had done it. If he had really been incarcerated for a decade, then maybe he was mad because I felt a little unhinged.
Perspiration made my clothes stick to my skin but I refused to take off the sweater. If I had to wear it for an entire year, then so be it. There was something horrid in the air and I didn't want any part of me to be exposed to it. Besides, the heat of the cell made the food at the corner of the room rot a little quicker, and I knew that if the smell wasn't going to kill me, the contamination would.
When I had complained of the lack of ventilation and the fact that I could hardly breathe, the guard had told me to suck it up because they only cleared the plates at the end of the week. "No one here's your housekeeper" — he had hissed.
Three days down. Four days to go.
Normally, I would have said 'If I could survive Hugh, I can survive anything' but this was beyond anything I could have ever imagined experiencing. My belief in my survival was slowly tricking to a zero.
They were treating me like I had kidnapped kids and burned them alive. It was heinous. I wasn't sure what Mirabel had told them I had done and how much she had bribed them, but the 'authorised' guards who fed showed no mercy.
Despite their crassness, I was grateful though, that they left me alone and didn't pester or pick on me.
That kind of solitude was satisfactory.
I was slowly stretching out my tense legs in front of me when I heard footsteps come through the hall again. Tthis time, I didn't bother getting up. What was the point when all I would receive was curt replies and threats? It would only make me cry and tears were dried up. I had become numb to my own distress.
I remained sat against the door, knees to my chest, and anticipated the slide of the compartment door. What monstrosity did they cook up for me today? — was the sad game I had begun to play in my head since I arrived. After all, I only had my thoughts as company. I didn't want to become a head-case.
However, this time, the person on the other end knocked three times.
I paused.
The three knocks came again, sounding so vibrant and loud that it particularly piqued my interest.
There was something significant about the three knocks that made me sit up. I ignored the protesting that my bones voiced out from sitting in the same position for three days and twisted around. My voice was hoarse because I hadn't said much in a while. "H-Hello?"
"Hi stranger, how you doing?"
I froze.
I took a moment to respond. The voice on the other side was definitely different from the other guard that I used to have. I couldn't recognise it because it was muffled by the metal doors but he sounded genuine. I couldn't see him so it was hard to place who it was. It caught me completely off-guard.
I pushed a lock of hair from my greasy face with bruised and chapped fingertips. "I—"
Before I could finish my sentence, my words died on my lips. What could I possibly say to him and what would it matter? How you doing? I didn't know how I felt. I was locked in a dingy cell. I was starving and lonely. I was terrified, and counting down the days till I died.
How was I? I didn't know and I didn't trust anyone to care.
After a moment of silence, I heard something rustling and then the person on the end crouched down.
I stared down at the gap on the door that could only be opened from one side.
The compartment slid open and a plate of food slid in. This time, it wasn't bland porridge or tasteless soup. It was food. An actual plate of food wrapped in foil packaging to protect its contents. I knew because I could smell the aroma before I had even opened it.
My heart lurched. The tiny lightbulb within me sparked a couple of times. I felt a little self-pity at my excitement over food. Was this how much my life had deteriorated?
I scrambled up immediately and pressed my ear against the door. Pain surged through my entire body but I was numb enough to ignore it. I yelled. "Who are you?"
The person on the other end didn't answer me.
I banged against the metal door, wincing as the cuts from the handcuffs earlier smarted. I didn't care for my physical pain though. It was the pain within me that trumped everything else.
"Please, just tell me who you are." I pleaded, on the brink of tears.
They didn't respond to my query.
But I heard one word.
"Wait."
And the light bulb inside me lit up so quickly and brightly that it nearly short-circuited my entire body.
Hope was the colour yellow, and so was my
light.