Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

AMETHYST

My eyes snap open, and I find myself back in the padded cell. My chest burns for air, and I convulse against the tight restraints of the straitjacket. The pain between my legs is as unmistakable as it is unbearable. I’ve been violated. Contaminated. Was Delta the rapist, the man who transported me back to this prison of white, or both? Either way, the hatred boiling through my veins turns to despair.

Tears sting my eyes. I just want to curl up and die.

“Amethyst?” Xero says, his voice soft.

“Do you know what happened to me?” I ask.

He hesitates. “Yes.”

“How many of them?”

“Delta, when he removed the pessary.”

He doesn’t elaborate. I don’t ask how many times or what else he might have done to me on that couch. What’s the point, when my sanity is already frayed? My breath shallows, and my heart thuds a sluggish beat. I’ve never felt so powerless, so unclean.

A lump forms in my throat, and I swallow hard, fighting back burning tears. “It’s no wonder you’re going to such lengths to track him down. He’s diabolical.”

He grunts.

“Did I say anything incriminating?” I ask.

“He knows you’re hallucinating me, but that’s the extent of the information you shared.” His warm hand lands on my shoulder. “You were trying to protect us.”

I roll onto my back and gaze into his pale blue eyes. “It’s the least I can do after what I did.”

Xero winces. I’m surprised he’s being so understanding. This entire situation with Dolly, Delta, and the others is a mess of my own making. If I had questioned him further that morning—not flown into a murderous rage—I would still be safe in the crawlspace.

“Don’t think like that,” he says.

I squeeze my eyes shut, unable to control my thoughts any more than I can control my hallucinations. My mind is still a jumbled mess. Even if I regained my memories for Delta, there’s no stopping me from dying horribly.

“Amethyst,” Xero snaps.

“What else do you want me to think?” I open my eyes, loosening tears, and rise up to sit. “My situation is futile. I’m going to die.”

When he flinches, my heart plummets. I didn’t mean to lash out at Xero. He’s the real victim here, even if he is a figment of my imagination.It’s bad enough that I killed him for nothing. Now he has to watch me suffer.

Before I can spiral into a maelstrom of despair, my thoughts are interrupted by the thud of approaching footsteps.

Cold sweat breaks out across my brow. My breath quickens. Thick bands of tension wind around my chest, making the edges of Xero’s form flicker. I skitter to the farthest corner of my cell. I can’t let him drag me to another part of the set, where I’ll be tortured or violated.

“Stay calm, little ghost. You’re hyperventilating,” he says.

I force in a deep breath, but it barely registers, leaving me suffocating. Something’s wrong. I’m having a panic attack. At this rate, I’ll die before I even reach the cameras.

The footsteps echoing through my ears become so loud that every bone in my body trembles. Spots dance before my eyes, and the edges of my vision turn dark. The pressure around my chest increases until Xero’s form flickers in and out of existence.

He moves his lips, but I can’t hear anything through the roar of blood between my ears. Something’s going wrong. I’m having a bad reaction to one of the drugs.

By the time the door swings open, my vision goes black, and I land on the padded floor with a thud.

Everything goes still for several heartbeats until water splashes on my face. As I return to the painful present, large hands roll me onto my back. My eyes snap open, and I inhale a noisy gasp.

Grunt stares down at me through wide eyes, his face hidden by that surgical mask. “Amy,” he says, his voice panicked. “Are you alright?”

The question tickles something inside me I didn’t know existed, a bizarre kernel of black humor. A laugh traps in my chest, cutting off my air. My entire life has already gone to shit. I’ve been sliced open, violated with pseudo-medical equipment, drugged and raped. How the hell does Grunt think I’m feeling?

“Can’t breathe,” I reply. “The straitjacket is too tight.”

His brow furrows. “I brought your food.”

“Can’t eat. Jacket’s too tight.”

He rolls me onto my front and loosens the buckle holding my sleeves together. My arms fall free, and I suck in lungfuls of air.

“Better?” he asks and helps me sit up.

I blink away the spots. Shake my head from side to side, dislodging the brain fog. Xero has disappeared again, which could mean anything. Since he isn’t around to discourage me from trusting Grunt, I take a chance to establish some communication.

“Eat,” he says.

My gaze lands on the dog bowl containing the same mush as before, now hardened with a brown crust.

“If I eat that, I’ll throw up.”

Grunt glances toward the door. “Dolly says you must eat.”

“Then I’d better have something solid, because that isn’t even fit for a dog.”

The large man’s shoulders sag. “She won’t be happy.”

“I’m going to die, right?” I ask.

When he drops his gaze, I add, “That’s what I thought. Why would I add to my suffering by eating that slop?”

Silence stretches between us for several heartbeats. Grunt continues to crouch in front of me, his gaze softening to something close to pity or even regret.

I want to say something else to humanize myself, but my mind goes blank. He works for an organization that makes snuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of the men in that graveyard movie. Nobody stumbles into this line of work by mistake. If he’s feeling empathy, it’s only temporary. He’s upset Dolly, and the others treat him like shit.

Rising to stand, he retreats toward the door, reaches into his pocket and extracts a cereal bar. I straighten, my gaze darting up to meet his masked face.

Before I can even ask what he wants in return, he tosses the bar across the floor. It skips past the dog bowl and lands by my bare feet.

The door swings shut, and his footsteps disappear down the hallway, leaving me alone with the bar. It’s covered in transparent wrapping, which will be difficult to remove since I’m in a straitjacket, but at least he freed my arms.

I pick up the cereal bar with fingers encased in thick cotton and examine its wrapper for punctures. So far, it’s untouched.

“Good idea,” Xero says. “In case they injected it with something.”

Some of the tightness around my chest eases at his return, and I exhale a breath of relief. Holding the bar between my teeth, I twist and pull at the wrapper until the plastic gives way, releasing the mouth-watering scents of honey, nuts, and oats.

I take a bite, filling my mouth with enough crunchy, sweet goodness to chase away the taste of chemicals. I chew slowly, savoring each bite, allowing the flavors to spread across my dry tongue.

My stomach growls at the reminder that it’s been days since I last ate or drank. Tears spring to my eyes, and I shuffle toward the dog bowl and examine the liquid. It’s clear enough to look like water, but how do I know it’s not laced with drugs?

I shuffle forward to take a sniff, but all I smell is the mush.

“Don’t risk it,” Xero says.

I draw away from the fluid with a frown.

A metallic clink has me flinching back toward the corner of my cell. It’s coming from a square hatch in the door that slides open to reveal a pair of dark eyes.

It’s Seth. The man who escorted me to Delta’s room and threatened me with anal rape.

“Hey. Looking for this?” He draws back and pushes a plastic water bottle through the hatch.

My heart skips, and I wait for him to let the drink fall to the floor, but he only moves it from side to side.

“Go on, take it,” he says, sounding gruff.

I glance at Xero, who shakes his head.

My throat constricts, escalating my thirst. Bits of cereal bar cling to the inside of my mouth. I need something to wash it down before I choke.

Seth pulls back the bottle. “Alright. Suit yourself.”

“Wait.” I rush forward toward the hatch, already reaching out for the disappearing water, but it’s replaced by a long, skinny erection, already dripping with precum.

“Suck on this!”

Bile rises to the back of my throat as I recoil from the hatch, my pulse quickening. Blood pounds through my veins, sending up a surge of adrenaline. I should have fucking known.

“Come on, baby.” Seth strokes himself, his voice breathy with excitement. “It’s only a mouthful.”

“Don’t give him the satisfaction of an audience,” Xero snarls.

I turn my gaze toward the wall.

“Look at me,” Seth growls. “If you want that fucking drink, you’re going to watch me come.”

I grind my teeth, not wanting to give him a second of acknowledgment. It dawns on me then that I’m the only available woman on the set. Dolly is married to Delta and has gained some sort of power in X-Cite Media. Everyone else here is a man with a taste for extreme pornography. There’s only one door separating me from a gang of predators.

Seth groans. “Look at me when I’m coming, you worthless cunt.”

He can go straight to hell.

After a skin-crawling eternity, he grunts his release, and the hatch slams shut. Seth leaves, his laughter echoing through the hallway.

I turn back toward the dog bowl, but the water is now cloudy with semen. Ropes of cum trail from the hatch and spread across the floor toward the bowl. That bastard, Seth, sabotaged my water on purpose.

Xero places a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t even think about it.”

I scoff. “Is this your idea of a joke? I’d rather die.”

Hours later, Grunt returns to take me back to the studio room and stops at a set of artificial green tiles featuring a pair of steaming bathtubs. Locke stands between them, dressed in a white coat and a surgical mask, holding a clipboard.

My throat, which is already parched from not drinking, tightens. Grunt deposits me between the tubs and steps back as the crew point their cameras.

“No need to clutch your pearls,” Locke says. “We’re only shooting B-roll footage.”

When I give him a blank look, he adds, “Background footage, so our patrons get the look and feel of an abandoned asylum. These days, it’s not enough to gang-rape a bitch and leave her to bleed out on a dirty mattress. People want atmosphere, drama, artistry.”

“You’re going to all this trouble so a bunch of sick fucks can jerk off?” I rasp.

He tuts. “Dolly always said you didn’t appreciate the arts.”

Someone turns on the dry ice, filling the set with fog, which mingles with the stifling heat emanating from the tub. Chills crawl over my skin, and my head swims. I sway on my feet, panting like a dog while the entire set spins in a kaleidoscope of whites and greens and stainless steel.

“Amethyst?” Xero’s voice echoes through my skull.

Someone else repeats my name, but I collapse, hitting the floor with a thud.

“What the fuck is this?” Dolly’s voice rips through my brain fog. “What’s wrong with her?”

Locke crouches at my side. “She’s fainted. How unprofessional.”

“Get her up!”

Rough hands haul me to my feet. I sway from side to side before my legs collapse, and my knees hit the painted floor.

“Grunt, I gave you one job,” Dolly says, her voice turning to ice. “Keep her fed and watered. How the hell is she supposed to perform if she can’t stand?”

“Last time I checked on her, she hadn’t touched her food or water,” Seth adds.

“When did she last eat?” Dolly screeches.

I remain on the floor, breathing hard, while the set whirls and spins into chaos. Men surround us, pointing fingers at Grunt who they blame for my weakened state, with Grunt arguing back that it wasn’t his choice to feed me gruel.

As the men break out into a scuffle, I crawl to the set’s farthest corner and crouch beside a rusty table. The dry ice gets turned off, with the only source of steam rolling off the bathtubs. Barrett, Locke, and Seth crowd around Grunt like a pack of bullies, with Dolly at their backs, dressed as Florence Nightingale. The stagehands stop working to gather around the edge of the set and watch the spectacle. This is chaos, with Grunt as the target for all the hate.

“Teach him a lesson,” Dolly screams.

Grunt shoves Barrett aside and tries to run, but the other men grab his arms. Barrett springs to his feet and punches Grunt in the throat. The others join the attack, punching, kicking, and shoving Grunt until he falls backward into one of the baths.

Hot fluid splashes out in a wave, hitting us all. My skin tingles and burns from the boiling water. The crew scatters, abandoning their equipment, but I’m frozen in place. I can’t tear my eyes away from Grunt, thrashing and screaming. My heart pounds, my breath catching, paralyzed by the horror.

His screams ring across the set, mingled with Dolly’s shrill laughter. Guilt claws at my chest and burrows its way into my heart with the savagery of a beast. I did this. Grunt was punished because I wouldn’t eat the gruel.

Dolly turns to me, her eyes glinting with malice, her lips curling into a cruel smirk. Stomach clenching, I swallow back a wave of nausea and force my gaze to the painted floor.

“See what we can salvage from the shot. We still need more B-roll footage. Someone grab that stupid bitch and prepare her for force feeding.”