Page 119 of Shattered In Darkness

Fists grab my hair. Water, cold and bottomless, floods my lungs once more. The world shivers and falls away, and only his voice cuts through the dark. “You’re weak. Pathetic. You let her get hurt. It’s your fault. If you loved her, you would’ve protected her. But you ran away. Just like your father.”

He wants me to snap. To break and spill myself all over his shoes.

I choke. I gasp. I come up drenched and wild-eyed, hate boiling in my chest.

He circles behind me now, pacing the way animals do when they know they own you. “Richard is a coward. Hides behind legal threats. Files and rumors. But you, your problem is simpler. You want answers. You want to know why I tricked Lola?” I glare at him. Daring him. He bends to my ear. “She’s an asset. A resource. She goes where I put her. You could never offer her anything but chaos.”

I spit, but my mouth is dry. “She’s not yours. She’ll never be yours.”

He shoves my head sideways. “You can’t even save yourself.” Then, softer, “You failed her. She trusted you, and you threw her away.”

The words rake over my flesh, but now the pain is pure. I stop caring about my body. I stop wishing for the end.

I want to burn him. I want to take everything from him. I see it all now. The setup. The drugs. The fake tip. The staged scene. Rape, humiliation, destruction. My arrival, scripted for maximum trauma.

He wanted me out. He wanted her to be obedient. It was never about love. It was about erasure.

Hatred blinds me and I let it. I let it eat away the old ideas. Love, hope, redemption. There’s only one thing now: vengeance. I’ll make him suffer for every second she whimpered, every time she bled.

I promise you, Bambi. I’ll tear out his fucking heart for what he did to you. For what I let him do to you by leaving town.

Marcus comes back into view. He’s holding something—a tablet, black and gleaming. He wipes a fleck of dust from the screen. “I want to show you something,” he says. “Maybe this will encourage you to be more forthcoming.”

He taps the screen and the video flickers alive. The guards drag a chair so I have no choice. Chin gripped, eyes forced open.

It starts with Lola. She’s on the floor, naked except for a torn slip. Her arms are up, blocking blows. Marcus’s voice, calm and measured, fills the speakers. There’s a belt in his hand, striking her again and again. Each hit lands with a meaty thud, and she wails.

I beg my brain to look away. I can’t.

The next clip: different place, different year. She’s tied to a bed, legs forced apart, face swollen and wet with tears. Marcus climbs over her, says “good girl” and “quiet now.” She doesn’t fight. She just cries, quiet and defeated.

Another. Lola pressed up against a wall, Marcus’s hand in her hair, yanking her head back for the camera. She’s bleeding from the lip. He licks the blood off her cheek and shoves himself between her legs.

Her screams. They’re the soundtrack. Not even words, just these soft, helpless mewls that sound nothing like the girl I loved. Not screams of pleasure, the kind she does for me. No, these are screams of terror. Fear. The kind you do when your life is on the line.

I sob. It comes out ragged. I try to jerk my head away but the guards hold me fast.

Marcus narrates the whole thing. “See how easy she breaks? All it takes is a little finesse. I secretly recorded all of my interactions with her. To look at later, or use if needed.

The next clip is worse. Marcus is on top of her. Hitting her. Choking her. She’s screaming. Her legs kick him. She tries to get up. He’s stronger. He takes her body and throws her across the floor. He slaps her again, drags her up by her hair, and pushes her over a desk. Bent over, barely standing.

He takes her from behind. Pinning her neck down. Holding her wrists behind her back. She’s screaming and crying.

Stop it! Please! It hurts so much. Please stop!

Marcus hits her every time she resists.

Something primal erupts inside me. Rage, guilt, horror. All of it. Without thinking, I thrash. I snap the plastic chair and try to slam my head into the guard’s face. I scream Marcus’s name. I curse him, vow I’ll kill every last one of them.

They pin me, giving me a blow to the gut, the ribs. Something in my shoulder tears. I keep screaming. I want it to hurt. I want it to matter.

The video keeps going. Lola, more recent now. She’s older, quieter, but the suffering is the same. Marcus takes his time. Choking her, using objects, humiliating her for the camera after each cut. Sometimes she doesn’t even make noise, just folds up and takes it.

He’s right. He recorded every bruise, every rape, every time he punished her for being too alive.

I want to chew my own wrists off, just to get to him. I want to cut out my eyes so I never see her like this again.

Marcus watches me. He watches every micro-expression, the way my jaw clenches, the way I shake with hate and loss and disgust. “I told you. She was always mine. All of her. You were just a spectator.”