Page 36 of Wicked Nightmare

"Looks like everyone left in a hurry," Cam observed, his dark eyes scanning the room. "Bad memories, sweetheart?"

I swallowed hard, pushing down the bile rising in my throat. "You have no idea."

The kitchen was where they fed us. If you could call it feeding. Watery cereal, cement-like oatmeal, half-rotten fruit. Bread that was always stale. Soup that was mostly water with the tiniest of vegetables floating in it. We ate at 6 a.m. sharp. If you were late, you didn't eat. If you talked during the meal, you didn't eat. If Sister Anne decided she didn't like the way you were holding your spoon, you didn't eat. I'd gone three days once without food because I'd laughed at something Lydia whispered to me during grace.

Without waiting for a response, I stepped forward, crunching broken ceramic under my boots. My fingers trailed along the countertop, leaving lines in the dust. Each step brought back flashes. The strict mealtimes. The harsh voices. The constant fear that sat in your stomach and never fully went away, even when you slept, even when you were being "good," because being good at St. Agnes just meant you hadn't been punished yet today.

"This way," I whispered.

I moved through the building, Cam's presence a comforting shadow behind me. My eyes darted to each room we passed.

The common room, where we'd gather for "group therapy" that was more like psychological warfare. Sister Anne making us share our "sins" while Father Christopher sat in the corner taking notes. The girls who cried got extra sessions. The girls who didn't cry got watched more closely. There was no right answer.

The small day infirmary, where I'd hidden more than once, faking illness to escape the day's torments. The cot in the corner was still there, the thin mattress still covered in that plasticky sheet that stuck to your skin when you sweated. I'd learned to fake a fever by pressing my face against the hot water pipe in the bathroom before going to see the nurse. It worked twice before Sister Anne caught on and made me kneel on the spiked rug for "deception."

The showers. I passed those fast. Didn't look. Didn't slow down. Some rooms hold memories that your body won't let you revisit, and the showers were one of them. My feet just moved faster, and my eyes stayed forward and that was that.

"You okay?" Cam's voice cut through my thoughts.

I paused, my hand resting on a door frame. "Define 'okay,'" I laughed bitterly. "I'm in the place that haunted my nightmares for years. But sure, I'm okay."

Cam's hand found the small of my back before tangling in my hair. "Do you need some pain?"

"Yes," I whimpered as he pulled my hair and crushed his lips on mine, biting my bottom lip until it bled, the metallic taste flooding my senses and pushing out the fear.

He pulled off me and slapped my ass so hard I was gonna bruise. "Thank you." I said with a smile, wiping the blood from my chin.

"I got you, baby girl."

I pressed on, each step feeling lighter. Cam always knew what I needed. Knew that pain was the barrier with which I protected my heart. The fragmented pieces of my soul. I led the way down the long hallway, barely sparing a glance at each room as we passed.

"Almost there," I muttered, more to myself than to Cam. "Just a little further."

I stopped at the end of the hall, my hand hovering over a painfully familiar door handle. My throat constricted, words barely escaping in a whisper. "This... this was my room."

Cam's eyes flickered with understanding. Without a word, he reached past me and pushed the door open.

The creak of rusted hinges felt like a scream in the silence. I stepped inside, my legs trembling beneath me. The room was a time capsule, preserved in all its miserable glory. My old bed was pushed against the wall on the left, still neatly made as if waiting for my return. A wave of nausea hit me as I remembered the nights spent curled up there, trying to muffle my sobs. Trying to stay quiet because noise attracted attention and attention at St. Agnes was never the kind you wanted.

"Fuck," I breathed, my eyes drawn to a half-torn picture still clinging to the wall. It was Cam, younger and somehow more innocent, his cocky grin preserved in faded ink. I'd stolen that photo from our social worker's file the last time she came to visit, my own little act of rebellion.

"Well, well," Cam drawled, his eyes fixed on the picture. "Looks like I've always been irresistible."

I snorted, grateful for the moment of levity. "Don't flatter yourself, Axley. I just needed something to aim darts at."

But even as I joked, my mind wouldn’t slow. This room held so many secrets, so much pain. Across from me was Lydia's bed. She'd been my roommate for years, until she told me that Father Christopher had raped her and that something terrible was going to happen. I'd brushed it off, not because I didn't believe her but because believing her meant accepting something so big and so dark that my brain literally couldn't hold it. And then she just disappeared, and I never saw her again.

Graduated. Was what they told me. Only… how the fuck do you graduate from hell?

I sank onto the edge of the bed, my fingers trembling as I reached for the small set of drawers beside it. The wood was warped, sticky with age, but it gave way with a groan. Inside, a jumble of papers caught my eye. My heart clenched as I pulled them out, recognizing letters I'd written to Cam, but could never send.

"You good?"

I nodded, but my voice betrayed me, cracking as I spoke. "Yeah, I'm... I'm fine."

It was a lie, and we both knew it. I took a shaky breath, steeling myself.

"Lydia," I began, my eyes fixed on the bed across the way. "My roommate. God, Cam, the things she told me that night... things that were so horrific, I thought she was lying. Things I think..."