Page 30 of Kill Me

It’s time to do it, Quinn.

Kill yourself.

It’s the only way to save you from the hell you’re about to endure.

“No. No. NO!” I punch myself in the side of the face, my skull, slapping my thighs and my stomach, doing everything I possibly can to chase them away. But it’s of no use.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you, Quinn.

Outside is completely silent. Rain begins to patter against the glass, the wind howling. Where the bed—if you can call it that—is situated, I’m directly under the broken panes of glass, so before I know it, my skin is getting wet, and I realise I have no choice but to move. The blanket drops from my body, and I tremble as my body adjusts to further exposure to the temperature. I bend down to pull the mattress away, but it’s too heavy for me to move with just my good arm. I crouch and try again, this time using my bad arm as well.

“Ahhhhhhh, COME ON!” Nerve pain ricochets down my arm, and I let go almost as soon as I’ve started pulling, falling back onto my ass. Sharp pain stabs the skin on my backside, and I pull myself off the floor using my hands to figure out if I’m hurt or not. I feel wet, so I can only assume I’m bleeding. Moving towards the moonlight, I put my hand where I can see to confirm.

Well that’s great. Probably going to die from a rare blood disease now.

I pull out some of the embedded bits in my skin, brushing off the loose bits. The bigger parts look like a mixture of glass and broken bits of wood. The sting from the cuts has me hissing as I try to clean myself up as best I can.

Please. Just this once. Please. Do what I need you to do. I implore my arm to listen to me. The limited capability of movement, or ability to grip onto the mattress to enable me to dislodge it enough to give me some momentum, is basically impossible, and I resign myself to getting back under the blanket and sitting in the rain.

At some point, the sky starts to lighten, and still sitting up, I give in to the exhaustion. After what feels like mere minutes, I’m jolted awake when cold water is thrown over my head.

“Wake up, fuckface. Time to get to work.” Dickard stands there with the empty bucket, a smirk on his face, thriving on my reaction.

“What the fuck? Was there any need for that?” Pain consumes every nerve on my body; my neck aches and my leg muscles are crying out from the shooting pains coursing through them. I remember I haven’t been given pain meds since before I left home yesterday. Today’s going to be a fun day.

“It’s past 7 am; you were supposed to be up at 6.30 am ready to begin your day.”

“And how am I supposed to know that?”

“It tells you over there.” He points to a poster on the wall.

“And how, pray tell, am I supposed to read that in the dark? You’ve taken my phone so I have no way of knowing the time.”

“I mean, that’s not really my problem, is it, Sweet Cheeks?”

He places the bucket on the floor and puts his hands on his hips.

“How am I meant to go to breakfast when you’ve taken all of my clothes and toiletries?”

“Toiletries can be earned; it tells you so on there.” He points in the direction of the poster again. “Clothes, however, unfortunately for me, are mandatory. I could get used to watching that ass swing around here, but alas, you at least are entitled to basic human rights. So, if you open your fucking eyes, you’ll see there’s a pile of clothes on the end of your bed. Just remember, this is at my discretion. If you fuck me off, I’ll take them off you and make you stand naked in the rain until you catch pneumonia and tell your family you died trying to escape—not that they’d care anyway.”

Ouch.

“I’ll be a good girl, sir. Don’t you worry…”

Clearly unimpressed by my sarcasm, he goes off on another tangent. “I’m happy to take it away from you if you’d rather sleep on the floor? What basic means to you can mean something completely different to me. I’ll happily showcase the differences if you’d like me to.”

This man is a complete and utter fucking prick.

“No, I’ll get dressed. Just tell me where I need to meet you once I’m finished.”

He looks at me with a look of disdain on his face. “Well, see, if you’d read the rules—”

“We’ve established I don’t have magical powers to see in the dark…”

“That may be true, but you did have some light when I left. If you chose not to be efficient with the time that you had, then that’s not something I can help with, I’m afraid. It’s a lesson to be learned. But, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me… According to the rules, you must be accompanied by an escort—either myself or Darla—wherever you go within the grounds. At night-time, once you are brought back to your rooms, you are not allowed to leave until we come to escort you back in the mornings. And by the time we do, we expect you to be fully dressed and raring to go. We’re watching you. And if you try to leave, the fence will electrocute you.” Well, if I needed persuasion not to test the fence, that was it.

“And what if I need to use the toilet at night?”