Page 165 of Liberating Lily

“Then do it,” Clem told her. “I got nothing better to do. Well, other than muck out some stalls, put out some hay and fix the leak in the roof of the barn.”

“You mean that I’ve got to muck out some stalls, put out some hay, and fix the leak in the roof of the barn,” Jaret said dryly.

Clem smiled at him. “If you’re offering.”

“Well, I’m certainly not letting you do any of that. But that can wait until we learn why Lily came halfway across the country by herself on a bus, then bought a car off a stranger, and ended up on the roof of our barn.” Jaret gave Lily a stern look and she got the feeling he didn’t approve of any of those things.

“I only ended up on the roof because Chuck thought he was a bull and charged toward me,” she said. “As for the rest of it, well, I need to go back to when you were recovering from your operation.”

“Right,” Clem said. “You said that Rick was lying when he told me that you slept together behind my back.”

Jaret gave her an interested look.

“And that Mother helped him come up with that lie and that when you said you were going to tell me the truth, she attacked you.”

“She attacked you?” Jaret asked, looking concerned.

“I don’t understand why they did that . . . actually, I guess I do. It was to isolate me from everyone. I didn’t have anyone else who truly cared about me and they thought they would ensure that any relationship between us was severed.” Lily let out a sad laugh. “Guess they succeeded.”

“Not necessarily,” Clem said.

Did that mean that Clem could forgive her? That maybe they could build a relationship again? Well, she hadn’t kicked her out of her life entirely, had she?

“Did you tell anyone that she attacked you?” Jaret asked.

“I didn’t remember that it even happened until I had a nightmare a while ago. Then it came back to me. She drugged me and when I woke up, I was in a small, private hospital. She told me that I’d had some sort of episode where I attacked her. She had scratches on her arms, and photos of the wrecked living room. She said that I tried to kill her. And I sort of had these memories of doing that. I could remember screaming at her. I could remember trying to hurt someone. I spent a few days under Dr. Wallace’s care, and he gave me these pills to take. He said that I had to take them to keep myself steady, that my central nervous system was all out of whack and was causing me to become violent.”

“Jesus, no one would blame you if you did attack that witch,” Clem said.

“What were the pills, Lily?” Jaret asked.

“They were meant to be a mild sedative. At least, that’s what it said on the bottle. But it turns out that they were laced with Devil’s Breath.”

“What the heck is Devil’s Breath?” Clem asked.

Lily explained what Devil’s Breath was and how it made her suggestible to things. Compliant. How it could erase memories or change them.

“Jesus, so your mother and this doctor were drugging you to make you do what your mother wanted?” Jaret asked.

“Yes, but there was actually more to it,” she said. “Mother also did it for the money.”

“The money? Clem asked. “What money? She didn’t have any money left. How was she paying for those pills once she lost all her money?”

“Doctor Wallace offered her a deal. He’d supply the pills and pay her if she’d let him have me for a couple of nights every fortnight. Sometimes, I remember her saying that I was going in for a checkup. Other times, I don’t even remember going to the clinic.”

“What was he doing in that clinic?” Clem asked in a quiet voice. “What was he doing to you?”

Lily couldn’t answer.

They both stared at her. Clem was pale, her eyes wide, and Jaret just looked concerned.

“What was the doctor doing to you?” Clem repeated in a low voice.

Lily moved her gaze back to her hands. She couldn’t tell them this part while looking at them.

“He was videoing me,” she whispered. “In a special area of his private clinic. He’d strip me down and move me into different positions, he’d touch my body, do things without my permission.”

“What . . . what the fuck?” Jaret said. “Did he . . . did he . . .”