Once the girls were chained to the wall, bodies pressed against icy concrete, both men came toward me, sandwiching me between them.

The girls pleaded with me to help them. I wanted to. I would. But how? I could barely function, let alone save us.

One girl wailed, “Please. Don’t do this. Let us go. What did we do? We just want to go home!”

My own misfortune from the first time I’d been Leather Jacket’s captive came back to haunt me. I’d never begged. I’d fought and it landed me in more pain.

Why did I fight again? Because it isn’t right. None of this is right!

I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m cold. I just want to go home. Where am I?

Leather Jacket roared at them in Spanish and I trembled, unable to look, but I couldn’t look away either. I wanted to imprint them to memory. Their survival was on my shoulders. I would get them free.

Leather Jacket put an arm around my neck, sticking his gruesome tongue in my ear. “Ready for day one of training, bitch?”

I squirmed, but it was too late. A needle disappeared into my arm and another hot wave of all-consuming mental oblivion sucked me deep. Down and down I went, spiralling heavier and heavier until I existed on the bottom of a rubbish-filled ocean.

Sounds warbled. Smells twisted. My vision darted from place to place, never locking on anything, always moving, making me sick with vertigo. But it was my brain I worried most for. My sharp intelligence and fierce awareness no longer existed. It’d been suffocated into tiny clouds, floating uselessly in my skull.

Leather Jacket pushed me forward and I wobbled on uncoordinated legs. “Hit them.”

Hit them. Hit them. Of course, why didn’t I think of it? Hitting them makes total sense.

No, wait.

It doesn’t. What? Why would I hit anyone? I didn’t want to inflict pain.

No!

I swallowed thickly, licking my oversized lips. “Wh—why?”

He frowned, bouncing around in my crazy funhouse vision. “Did you just ask why, puta?” He shook his head, looking at Ryan. “Rule number one. You never ask questions. Ryan. Please show this bitch what I expected from her.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

I watched in horrifying slow motion as Ryan sucker-punched a girl in the gut. She bent over, jerked to a halt by the manacles. She screamed, crying uncontrollably.

Why did he do that?

Because she’s been naughty. A child needs discipline. Yes. A child needs discipline. I should know. I suffered enough slaps while I grew up.

No. this is different. Don’t forget. Never forget this is wrong. So wrong.

Leather Jacket pulled me forward. “Let’s try this again. Hit them.”

“Hit them?” I repeated. My voice sounded far, far away as if I lived in a dark tunnel where no light existed.

“Hit them, or I will,” he ordered.

I shrugged. Did it matter to me? Why did it matter to me?

Because he’ll kill them! At least if you do it, you’ll be as gentle as you can. Do it. Protect them by hitting them.

The small nucleus of who I was wailed at the injustice. How could I stop this?

Leather Jacket said something in Spanish to Ryan the Ogre. I blinked and weaved on the spot.

“Be my pleasure.” Ryan moved at lightning speed, and the action didn’t register in my slow brain until the bone-crunching thwack of his fist connected with the other blonde. She doubled over, puking instantly.

Fuck! Get it together.

Hit them. Hit them. Stop this!

Some frantic part of me doggy-paddled against the riptide of drugs, dispersing it a little, enough so I could see glimpses of reality. Oh, God. I had to torture these women. I had to abuse women who looked like me. I had to break and do as I was told in order to save them from a worse punishment.

Hands flew to my mouth, trying to contain the rising bile. I reeled backward. “You’re sick. Let them go!” My wide eyes flew to Leather Jacket in horror. “Please. Do what you want with me, but leave them alone!”

Leather Jacket shook his head. “Goddamn, you are strong. You should’ve buckled under the mix by now.” He ran hands through his greasy hair, thoughts racing in his eyes. “Ryan. Give me the stick.”

Ryan gave him a baton. The same type police used on bad guys and men like Leather Jacket. “Take this, puta.” He held it out to me.

I growled like a feral cat, backing toward the door. I tried the knob, knowing full well it wouldn’t turn.

He didn’t try to stop me, just watched with a cocked head and twisted smile. “I won’t ask you again, bitch. Take this.” He waved the stick in my direction and I shook my head, succumbing to the drugs again.

Why didn’t I want to take the stick?

No reason. Stop fighting. It’s such a waste of energy. You’re right. I’m hungry. I’m cold. I want to go home. Where am I?

My mind turned traitorous, leaving me in the dark completely. Q had turned my body against me, but these bastards were doing it to my mind.

Leather Jacket nodded. “Have it your way.” He passed the baton to Ogre. He didn’t say a thing. The man accepted it and in one fierce strike broke a blonde girl’s leg.

Her screech echoed in my ears and I knew I would never forget it. Never erase the pain and horror of her voice. I would live the rest of my days listening to her scream. I could’ve prevented that. I could’ve stopped that!

“Stop!” I sobbed, tears waterfalled down my cheeks. “Stop. I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll do it…” I couldn’t stop repeating and repeating. The thought ran around and around in my head. “I’ll do it!”

Leather Jacket grinned, coming toward me to tuck me under his arm. “Good, bitch. Now that we’ve broken through. Let’s have some fun, shall we?”

The fog sucked me deeper, and this time I didn’t fight. I allowed the clouds to smother me. I let the blankness and strange soothing softness ransack my mind and prevent myself from ever remembering what I was about to do.

Agonising centimetre by centimetre, I let Leather Jacket guide me to stand in front of the two sobbing women. He patted my head, murmuring. “Good girl. Now, do what I say.”

I hung my head. A brutal headache formed and I welcomed the pain.

I deserved pain.

Pain was terrible.

Pain was awful.

I would always run from any form of pain from now on.

Oh, God. I’ll always run from pain. Gone was my future with Q. Gone was any hope of finding happiness with him.

The drugs sucked me deeper. You’ll never see him again, so there’s nothing to grieve. I would die here. And I would rot in hell for what they made me do.

“Hit the blonde on the right. No hesitation or else Ryan will have a go.”

I didn’t move; I just stared at the two women. We became trapped in our own little blonde cocoon. Their hair colour was symbolic. By beating them, I beat myself. I willingly helped Leather Jacket break me. And the realization did nothing but send me spiralling deeper into insanity.

I’m cold. I’m hungry. I want to go home. Where am I?

A huge barrel of coughs erupted from my throat as I stood shivering from head to toe. Leather Jacket prodded my back, and I stumbled into the blonde on the left. I fell against her; we flinched. She had a belly button piercing of a star and hanging diamantés. Her eyes were green, her br**sts soft against my body.

More tears fell from my eyes as I surrendered to everything. “I’m so sorry.” My words slurred and thick.

Leather Jacket murmured, “Hate to break up this lesbian party, but you have five seconds, puta.”

Five seconds to hit this woman in order to save her more pain. Five seconds to grant her my destruction, to ruin both of us.

Kill her and be done with it. If she represents you, kill yourself. It’s the only way to be free.

I struck and slapped her. Her eyes glassed and tears spilled, but she bit her lip, and in a heartbreaking, mind-tripping, life-ending move, she nodded. Fucking nodded, accepting what would happen. What I would do to her.

The other blonde sobbed quietly, her small br**sts rising and falling with panicked breaths.

It didn’t matter how many drugs Leather Jacket forced into me, I would never do this willingly. I would never hit another or take a life.

He gave me no choice. If I was weaker, I might’ve given up and let Ryan take my place. Their blood would be on his hands, not mine. But I couldn’t do that. Their lives were mine to protect.

Leather Jacket pulled my shoulders, moving me to stand in front of the blonde with small br**sts. She didn’t have a belly button piercing, but she had a small tattoo of a hummingbird on her hipbone.

A bird.

I was about to crush a bird that Q would do everything in his power to protect. I was about to become the exact opposite of the man I loved.

Leather Jacket whispered in my ear, “Punch her. I’m sure there’s more vomit in her gut.”

I stood for an eternity, trying to befuddle myself out of the drug-fog. There must be a way out of this. Think!

I’m cold… I’m hungry…

Leather Jacket growled, “Five…four…three…two…”

The drugs roiled and I punched the girl in the stomach. Even though the drugs cushioned the horribleness of what I did, I shattered inside.

A whirlwind of sparrows filled my head and their tiny talons grabbed my last remaining sanity and flew me far, far away. Either to heaven, hell, or limbo—I didn’t care. All I knew was I’d never be whole again. My mind had protected itself by flying free, soaring back to Q, leaving me to die.

My muscles shut down and it wasn’t the girl who threw up, it was me. I splashed Leather Jacket’s shoes with my roast chicken lunch and collapsed into the warm mess.

They’d finally done it. They’d found my weakness.

They could do what they wanted to me. Torture me. Rape me. And I would always have inner fire—the strength that drove me onward. But make me hurt and torture someone else? That was a recipe for me losing my sanity.

The recipe that would well and truly break me forever.

*****

I moaned, cringing at the crick in my back from lying on a hard pallet. I tried to move but every part of my body ached.

My knuckles were scratched and bruised. My teeth hurt from clenching. My head pounded with a never-ending headache and my side screamed from the kick Leather Jacket gave me for not obeying.

You’re turning into one of them. You hurt others. You’re becoming a devil.

I did it to protect them! I hurt them a lot less than Ogre would have done.

No excuse. You’re breaking. They’re winning.

You need to run. Run. Run. Run. Run.

I clutched my head, trying to stop the swirl of words from making me sick.

I couldn’t move, let alone run. That was an impossibility.

Hours ticked past and I couldn't sleep. My brain never granted me peace, echoing constantly with curses and blames, telling me to run even when my body could never obey. The girl’s scream lived in my ears, always ringing.

Every time I closed my eyes, Q appeared.

“How could you, Tess? You became one of them. I thought you were better than that. I thought you were pure.” He hung his head, eyes glittering with remorse. “There’s nothing left to love about you. You’re a traitor. A monster. I’m going to have to kill you.”

I ran to him, but something held me back. Some wall of air, or invisible imprisonment. “No! I’m not like that. I didn’t want to do it. I did it to save them!”

He laughed, throwing a look of such hatred, I shrank to the floor in shame. “You’re weak, Tess. So weak. I underestimated you. I saw someone fierce. Now all I see is a ruined little girl.”

“Save me then! Please. I need your help. So much.” I couldn’t stop crying.

Q shook his head. His powerful body encased in a black suit looked fit to attend a funeral. My funeral. He was saying goodbye to me.

“Q!”

He refused to make eye contact. Turning his back, he walked slowly into the swirling mist. “Goodbye, Tess.”

Q hated me. I hated me. I wanted to die.

*****

More time passed.

My cell door opened and the same woman who’d tattooed me strolled in. She moved boldly, relaxed and happy. She smiled wide, holding an uncapped syringe. “Ready for another dose, cariño?”

I shuffled upright, cursing my heavy head. “No…pl—please, no more.” My words slurred, tripping and sliding over each other.

She perched on the edge of the bed, reaching for my arm.

I flailed around, managing to avoid her grip. “No. I said no mo—more.”

Her smile slid from her face, replaced with black anger. “Mateo!”

The door opened and in walked Jagged Scar carrying a baseball bat. He kept coming until his knees touched the end of the pallet. “Don’t make me use this.” He slapped the bat into his hand, threatening me. “Be a good employee and let Sofia give you your medicine, okay?”

His voice was so smooth compared to Leather Jacket. Always giving the impression of civility, all the while he was the worst of the lot. He was a true psychopath.

My throat closed and I twisted my unresponsive fingers in my lap. “Please. Money. Jewellery. I’ll give you…”

What was I talking about? I’m hungry. Ask for some food. I’m cold. Maybe if you take the medicine, they’ll give you a blanket.

Oh, I loved that idea. A blanket. It felt like forever since I’d been warm.

I coughed hard, gasping as my lungs struggled for breath.

Someone pushed me back until I lay down and soft fingers took my arm, spreading it flat. A gentle tap in the crook of my arm sent my heart racing. “No! Wait!”