LIORA'S HELL
1022 Words
(Season 1)
CHAPTER 2
The storm didn’t knock. It slammed.
Rain came down in sheets, pounding the stone walls of the Brown mansion like it wanted in. Thunder rolled over the hills and rattled the chandeliers. The kind of night that made you check every lock twice.
Inside? It was worse.
Because Mrs. Brown was pacing.
No one breathed loud. No one moved unless she looked away. The staff, the cousins, the ‘guests’ for dinner — all of them lined the grand hall like statues. Eyes down. Hands still.
Mrs. Brown wasn’t just angry.
She was furious. The kind that filled a room and took all the air with it.
Her heels clicked against marble. _Click. Click. Click._
Stop. Turn. _Click. Click. Click._
Every step said the same thing: _Someone is about to pay._
The front doors groaned.
They opened half an inch. Then a foot. Cold air and rain rushed in.
A girl.
Soaked through. Hair plastered to her face. Dress clinging, transparent, ruined. She stood in the entryway dripping onto the white rug and froze when thirty pairs of eyes hit her.
*LIORA VALOR.*
Nineteen. Too thin. Too quiet. The kind of girl you’d miss in a crowd if she wanted to be missed.
Mrs. Brown’s gaze dragged down Liora’s body. Slow. Inventory. Judgment.
From the water pooling at her feet, up the shaking knees, to the face that was already blue at the lips. Then back to the eyes.
Liora’s fist clenched in the wet fabric of her dress. Knuckles white.
She knew that look.
Trouble. Punishment. No way out.
The tension in the hall got heavier. Like the storm had followed her inside.
“*Liora Valor.* Where the hell are you coming back from?!”
Mrs. Brown’s voice cracked like the thunder outside. Sharp. Personal.
Liora flinched. Swallowed. Her throat was raw from cold.
“I... Er... I’m so sorry.”
A whisper. That was all she had.
She knew it already. There was no sentence, no excuse, no tear that would make this woman soften. Not tonight.
Mrs. Brown’s head tilted. Disbelief. Disgust.
“Sorry?” Her voice dropped. Dangerous quiet before the yell. “You filth of a child dares to disregard my orders, and you say _sorry_?”
She exploded.
“You ungrateful child! All I asked was for you to show your ugly face at the office once. Once! To meet some important people. But no—”
She stepped closer. The staff stepped back.
“You ruined everything. Just like that w***e you called a mother. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”
Her voice thundered off the high ceilings. Outside, lightning split the sky and lit the windows white.
Liora was shaking now. Not just from fear. From cold. Her lips were purple. Rainwater ran from her hair down her neck, soaking the collar of a dress she wasn’t allowed to change out of. She wasn’t allowed a driver. Wasn’t allowed a car. She’d walked three miles in this.
Mrs. Brown’s smile was thin. Ugly.
“But it’s okay…”
She lifted her chin. “I just have to remind you what it means to defy my orders.”
Her voice turned crisp. Final.
“*Mr. Phillips!*”
An old man rushed in from the side hall. Head bowed. Hands trembling.
“Yes, my lady.”
Liora’s stomach dropped. She knew him. She knew that tone.
Her nightmares were about to walk her out of this room.
“Lock her in the cold room.”
The words echoed.
_The cold room. The cold room. The cold room._
Heads snapped up. Eyes bulged. Even the cousins who hated Liora went still.
Because everyone knew.
Liora was allergic to cold. Not ‘catch a sniffle’ allergic. _Hospital, EpiPen, oxygen mask_ allergic. Her lungs closed. Her skin broke out. Last time they’d done this, she was unconscious for two days and Phillips had to lie to the doctor about ‘pneumonia’.
She was already half-dead from the rain.
And now they wanted to put her in a basement that never got above 40 degrees?
“*But my lady…*” Phillips started. Voice cracking.
Mrs. Brown’s glare cut him off. Razor sharp.
“Okay, my lady,” he said at once.
He looked at Liora. And for one second, the mask slipped.
Sorry. Helpless. _I can’t stop this._
He’d watched her get thinner every month. Watched her condition get worse and done nothing, because doing something got you fired. Or worse.
He reached for her arm.
Liora didn’t pull away. She couldn’t.
Tears were running down her face, mixing with rain. Silent. Endless. Like the storm outside had moved into her.
She was lightheaded. Her body felt like it was made of wet cement. The last time this happened, she almost didn’t wake up.
She couldn’t even beg. There was no air for it.
“*Mom. You need to see this.*”
A new voice. Fast. Sharp with panic.
*JAE.* Mrs. Brown’s daughter. Twenty one, polished, terrified. She burst in holding her phone like it was burning her.
Mrs. Brown didn’t look away from Liora. “What is it?”
Jae’s eyes were wide. “*Mr. Vex is on his way.* Like, right now.”
The hall went dead quiet.
Mrs. Brown stared at her daughter. Then at Liora. Then at the front doors, still open to the storm.
Shock. Confusion. Then calculation.
_Kalen Vex._ Chicago. Money. Power. The kind of man you don’t make wait in the rain.
He was coming at 11 PM? Unannounced?
And the girl he was supposed to ‘meet’ was standing there, drenched, shaking, looking like a drowned stray?
She needed Liora presentable. Composed. Marketable.
This was the deal. The one that would put the Browns back in rooms they’d been locked out of for a year.
_God. What was she going to do now?_
Phillips’s hand was still on Liora’s arm. Halfway between pulling her toward the basement stairs, and letting go.
Thunder rolled again.
And Liora, barely standing, lifted her eyes just once.
Not at Mrs. Brown.
At the open door.
At the storm.
TBC
- Writer
