I Became Her

Chapter 11 -The Mend-

Do I dare to open my eyes?

I am not in constant pain anymore. Why? The truth is, I am afraid to find out. Am I dead? Is that why I don’t feel the results of the torture? So many questions that can be answered if I just open my eyes and face whatever is around me. Hell, heaven or the same darn hotel room.

The haze that surrounds me is clearing a bit and I can hear unfamiliar sounds. Low volume beeping, doors being opened and shut, people walking in the distance.

With a deep breath, I open one eye that is still functioning. White on top of white with subtle light green here and there.

I am out of the hotel, that is certain. My guess is, that I am in a hospital, if heaven doesn’t look like one. The distinctive smell of the disinfectant confirmed my suspicion.

It means I was saved. Someone found me before I bled to death. My heart sinks for a second if I think of what kind of image played out, when that someone opened the door and found me in that pathetic condition they had left me in. Battered, bleeding and naked while tied to the bed.

There is part of me that wants to die. Not a small part actually. Now that the pain is not dominating me, everything they did and said is clearer than when it happened. How they used me, disrespected me, ruined me, mocked me. The vocabulary doesn’t hold enough words to describe it.

And all of that because I fell in love with someone who is unable to feel anything. How can he be so heartless? He sold me like I was a piece of cattle, but that is not the worst, he sold Yasmine, his own flesh and blood, his family.

I don’t want him to go to hell. I want him to burn to ashes before he reaches there. He shouldn’t have any afterlife, not even in hell. I want him forgotten, erased from the earth, history and my memory. He doesn’t deserve to be spoken about or to be remembered by anyone for that matter.

I feel getting dizzy. I suppose a new dose of painkillers was just released into my bloodstream, so I let it take me and doze off again.

“Has she woken up yet?”

“Not that I know of. She is still heavily sedated.”

“That bad, ah?”

“Not as bad as the last one, but they really did a number on her.”

“Will she make it?”

“Her body will heal. But it’s her spirit I am worried about. She will survive, I’m just not sure she actually wants to.”

“I will stay here. She needs to know she is not alone.”

“Do they know she survived?”

“No.”

“God bless you, Shai.”

“How long do we have?”

“I can keep it vacant for a week.”

The door closes and something is being dragged across the room. I know I was the subject, and I can’t deny how correct they were in their assumptions of my mental state. I really am not sure if I want to make it out alive.

But I do want to know who that Shai is, and why she is here.

“Who are you?” I ask. My voice is hoarse and barely understandable. I can’t see her yet, cause she is on my left, but I hear her moving around.

“Here, have a drink. It’ll help.” She moved to my right and holds a cup with a straw close to my face. She is not dressed as a nurse, so I don’t think she works here, but she knows her way around.

I look into her eyes when I take a sip. Water burns as it flows down, and it seems like she can understand the pain I feel because her expression changes immediately when a single tear escapes from the corner of my eye. She presses her lips tightly together and there is sympathy in her hazel eyes that seem to be too big for her skinny face.

“Who are you?” I ask again and this time the words are actually comprehensible.

She takes a deep breath before talking. “My name is Shai.” That little sympathetic and reassuring smile, that came after her statement, makes me feel that this is not her first rodeo, she had done this before. “I found you and we brought you here.”

“We?” Worry starts to entwine with other feelings. Is she in cahoots with Duncan? Is she here to make sure I’ll keep my piehole shut?

“Don’t freak out now. Maybe I should start at the beginning, so you understand me a little better.” She disappeared from my view and dragged a chair to the right side of the bed, so I could see her. Another deep breath by her. “Three years ago, I came here, to Vegas, with my girlfriends to have an unforgettable weekend. We wanted to gamble, drink and party. And this weekend was a gamble, but unfortunately, the stakes were on my life, and I lost.”

“You don-,” I try to stop her from pouring her heart out, but she raises her hand and stops me instead.

“That weekend I met Duncan Yates.” Her eyes are on me when saying this and she catches the hitch in my breath after saying his name. “He was sweet and charming. Well, you probably know that. On the second night, he bought concert tickets for my friends and said he had a better plan for us.” She laughs, not from humor or memories, but from regret and resentment. “That night, I met Marco and Tyler. I suppose you can imagine the rest.”

Three years. She said it happened three years ago. This means so many, too many women have suffered as we did. Or are we the only ones? It’s hard to wrap my head around it.

“Why didn’t you report it?” I can’t help but feel that if she had broken the chain three years ago, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now. Maybe even Yasmine would be alive.

She snorts quietly and looks out the window for a few seconds and shakes her head when looking at me again. “My friends found me later that night. I was heavily beaten and r***d. They called an ambulance and reported it to the police. I remember I was in the hospital and the police came, they were in my room for about two minutes, and they made it quite clear that pressing charges would mean worse to me than to them. Back then, they sedated me, so I was luckier than you, I don’t actually remember any of it. But the injuries can paint a vivid picture. So yeah, no memory of the crime means no crime when it comes to powerful people.”

I just stare at her. I heard what she said, I understood what she meant and why she wanted to tell me this story, but I have nothing to say to her. Yes, she was in the same position I am now, but I don’t need her here holding my hand. None of it explains how she found me and why she is trying to help me.

My head is spinning from everything. From the abuse, from her, from all the pain. I want to be left alone, and at the same time I want her to answer questions that are twirling in my head trying to break out.

“How did you find me,” I ask hesitantly.

“I wanted revenge. So, I stayed in Vegas and started working at that very same hotel. Somehow, I knew they would be back, and I thought I could catch them in act or poison them or something. How stupid was I?” Her lips laugh, but her eyes don’t.

“Why didn’t you?” Doesn’t sound like a mission impossible if she is working at the same hotel.

“How do I explain this? Going against them is like you trying to dry the earth in pouring rain. There is no scenario where you will succeed. Their families own this city, they own the police, and they own you just as much.” She waved her hands in front of me, like erasing something from between us. “Anyway, I decided if I can’t stop them, I will help the ones they bring here.” She looks at me with guilt in her expression, “Every time they book a room in the hotel, I want to kill them cause I know someone will die inside of that room. But the only thing I can do is wait until they leave and go and pick up the pieces they left. Every single time I wish I could do more.”

She actually did plenty and now is the first time I realize that. If she wouldn’t have come for me, I might still be in that room, tied to the bed, bleeding out slowly. I might be dead. Of course, I want to blame her for not doing enough to stop them. I want to blame every single person on this earth for putting me in this position, but the harsh truth is that I would need a mirror to see the one who put me in this position.

I ignored all the red flags. I wanted to feel loved and live the life he offered without questioning why would he do that? Somewhere deep down I knew something wasn’t right, but I decided to ignore my gut and enjoy the expensive gifts and pampering. I am the one who decided to be blind.

“Thank you.” I utter quietly. “Thank you for helping me.” I can’t express properly how thankful I am, hopefully saying these words out loud confirm her that I am grateful to her.

“Don’t thank me yet. You need to get better and then we will help you get out of Vegas. They can’t know you survived, nor can they know where you went.” Her face is serious and this secrecy about my well being is making me nervous.

“They already got what they wanted from me. What else could they do to me?” There is nothing left to destroy, why should I be afraid of them?

“Whether you disappear on your own terms, or they make you disappear on theirs,” she says while coming closer and taking my hand cautiously in hers. “We will help you leave unnoticed, and you can start over somewhere else.”

I slip my hand from under hers. I don’t know if it’s the physical contact, the words she is saying or both. I only know that I can’t walk away and forget, I can’t turn my back and take all this pain with me. I have to do something, even if it means I will die trying.

“I am not leaving.”