** Trigger Warning - forced piercing and forced tattoos **
Thursday
A frog creaked its call from somewhere nearby, joining in the chorus of crickets that buzzed into the night. Aislen could hear the whispered rush of the river, smell the wet earth of its banks. Her head ached and her mouth was parched, the sound of the water tormenting her. Not at her father’s house, she thought, groggily. The river was too far from there to be heard like this. She had a bad feeling that she knew precisely where she was.
She pried her eyes open, wincing at the glare of the red-toned bedside lights. Her hands cuffed together, threaded through the bars of the bedhead.
She was in the River House, though not as it had been, she thought, as she looked around. The River House of her teen years had been dus
