“I can’t believe I forgot about this. It’s been so many years since it happened that I guess I pushed it out of my mind,” he says with a chuckle as he looks up the stairs at me. “It was such a strange thing…”
I move slowly down the stairs toward him, clutching the banister so I don’t tumble to the bottom. I’m lost in his words, eager for the rest of the story, even though something tells me I’ve heard it before. Something tells me I’ve lived it before.
“He worked here for many years, the doctor, and of course I’d heard of him before. He’d developed a host of new techniques dealing with patients with mental issues, especially those spending time in prison, and he was renowned for his work. He was consumed with dissecting the criminal mind, wanting to know how it ticked, what made them different from the rest of society and what caused them to do such unspeakable things,” Dr. Beall explains.
I hold my breath as I continue moving down the stairs, stopping when I’m on the step right above him.
“He thought he could trick a person’s brain into behaving differently. That through certain tests and continuous therapies, a robber, for instance, would no longer have the need or the desire to steal things from other people,” he explains.
“This hurts me more than it hurts you.”
“If you’d stop being bad, I wouldn’t have to do this to you.”
“Anyway,” Dr. Beall continues. “Right before I moved to town and started treating you, the doctor just up and disappeared. No one ever heard from him again. Not his family, not his friends and none of his colleagues. He just vanished and he took all of his medical files with him. Which is why I didn’t have much to go on when I first started treating you when you were six. There was no record of your birth or any information about past treatments and I just had to start from scratch.”
My hand clutches so tightly to the banister that my knuckles turn white and my arm starts to shake. A sharp shooting pain stabs into my skull and nausea churns in my stomach. My skin breaks out into a cold sweat and before I know it, the shaking in my arm has moved through my entire body.
Don’t ask the next question.
Keep your mouth shut and walk away.
Don’t ask.
Don’t ask.
Don’t ask.
“What was the doctor’s name?” I whisper, the words leaving my mouth all on their own and I’m unable to stop them.
“His name? It was Thomas. Dr. Raymond Thomas.”
“Stop fighting, just let go, it will all be over soon.”
“Why do you make me do these things to you?”
“It will only hurt for a little while.”
Burn.
Pain.
Stab.
Poke.
Prod.
Just let me go in the water. Why can’t I go in the water?
“The water is for good little girls who do as they’re told.”
I hate you. I’ll make you pay. I don’t deserve this.
It will all be over soon because I will kill you.
Everything around me goes dark and I feel myself falling, mumbling to myself before I let go.
“My name is Ravenna Duskin. I’m eighteen years old, I live in a prison, and I’m full of hate.”
Chapter 12
“I’ll be good, I promise!”
I scream and claw and fight at the arms wrapped around my small body, but it’s no use. They don’t love me. They never loved me. They’re tossing me away like garbage.
“This is for your own good.”
I hate them, I hate them, I hate them.
“Please don’t make me go!”
I bite down hard on the arm around my neck, dragging me away. My teeth pierce the skin and blood fills my mouth.
The shouts of pain, curses, and yells are muffled, and I barely hear them. The warm metallic taste in my mouth fills me with hunger and rage.
I laugh when I’m roughly shoved away and smile when my body hits the ground. They stare at me in fear and horror and it makes me happy. I can feel the blood dripping down my chin and I lick it away like a drop of ice cream.
“You are a bad little girl.”
This time, I let them yank me up from the ground and pull me away. I’ll come back, and I’ll make them pay. They did this to me, and they will pay.
My eyes pop open and I have to blink a few times to make them adjust to the dark. I feel blankets around my body and a pillow under my head and realize I’m in my bed, my dresser and the open door to my bathroom coming into focus in the shadows. I lie here for a few minutes, letting myself fully wake up before I start thinking about what happened.
I was talking to Dr. Beall. He said something I didn’t like. It made me remember something, but what was it? I close my eyes and picture myself standing on the stairs, looking down at the doctor. He was telling me a story, and it was about my childhood. I remember feeling sick to my stomach, and I wanted to make him stop talking, but I couldn’t.