Keeping his bride

Selina

T HE NEXT TIME I wake up I’m alone in the strange room again. My chest still hurts, but it’s not an excruciating pain like last time. I try to sit up, but then I realize I can’t move my arms. Panicked, I look down and see that my wrists are cuffed to the metal railings on the sides of the hospital bed.

I struggle to get free until I eventually wear myself out and give up. There’s no way I’m getting out of these anytime soon, and I need to save my strength for when I really need it. For all I know, Constantine is waiting for me to get better so that he can beat me, torture me and kill me in retaliation for his son’s death.

I will beg him for mercy, but I know it’s only a matter of time before he kills me anyway. He’s been distant lately, not like when I was younger and I was the most important thing in his world. In his own fucked-up and cruel way, I think he used to care for me.

The door to my room opens, and a nurse enters. I think it was the same one from… Wait, how many hours or days has it been? How long have I been here? My brain is so fuzzy. I grit my teeth as I try to concentrate. I need my pills.

The blue-eyed young woman looks at me and gives me a tentative smile. I probably got her in trouble last time for escaping. Hopefully Constantine didn’t hurt her. I never handled it well when he would punish people for my faults and actions. He knew I hated that, and he would use it against me often. Manipulative bastard.

When the nurse comes over to replace my empty IV bag, I check her face and arms for visible bruises and feel relieved when I see none. “What is he giving me?” I ask. I have to know if he’s drugging me. Is this some kind of new drug he’s testing out on me first again?

“This is just saline,” she informs me. “You’re done with the antibiotics.”

Saline? Antibiotics? What the hell is going on here? I think to myself.

“I need my pills,” I tell her quickly. “He knows I need my benzos.”

Her dark brows furrow before she goes to work replacing the bag of saline.

“Please,” I beg her. I try to reach out, forgetting momentarily that I’m strapped to the bed. I huff with a resigned sigh. “I’ll go crazy without my pills. I need them.”

“I’m sorry,” she says in a rush before finishing up and scurrying out of the room.

I scream in frustration, pulling at my restraints. I’ve never gone this long without being high. Not since I was a kid. Before I was with Constantine, who got me addicted to all kinds of shit to keep me calm and sedated and bending at his every will and demand. When he wasn’t beating the defiance out of me, I was so high I couldn’t protest against his evil ways even if I wanted to.

And now that his son is dead, his wrath will be magnified to unspeakable heights.NôvelDrama.Org exclusive content.

Tears fill my eyes and stream down my face as I desperately try to hold back a sob and fail miserably. The sound of my tortured cries fills the room.

Lying back on the bed, I close my eyes and force myself to think of the only happy point in my life. It’s all hazy now – ten years and a lot of horrible memories and moments separating me from my happy place.

But I still remember him.

Nico.

The only boy I’ve ever cared for, and the only person in the entire world who truly cared about me.

The six months I stayed with his family was the happiest I’ve ever been. And then I was ripped away from that happiness by my mother…who turned around and sold me to Constantine. She needed the money for drugs. She was so addicted that she had no problems selling her own daughter not once, but twice. Nico’s family never knew that my mother was the one who sold me in the first place before they rescued me and asked me to live with them.

I felt safe with them.

I felt loved.

God, I haven’t felt loved in such a long time. I forget what that even feels like.

I should have told them that my mother was the one who sold me the previous time, but I was so scared to betray and disobey her. She beat that loyalty into me every damn day. And honestly, I never thought she would do that to me again.

I should have known better.

I was too young, too naive, and too trusting. But over the years, I’ve come to the realization that you can’t trust anyone but yourself. You gotta look out for number one, because no one else is there for you in the end. Not even your own goddamn mother.

The only relief I have is that she passed away not too long after I was sold to Constantine. I heard she died in her sleep, choking on her own vomit after overdosing. Her death wasn’t punishment enough, but I’ll take it. Just knowing the bitch was dead and couldn’t hurt me anymore made me feel minutely better through the years.

Anger boils up inside of me suddenly, and like a volcano erupting, I scream at the top of my lungs. If Constantine is torturing me by making me wait, then I’m going to draw him out by being loud, the one thing I know he hates. He likes docile, quiet girls. Always seen, never heard…unless it’s in the bedroom.

I scream again and again until it feels like my vocal cords are being ripped to shreds. Thrashing on the bed, I test my bonds, but they hold. And not being able to move just pisses me off even more.

Sweat trickles down my forehead as I squirm around in the bed, trying to slip out of the cuffs. But my efforts soon prove futile. The cuffs are very secure and tight against my skin. There’s no wiggle room at all.

I need my pills. If I don’t get my pills soon, then I’ll be forced to face my horrendous past and all the things that happened to me. And that is not something I can do. I’ve done everything I could over the years to stay numb, to stay so far out of reality that I wasn’t sure if I was awake or dreaming most days.

“I can’t be here,” I say out loud, a sob ripping from my chest. “I can’t be here,” I chant. “I can’t be here.”

If I don’t get out of here soon, I don’t know what will happen to me.