He glares at my mother until she leaves the room, the urine sloshing in the bucket as she passes me. I consider sticking a leg out and tripping the dumb bitch, but then I’d be the one with piss all over the floor. And it’s bad enough in here as it is.
He waits beside me as I finish hurling my guts up, my mother scurrying back into the room with a clean bucket.
“Caroline,” Dornan says, his tone impatient. “What the fuck is wrong with her?”
I sit up, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Apart from the obvious,” he jibes, glancing down at me dismissively.
“I think her wound is septic,” she says hurriedly, not meeting his gaze.
“You think?” he asks. “Or you know?”
“I’m ninety percent sure,” she says. “Also, she’s developed pneumonia. The mold doesn’t help.”
He nods, running his tongue over his teeth. “Will the sepsis kill her?”
My mother shrugs as I listen with interest. “Yeah, mom,” I ask, my tone like acid. “Will it kill me?”
She looks utterly confused, looking between Dornan and me with those pathetic drug-filled eyes that I wish I could just tear out and squash underneath my heels. Dornan laughs. “Give her the fucking medicine and get out, Carol,” he says shortly. “Don’t listen to what she’s saying. She’s mad like you.”
I laugh mirthlessly, drawing a knee up in front of me. As my mother readies a syringe full of antibiotics, I start to hum, a song from my childhood, from before my mother was completely fucked in the head and she still knew my name.
Dornan glares at me.
“Shut up,” he says.
My mouth curves into a fuck you smile as I continue to hum the lullaby from my childhood. And I can tell I’m distracting her.
She stands in front of me, her movements unsure, as she fixes her gaze on me and listens to the sounds coming from my mouth.
“Here,” Dornan snatches the needle from her and leans down, using his free hand to cover my mouth. I try to pull away, but his grip against my face as he pushes my head against the wall is like concrete.
“Tell me, Caroline,” he says, acting bored. “What happens when sepsis goes into your bloodstream?”
She blinks slowly. “Uhh…”
Dornan raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Yes?”
“There’s…Um…acute blood poisoning. Septic shock. Gangrene.”
His eyes light up when she says gangrene. “Ooh. And how do you chop off the middle of somebody’s body?”
She frowns. “You can’t.”
“So if this wound gets gangrene, how do we fix it?”
She shakes her head. “We can’t. Nobody can.”
Dornan grins. “And then?”
My mother appears flustered. “Septic shock—”
“You said that,” Dornan says sharply.
“Organ failure, massive shock, coma, and death,” She finishes flatly.
He shrugs his shoulders condescendingly as if to say, Oh well!
“And will it be painful?” Dornan asks.
She nods. “Oh, yes. Very.”
He chuckles, pushing my face and realizing his death grip around my mouth.
“Well, have fun,” he says, standing upright and ushering my mother from the room.
“What?” I ask, dumbfounded. He doesn’t answer, just slams the door closed. He didn’t even give me the fucking medicine after all that. I have to wonder if he knows I’ve already had a dose – unless The Prospect told him, I doubt my mother would volunteer any information. She’s practically mute.
I roll my eyes, pissed I allowed him to get to me once again. I’m so annoyed. At myself, at him. At my stupid fucking mother for not even knowing who I am, let alone helping me. Even as a small voice of reason in the recesses of my mind tells me she’s beyond helping someone else when she’s a prisoner here herself.
Still.
If it weren’t for her, none of this would have ever happened.
If it weren’t for her, we’d still be okay.
If it weren’t for her, and her fucking drug addiction, my father wouldn’t have been a Gypsy Brother, and we’d all still be alive. Maybe she’d be dead, from the heroin, but hell, she’d deserve it for everything.
I hate her more than anyone. Including Dornan.
That thought is so fucking depressing; it’s enough to make me want to burst into tears.
But I don’t. Tears are for the weak. Tears are a luxury.
If I ever get out of here – the massive if – then, and only then, will I let myself cry.
Until then, I bite down on my lip, tasting blood, and continue to bite down until the lump in my throat slowly fades away.
Days pass with agonizing familiarity. In the morning, I get a tray of food and a handful of little white tablets that make me feel heavy and numb. In the afternoon, I’m allowed to use the toilet down the hall. Too bad if I don’t need to go then.