Cardinal

Chapter 7

TW: Abuse, torture, sexual situations

After I finish eating, I try to go to sleep. I was afraid I was going to have a nightmare after what happened with Will. I don't have triggers or specific events that will bring about my nightmares. After the incident with my parents and Mortem, I have them pretty regularly though not every night. Sometimes, like earlier, I'll dream about my parents when they were happy and smiling.  As I'm falling deeper into sleep, I hear the tell-tale signs that I'm entering a nightmare, the dripping of water from the faucet. 

Drip, drip, drip, drip. 

"Wake up, bitch." A voice growls out from my side as I feel water splashed onto my face. I take a big gulp of air, eyes widening as I'm startled by the coldness of the water. 

As I become more fully conscious, my head starts to pound, my mouth feels like cotton and my eyes feel like 10-lb weights on my face right now. 

Slap. A sharp sting of someone's wide palm hitting my face makes me look up and look around my surroundings. There are three men around me right now, all looking very disheveled, dark circles around their eyes. My hands are tied to a pipe around the wall and I'm in a sitting position on the dirty ground. There's a musty smell of mold, ammonia, and feces that stings my nose as I breathe. I realize I'm somewhere unfamiliar and the cold hard truth that they finally got me sets in. It makes me angry for some reason. I tap into my gift like they had taught me in the academy and I come up with nothing. Fuck. 

"What the hell is your problem? Who the fuck are you? You don't know who my parents are you bastards!" I yell at them, some miraculous spittle coming out of my cotton-mouth. I don't believe in name-dropping usually but desperate times call for desperate measures. 

"I don't think you realize the situation you're in." Emo-looking dumbass 1 says to my right. He grips my face with such brute force that my jaw starts to hurt with his grip. 

I'm breathing hard now, panic setting in my chest. 

"What do you want?" I plead through the grip he has on my face. 

"Someone found out what you can do, little girl. You're being used as a weapon for Mortem. " Emo-looking dude 2 in the middle says. Fuck, Mortem. I'm dead. 

"What if I don't want to help you?" I challenge him. 

"Well, then, you know the drill. Family dies. Friends die. Links die. The full Mortem special." I gulp. They can't hurt my family. And How the fuck did they know I have links? We didn't register or go to the magistrate yet. We haven't even told anybody besides Julie. My gifts had developed several months ago and were registered with the magistrate. They had a fucking mole, I just knew. Everyone in the magistrate and my parents kept everything under wraps after my gift developed knowing the danger that I'd be putting everyone in. No one else knew. Not even my links. 

"You guys are sick people. You need to check yourselves in the mental hospital. You won't be able to touch my family. They're well protected." I grit at him.

Out of nowhere, I start to get short of breath, gasping for air, like a fish out of the water. My vision starts to blur as I try to grasp for the nonexistent air to fill my lungs. God, they're about to kill me. Better me than them. Better me than mom. Better me than the dads. I repeat in my head. 

As I feel myself becoming less conscious, I feel a sudden release of a force and I gasp for the air around me. Emo-looking guy number 3 starts chuckling and laughing from the side. Damn, this guy must control air, I'm screwed. 

"You can't do nothing while a dampener is here. And guess what, your family's on their way here. It'll be a nice little family reunion in a few hours." He points at guy #2. I shake my head vigorously at them.