Cardinal

Chapter 18

Five years ago...

Drip, drip, drip, drip. 

I wake up groggy as hell and sore as hell, like a freight truck hit me, again and again. My eyelids feel like lead and my arms feel jello. 

The mechanical beeping digs a hole in my brain and increases the throbbing of my already pounding head. 

Bone-deep, soul-deep pain hits me like a tsunami wave, destroying everything in its path, destroying my soul in its wake. 

...They hit me again and again and again. Drip, drip, drip, drip. 

The sound of the leaky faucet is ingrained in my brain, a signal that I would once again be drowning without air and tortured until I'm docile. 

I scream in sadness and in anger. I sob and scream alternatively while I let the pain and grief flow through me. 

Those bastards, and mom...

A sudden wave of grief and incomparable sadness flows through my chest. It rips me apart like nothing else. The pain I felt now after the days of torture is nothing compared to what I feel knowing that I will never see my mother again...or my baby brother. I can't even begin to comprehend the intense sorrow and pain that stuns my mind and body like nothing before. 

My surroundings are unfamiliar and I look around, trying to reorient myself. 

Where am I? My breath becomes erratic. 

Okay, I'm in a hospital bed and in a comfortable room with no one here. I must be in a medical facility run by the gifted as the clockwise swirl overlapping a diamond is displayed proudly at the center of the room where most hospitals would have a cross of Christ otherwise.  

What about my dads? 

Several unknown people rush into my room, wearing dark green scrubs. Another man follows them who is dressed in all black. They can help me. They need to help me. 

"You need to call the magistrate. My dads? You need to call them! Please, my mom. They killed her. Please, please!" I plead with the unknown people in the room. 

They all ignore me as I try to move away from their hands. Why the hell were they ignoring me?

"Don't touch me!" I scream at them trying to crawl away from the little space in this stupid stretcher. They, again, ignore me, trying to fiddle with the lines connected to my arm and the beeping machines around my bed. 

"I'm sorry, Lilac...," the man in black ominously tells me. 

I hold my breath for a second, hoping, praying for a miracle. Shock stuns me as tears flow down my cheeks. I don't want to hear it. I don't...

"We found you in an abandoned basement not too far from the port. Your dads signaled an alarm to the magistrate when your mom went missing. But when we got to your house, they were all...We couldn't save them. It was too late." 

My hearing goes out. There's static in the background. I put my hands on my ears, not wanting to hear anything anymore. I shake my head violently, trying to wake myself up from my nightmare. 

Please, not them. I beg and beg and beg to whoever the higher power was. 

I can't do this. Not my family. My mom. Daddy Lincoln. Dad Peter. Dad Isaac. My unborn brother. 

I sob desperately, pleading that this nightmare wasn't true. 

"Please don't tell me that's true. Why me? What did I do to deserve this?"