The Phoenix

Chapter 28 - I'm What?

(Scarlett's POV)

I don't think I've been in a hospital since I was born and thank god because everything about hospitals creep me out. This is the first I can think of being here and I hate it already.

It smelled of bleach, sick people, and overly sanitized sheets. There were tubes and wires all over my body, small tubes in my nose, and a machine next to me that beeps every freaking second. The IV needle hanging out my arm tugged a bit when I lifted my arm, it was probably the only thing giving me life right now.

Despite my body feeling extra heavy, I sat up in my bed to see Kyson sleeping in the corner of my room on a recliner. The sun was up, but blocked out by the thick gray curtains that hung in my room.

I quickly pulled the tubes from my nose, and took a deep breath; trying not to freak out. I don't remember anything about how I could have end up in here. I remember meeting up with Tyler because I thought that he had Lanie, but when I got to him, she wasn't there. He tricked me. He had Payton steal Lanie's iPhone and make it seem like she found it at school and then Tyler found her.

I remember him dragging me to a room with him, tying me up, and shoving a pill down my throat. In that time of tying me up and drugging me, he told me about Kyson. He told me that Kyson has a multimillion dollar deal to fight through MMA, and that Kyson turned it down.

How he knew that is completely besides me. Anything that happened after that pill he gave me kicked in I don't remember.

I can't believe that Kyson was offered such a thing and never told me anything about it.

I tried looking around the room, but it felt like everything I looked at, I was seeing it halfway. It was almost like something was blocking half of my view. I thought that maybe it was just a daze from waking up after god knows how long, but no. I reached up to touch my face, starting at my forehead; nothing, it was completely fine. But when I got down to my eyes, I started freaking out because I found the cause of my half vision; one of my eyes was swollen shut.

I whimpered in fear.

I could feel tears stinging at the back of my eyes.

What happened to me?

I reached up to run my hand through my hair, like I always do when I'm freaked out, but the bruises and burns on my arms and wrists stopped me.

My arms looked dead.

The bruises were dark purple and blue, in the shapes of hand prints. The burns were red and scabbed. I looked like I had been tied up and jump by ten people at once.

Flinging the covers off in one swift motion, I examined the rest of my body. My legs were bruised all, they looked just like my arms. There was barely any skin that didn't have a mark. My ankles were just like my wrists, red and scabbed from what it looked like rope burns would do. I pulled up my hospital gown as the bruises went on for miles.

"Oh my God." I whimpered as the first tear fell and landed on a huge handprint bruise on my upper thigh. "Oh my God." A sob wrecked my chest.

I knew what the handprint meant.

Tyler drugged me and raped me.

On some occasions, Ivan would leave behind these prints after he would abuse me and rape me.

"Oh my God." I sobbed. I couldn't take my eyes off of the proof that I was violated and abused. I couldn't remember, but these bruises were here to tell the story.