Fiery Little Thing: Chapter 19

Everyone hates Mondays.

Well, as I’ve gotten older, and therefore wiser, I’ve come to realize that I hate every day of the week. I don’t actually have anything personal against that particular day.

I do, however, have beef with the man standing at the classroom door. It’s like Boris brought a plague with him. My insides turn, and I’m sure my skin bubbles from his proximity. That man is the harbinger of death, I swear to God.

When he turns his beady brown eyes on me, it’s like the fiery gates have opened, and it’s time to step right up to my eternal damnation.

“Miss Whitlock, Headmaster McGill would like a word with you,” the English teacher says after speaking to the security guard for all of three seconds.

“A word? Just one?” I slap my hand on the desk and drag all the loose paper to my chest, dumping it into my bag. “Must be Christmas.”

Both of their eyes darken, but at least Charlie snorts beside me. “Little shit,” she snickers.

I give her a condescending smile. “Try not to miss me too much.”

Slipping my backpack through my arms, I take my time leaving. The crutches squeak as I move between the aisle, though I’m putting a little more pressure on my ankle today than yesterday. I’m pretty sure Dr. Kohen Osman is correct, and it might not be a sprain. He said he’s going to look into it—whatever that means.

“Hurry up,” Boris grunts.

I halt and nod toward my foot. “Don’t rush me.” Then, I move slower. They go low, I go lower.

He tries rushing me along through the hallways, and it gets to the point that it takes more effort to rebel than be complacent. And I’m in the mood to preserve my energy if I have to listen to people squealing about prom tomorrow. It seems like hundreds of posters clutter the walls of the halls, advertising the event; it’s starting to hurt my eyes.

It’s hard to keep my head held high when we walk past McGill’s office and continue towards the medical wing. The physical torment of my last session in that area was just bearable. But I’m not sure how I’ll cope if I’m thrown in there for another three days with zero enrichment in my enclosure.

Boris walks ahead to push open the door to Dr. Van der Merwe’s office. The air seems to chill by thirty degrees as soon as I walk in. The cold bites deep into my marrow and renders me frozen in my spot.

The door clicks shut behind me, and every instinct hardwired into my being is telling me to run. Bang on the door and break bones if it means getting out of here. Except I can’t move a muscle. No matter how hard I try to get my body to comply, the entire world has crashed onto my shoulders, and the only option is to sink.

Cold blue eyes bore into me, the same upturned shape as my mother’s and just as empty. With a single look, he pierces the bubble of delusion I’ve lived in for the past three days. Just by existing, he’s a reminder that I’m not the type of person who’s meant to be loved. Happy.

The men in front of me don’t rise to their feet. They don’t smile. They don’t react. Only a single word comes out of my grandfather’s mouth.

“Sit.”

“I’ll stand.” I’ll do anything but get closer to him.

His salt-and-pepper hair is impeccably styled, just like his three-piece suit and the long coat hanging at the back of the leather couch. I’ve never seen him with a single strand of hair out of place. His pocket square is never crooked. The designer tie always sits precisely where it should. His Rolex is shined, never so much as a minute off. The man defines opulence as if he was born to be a magnate.

“Sit.” The single syllable rolls through his diaphragm, coming out no louder than a whisper.

The room is so silent the monster in front of me can probably hear my heartbeat. Even McGill steals a glance at Jonathan Whitlock Sr., and I swear his lips part on a silent gasp. On the other hand, Dr. Van der Merwe has his eyes firmly set on me as if he’s trying to anticipate my next move: obey or rebel?

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I lower myself onto the only remaining chair right in the center of the room. Two security guards stand at my back, McGill on one side of my front and the doctor on the other. Then, front and center is the man who took responsibility for his kin by throwing them aside. The structure of the setup is imposing, like they’re trapping a bird to kill it rather than harmlessly interrogate it.

“Stop slouching.”

My back snaps ramrod straight.

“And fix your tie.” My grandfather’s lips turn in disgust. “I warned you not to cause any more trouble.”

He can’t control you anymore, I tell myself. Soon I’ll be graduating and ditching the curse of the Whitlock name.

Still, that doesn’t stop me from sitting up straighter than I usually would. There’s something empowering about knowing that beyond those doors, there’s someone in my corner. Well, I hope he still is. The knowledge seeps strength into my skin.

“When has your warning been able to change my entire personality—”

“You speak when I tell you to speak.” My grandfather cuts me off. “Exercising your own sensibilities is a waste of this earth’s resources.” I grind my teeth together as red dots my vision. “Stay away from both the Osman boys. You were lucky the good one of the two brothers decided to come to me first. Had it been their father, you would be in a very different position.”

I blink. Wait. What? “If the—”

“What did I just say, Marie?”

“I’m going to speak if I want to,” I growl. I did the math before talking to Kiervan, and I decided whatever their father wanted to do to me was worth the risk. “If the point of this was to make me stay away from him, why the hell did you make me his buddy the first day he was here?

”

With slow, deadly calmness, my grandfather turns his head towards McGill. “You paired my granddaughter with that boy?”

He hesitates, moving his lips like he’s running through all the excuses he can make. “It was a—a request made by Mr. Osman to…” McGill clears his throat. “On the first day, he wanted me to reintroduce the two in the hopes of discovering what kind of relationship they have, and…” He shifts in his seat.

“And?” my grandfather prods.

McGill’s beard twitches. Mr. Fifth-Divorce never stood a chance against my grandfather—the owner of the most prominent investment banking company on the East Coast. “He hoped her reaction would be extreme enough to garner proper institutionalization.”

“What you’re saying is you have conflicting interests.”

“No. No,” McGill rushes to say. “I assure you, Mr. Whitlock, it was a onetime occurrence that will never happen again.”

“I assume I don’t need to explain the consequences of it happening again.” Grandpa cocks a brow and grabs the crystal tumbler from the side table.

McGill flattens his hand over his cheap tie. “No, no need.”

Prickles go down my spine when my grandfather’s attention settles back on me.

“It appears that threats do not work in convincing you to behave. Perhaps a bribe will instead.” He pauses to take a sip of bronze liquid. The crystal glass clinks as he places it back on the side table. “You have no money to your name. No home waiting for you at the end of this. Keep your filthy hands away from that family, and in six months’ time, I will give you $100,000 dollars.” When I do nothing but stare at him blankly, he continues. “If your behavior costs me a contract with them, I will ensure you never know a moment of peace in your life.”

A contract? What contract? When did the Osmans and the Whitlocks start doing business together?

“So, Marie, you will do what you must—break that boy’s heart if you have to. All I know is that you stay away from them. I took care of you when your own mother didn’t want to. It’s the least you can do.”

I take one breath.

Two.

The third one is the deepest, stretching my lungs to maximum capacity. Then, my lips stretch into a smile. “Are you”—I push onto my feet—“fucking kidding me? Who the fuck do you think you are? You, your money, and not a single fucking word out of your mouth means shit to me. I’ll be stuck in this place for another month, and after that, there’s nothing you can do to me. I’m out. I’m free. Your threats are empty, old man.”

“Are they?” The raise of his brows unsettles me enough to make me sway.

“You don’t own me.”

“Don’t I?” he says cooly. “It appears there was some miscommunication at some point. This freedom you speak of was never made for you.”

“Spit it out.” I breathe hard through my gritted teeth.

The look he gives me is almost pitiful. “You are sorely mistaken if you think you can just traipse around wearing the Whitlock name.”

The blood drains from my face as he explains. This is worse than anything I could have imagined. I’d rather end up dead and broke than live under his thumb for the rest of my life. I haven’t spent my entire life fighting this hard just to stay in the same place. Then I’ll truly be another version of my mother, chained to a man who cares more about status than if I died.

“Your uncle and I have worked hard for our reputation, and a bastard grandchild is not ruining that.”

I launch myself at the man I call grandfather. My nails find purchase with loose skin, and I don’t hesitate. I rip. I claw. I throw my hands out over and over again until my shoulder collides with the hard surface of the floor, and pain pangs down my spine.

I’m yanked back onto my feet in the next breath, and my mouth opens with a silent scream. Agony radiates out from the throbbing point in my ribs. The searing pain reaches every inch of my body, feeling like I’m being struck by a thousand bolts of lightning as all my muscles spasm at once. The crackling sound of static can barely be heard above the silent scream lodged in my throat.

The tension releases from my muscles as soon as the sound stops. Throwing my arms out, I try to push the guards away, but the room seems to spin as I do. I fucking hate getting tased. My legs give out beneath me, and I struggle to get back up. The world moves as I try to make sense of my shifting surroundings. My eyes refuse to move into focus as I’m dragged down a set of stairs that I’ve never seen before.

“Where are we going?” My voice comes out garbled and distorted, but there’s a slight echo to it. “Stop. Let go of me.”

I jerk at the hold around my arms and try to hold my own weight as the temperature drops the further down the stairs we go. A whimper breaks through my chest when my back crashes against a rough stone wall.

The sudden impact clears away the bleary haze enough for me to notice the three fluorescent lights hanging from the high concrete ceiling. The musty smell of the windowless room makes me scrunch my nose. Benches and shelving push against the walls surrounding the tub in the middle.

I gasp when my blazer is torn off me. My shoes follow the pile on the floor, and I kick out, narrowly missing Boris. They tug me forward, and everything seems to pause and focus on the tall metal tub.

They’re going to put me in there.

They’re going to put me in the water.

Images of falling into a frozen lake flash in my mind. I’d kick my feet and move my arms, and it won’t matter how hard I try to make it back to the surface; the darkness drags me under. I’d scream for help. Beg to a god I don’t believe in to save me. My lungs would burn in search of oxygen, and then I’d make the mistake of opening my mouth. Water then pools into each crevasse of my organs until, eventually, there’s nothing.

“This is not right.” Dr. Van der Merwe’s voice echoes through the stone room. “I do not approve of this treatment—science has proven that this does nothing to help a patient. This—this is torture. I will not stand for it.” I throw a futile glance at the doctor, silently pleading that he’ll demand they release me.

“You know where the door is,” McGill says simply.

Dr. Van der Merwe gives me one long, tortured look. “ECTs are board approved, based on fact, science, and reason. It can help patients. If you put her in there, you will do more harm to her than good. What you are doing is barbaric, unethical, and beyond any realm of acceptability.” He backs away, shaking his head.

My pulse ricochets against my skin as panic rises up my throat. “Stop it.” My voice commands no authority with how much it cracks.

The pebbled surface of the water comes into view, and energy floods back into my veins. “I’m not going in there!” I scream, gnashing my teeth and thrashing my limbs about.

The two guards are too strong for me to fight off. My feet hit the outside of the frozen tub, and I use it as leverage to kick back. I manage to swing my elbow back and knock one of the guards, but he recovers quickly. The two guards change tact. Boris grabs both my legs and throws them into the tub.

“Settle down, Marie,” I think I hear my grandfather say.

A shrill cry bursts out of me as the cold bites into my bones. I try to catch my footing, but I slip further into the water each time I do. The near-frozen liquid absorbs into my uniform, clinging to me like a second skin. My hands meet the guard’s flesh over and over, slapping him. Scratching him. Punching him. I have to get out of here. They can’t—they can’t put me in here.

My burning eyes turn to my grandfather’s. “No. No. No. No. Please don’t! I’m sorry! I’ll stop! I’ll stay away from them! I promise! You don’t need to do this!”

The ice bobs against my skin and clatters against the metal, growing louder and more violent each time I move.

“Did you know they called this the ‘water cure’ during the eighteen hundreds?” Grandfather says coolly.

My eyes dart to McGill, praying he’ll see that even this is too far—that even the doctor thinks this is so far beyond the line of what is acceptable. But all I find is a man on a leash, hanging on to my grandfather’s every whim. Fucking coward.

Boris places a canvas sheet over the bottom half of the tub, stopping my legs from trying to escape. “No. No. Please. I’m sorry, okay? I’ll be good. I won’t go near them. Please, Grandpa.”

Another guard runs down the steps as the two men wrestle my arms into the tub. Boris’s gaze catches mine and the satisfaction strewn across his features makes my stomach churn. My eyes burn with unshed tears as I look between my grandfather and McGill, hoping to find even a glimmer of compassion.

I don’t want to die in here. I want to breathe. I want to feel the wind and taste the fresh air. I want to move my arms and not feel trapped.

“I’ll leave them alone. It won’t happen again. Please.” I sob.

The third guard slides the second half of the sheet in place, keeping everything but my head beneath the tub. My fists collide with the cold metal as I feel around for a latch of some sort.

The ice skates along my skin with every move, making it feel like I’m trapped with a thousand living things all fighting to keep me prisoner.

“I did some research on the way here,” my grandfather says, patting his bloody cheek with a handkerchief.

I keep hitting and kicking with all my might. The cold has numbed any of the pain that would otherwise be there.

“Psychologists used to think submerging a patient in freezing water could ‘kill’ the mad thoughts. Sometimes, they’d place the patient into near-boiling water before moving them into ice water to ‘shock’ the patient into submission or sanity.”

I kick my knees up, banging against the sheet as hard as possible when the cold has rendered my muscles stiff. “Grandpa,” I wheeze. “Please stop this.” The tears slide down my cheeks, dripping off my chin.

The two guards exit the room, leaving only me, my grandfather, McGill, and Boris.

He raises his shoulders in boredom. “See this however you wish—punishment, therapy, or simply wasted entertainment. Your views have no sway in any of this.”

My grandfather condoned the electrocution and the violence. He spent my entire life abusing me with his power, using his money as a means to starve me or keep me leashed to him like a desperate puppy.

I was always aware he was pushing the buttons and calling the shots. We didn’t speak on the phone where I could hear his voice; I only saw him once every few years. Jonathan Whitlock Sr. was a series of letters and numbers that dictated how much misery would be let into my life.

Jonathan isn’t a man behind a screen anymore. He isn’t a myth or a story on the news. He’s flesh and bone with sinister eyes. He’s there. Right in front of me. Calling the shots, with orders of my execution waiting on the tip of his tongue. It’s real. A living, breathing human being whom all darkness stems from.

He is the maker of my own personal hell. A conduit for all the bad that’s happened so far.

My grandfather tucks his bloody handkerchief back into his inside pocket. “You were given the opportunity to make a dignified choice; however, you chose not to do so. This is the consequence of your actions, Marie. This”—he nods at the tub—“can be a common occurrence.”

I will not die like this.

I will not die letting men like him survive on my wilted corpse.

“Why can’t you just care about me? Why do you have to do all of this?” My teeth chatter as I say the words.

My grandfather slides his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “Some people weren’t born to be wanted. Existing is the most they will ever receive.

”

My gaze cuts to the three remaining men. “If you don’t let me out of here, I swear on my life that you will all die because of me. I will hunt you down and make you regret treating me the way you do.” My grandfather. McGill. Boris. They will all die by my hand.

Jonathan huffs an empty chuckle. “I’ll see you at graduation, Marie.” He toes my blazer that’s lying on the floor. “Don’t forget your jacket. It’s cold outside.”