Jemma's POV
I was in intensive therapy at the state institution for two years before they released me into the care of my aunt on my dad's side. She was almost fifteen years older than my dad and didn't know what to do with a teenager, let alone one as fucked up as me.
Her apartment was on the basement level of an aging building on one of the worst streets in the city, and my bedroom was a windowless room without a closet or a proper door. It was still an improvement compared to
the place I'd been sequestered at.
No one had answers for me. Not my therapists. Not the police. And certainly none of my friends.
Or rather… former friends. When you've been committed to a mental institution and swear you saw giant dog-like beasts attack your family, people tend to avoid your calls.
The only other person I had was Bryan. I was barely a wisp of a girl when his family moved into the subsidized housing down the street. He was older and seemed so wise and worldly at the time.
I developed a starry-eyed crush on him almost immediately, and secretly harbored that crush for ages until I was brave enough to approach him the week I turned thirteen.
We'd just started really hanging out together when the incident happened, so he was the last person I expected to seek me out when I was released from residential therapy after being lost to the world for two years.
But he's the only one who did.
He didn't run from my pain, but instead seemed to accept me, invisible scars and all. As I got older, he helped me manage it when my medications didn't help. Taught me how to self-medicate with vodka and stolen opioids.
That worked for a few years. My aunt never even noticed that her prescriptions were running out faster than usual. I didn't do it often—only
on the nights when I couldn't stop shaking, when it felt like my nerves were on fire and my stomach might turn inside out.
On those nights, Bryan would pin me down when we were in bed. I couldn't handle it sweet or nice, and that really wasn't his style, anyway.
The act itself wasn't satisfying in the way I imagine it is most other people, but then again, I wasn't chasing pleasure.
I wanted the ache and discomfort to distract me. I'd beg him to make me hurt, however he could. I wouldn't complain when his bony knees and elbows pressed into me, or when an odd position put me in a strain, or even when I was too dry to ease the friction. Because if I felt new pain, if it
coursed through me raw and fresh, then I couldn't feel the old wounds.
But nothing could truly protect me from the memories that haunted me every night, not for very long.
When my aunt died of a heart attack two years ago, Bryan moved in. He took over everything, and I let him. It was just easier. Being alone left me with too much time to think, to feel… to wonder if one day the beasts would come back to finish the job and take me to my grave. Being alone was worse than being with him.
Bryan had a hookup at Lucky Devils since he used to be a bouncer there. So I started dancing.
Nobody there cared if I hardly slept, so long as I used enough concealer.
And I think Bryan likes dating a dancer, as though he's worked his magic and shaped me into a desirable woman. As if it's through his saving grace that I've become an object of lust. He likes to joke about how he owns me.
It should bother me, but I don't have the energy to care.
I'm just another girl, dancing with her eyes closed, letting men leer while I take their money. It pays the bills. And while I'm on stage, I don't have to think about what happened. I'm free, in a sense, even if I'm an actor in my own skin.
Pulling myself up from the bathroom floor, I draw in a deep breath to steady my nerves. It's over for now. Once I've relived the memory in full, horrific detail it usually leaves me alone for the rest of the night. But it'll be back tomorrow. And the next night. And the next.
I tiptoe out of the bathroom, hoping I don't wake Bryan. A glance at the bedside clock tells me it's almost morning. Dancers sure don't keep banker's hours—by the time I get home, it's usually the middle of the night.
Bryan used to wake up when the nightmares were especially bad, like tonight, but now he usually sleeps through them. It's just as well, because he's never been one to offer words of comfort. Pills or booze, sure. Anything beyond that is expecting too much.
He seems to be sound asleep, a dark lump on the other side of the bed. I ease onto the mattress and pull the covers up slowly, but my head doesn't even touch the pillow before Bryan grumbles and rolls onto his side away from me, taking all the covers with him.
"Goddammit, Jemma," he huffs. "Can't I ever just get a fucking night's sleep?"
I resist the urge to kick him. Instead, I draw in a deep breath. My nerves are already shot, and I don't have the energy to fight with him right now. "I wasn't trying to wake you up."
"Could've fucking fooled me," he snaps, punching at his pillow to wedge it under his neck. "I could hear you crying in the bathroom again."
An angry retort forms on my lips, but I bite it back as I glare at him in the dark, even though he can't see my face. As if I want to have these nightmares playing in my mind on repeat. Twisting my stomach into knots until I'm dry heaving in the bathroom. Filling my body with dread until I'm shaking uncontrollably.
He leans up on one elbow, still facing away from me. "Stop fucking staring at me. I can feel you burning a hole in my back."
I promised myself I wouldn't argue with him tonight, that I'd let it go so that he'd shut up and go back to sleep, leaving me to do the same in peace.
But I can't help the words that claw their way out of me. I'm so tired—of the dreams, of remembering, of spending my nights curled up on a cold tile floor.
But I'm especially tired of his mouth. "You don't have to be such a jerk, you know?"
"Maybe I wouldn't be if you'd let me get some goddamn sleep!" His tone gets louder until he's yelling the last few words.
I say nothing, frustration and anger burning inside me so bright that I can't form words. I'm sick of having the same fight, over and over.
It's moments like these when I start fantasizing about a different life.
Anything but this one. Just quietly gathering up a small bag of my things and slipping out the door in the middle of the night. I have enough cash for bus fare to get me about halfway across the country.
After that, I have no idea what I'd do, but on nights like this, I don't care. I tell myself I could work out the details later.
It's not feasible, of course. Without a plan, I'd end up worse off than I am now, living on the street with no job or money, but the fantasy still gives me solace.
Although I'm not leaving the state tonight, or even this shitty apartment, I don't want to be near Bryan. The living room is dark and small, and the couch is upholstered with a cheap, scratchy fabric, but it's better than sleeping next to the asshole in here.
He's already stolen the covers anyway, and I doubt he's feeling generous enough to kindly give my half back, so I get out of bed and kneel on the floor, my hands searching in the dark.
My sketchbook and pouch are still where I shoved them between the aged, peeling dresser and the thin mattress.
I don't look back at Bryan as I stumble into the living room, clutching the sketchbook and a single pencil before me as if I'm Joan of Arc wielding a shield and sword. But instead of leading a war against invading armies, when I put the pencil to the paper, I wage war against memories. Every harsh stroke of the pencil is another slash of my sword against the wolves.
Perched on the edge of the couch, with only the dull orange glow of the lamp for company, I carve them out of my thoughts.
The terror they inspire rushes my movements, and the anger at myself presses the strokes harder, as if I'm trying to push the darkness from me and deep into the paper. Their hulking canine forms appear on the page, the lines full of fury, the jagged edges of their bristling shoulders, the piercing points of their fangs, the massive slope and rise of their wide paws.
All of it spills chaotically onto the page, my hand nearly vibrating as the pencil races over the paper.
I only grow still when I reach their eyes, my lips pressed together tightly in concentration as I etch them in detail. I can never draw chaos there, because when they looked at me, all I saw was purpose—an unrelenting, singular focus to orchestrate my death.
Their eyes are what terrify me the most.
Not their jaws dripping with saliva from their feral hunger, not their claws digging into the earth or splintering the wood as they tried to get to me, not even their beastly size. When I dared to look out, it was their bright yellow eyes that provoked the greatest horror, watching me with sinister clarity, as though they had swallowed all the light of the stars in order to see me better.
Did Joan of Arc feel this violent chill of fear after the men she'd saved tied her to the stake?
The harsh scrape of paper fills the tiny, quiet living room as I flip to a clean page, beginning the battle against my memories again. This war will never be over. Not for me. I'm trapped with the wolves forever—always running, always hiding, always trying to escape.
As the energy drains out of me, sweating as if I'd really been in a life or death fight, I let the sketchbook and pencil drop from my hands. In my imagination, they hit the cheap linoleum with the heavy clanging sound of a sword and shield falling upon the stone floor of a great hall.
Tears slip from my eyes as I turn off the light. I'm not like Joan of Arc.
There will be no one dragging me to the stake, no one binding my arms tightly, and no one setting me on fire. I'm a girl who's gone mad so quietly that no one notices all the cracks I'm barely holding together.
I'm nothing more than a broken thing, masquerading as something whole. One day my pieces will finally split apart, and I'll shatter at last.
I lie on the couch in the dark, listening to Bryan's rhythmic wheezing coming from the bedroom. Usually I'm exhausted after the nightmare plays out—thoroughly drained, emotionally and physically. But tonight there's a restless energy stirring inside me, battling against the fatigue of a long day.
Rolling to the side, I glance down at the sketchbook resting on the floor.
Deep shadows of the room fall across the drawings, shrouding the beasts, muting them. They're done with me, for now.
Snuggling against my pillow, I curl my legs onto the couch and close my eyes, willing myself to fall asleep.