One Hundred Twenty Days of Ruin Chapter 2

The pungent smell of iodine hit my nostrils, and my eyes flew open.

My gaze locked onto Lucas’s bloodshot eyes. He was standing right beside my hospital bed, his hand trembling as he reached out toward me.

The split second his fingers grazed the bare skin of my forearm, he flinched back violently, as if he had touched a glowing coil.

A wire snapped in my brain.

The memory of the cellar—the heavy leather strap whistling through the air—rushed back with the force of a freight train.

A jolt of pure terror electrified my limbs. I threw myself violently away from him, clawing frantically toward the metal headboard like a cornered, dying animal.

Rip.

Fresh sutures tore open. Dark crimson blossomed across the white gauze wrapping my torso.

"Paige, stop making a scene, please," a voice whimpered from the doorway.

Sienna walked into the room, her eyes lightly rimmed in red, projecting an aura of fragile victimhood.

"It was my birthday party. Lucas abandoned a room full of guests just to rush over here for you. Those bandages... you didn't just burst a fake blood capsule, did you? Nobody starts bleeding that heavily from a simple touch."

I stared at her, my entire frame vibrating with uncontrollable tremors.

Lucas’s hand, which had been reaching toward the nurse call button, froze in midair at her words. A flicker of ugly doubt crossed his features.

In that single second of hesitation, my spasming muscles gave out. I lost my balance and tumbled violently over the guardrail.

My fractured bones hit the linoleum floor with a sickening thud. Agony exploded through my spine.

A nurse burst through the door, her face livid as she shoved Lucas back against the wall.

"What is wrong with you?" she yelled. "This patient is suffering from severe, acute PTSD! One more shock like this could induce cardiac arrest!"

Sienna shrank behind Lucas, clamping her mouth shut.

Lucas stood rigid, his jaw clenched, his voice defensively harsh: "She’s putting on an act. Look at her—she won't even say a word."

The nurse rolled her eyes in sheer disgust and shoved the heavy medical chart directly into his chest.

"The patient's vocal cords were destroyed by boiling liquid. Massive necrosis of the mucosal tissue. She is clinically mute. Whether she ever speaks again is in God's hands."

Lucas stumbled back as if struck by a physical blow, staring down at me in horror.

I kept my eyes fixed on the ceiling, giving him nothing.

"Paige... how could this happen?" Sienna stepped forward, her voice dripping with tearful sympathy. "Don't be scared. Mom and Dad are cutting their research trip short and flying back next week. They have the best medical connections in the world—they'll fix you!"

The mention of our parents sent a brutal spasm through my chest.

I remembered my mother’s warm, steady hands. I wanted to scream for them, to beg them to take me far away from this room.

My chest heaved. I opened my mouth wide, desperate to form words, but all that escaped my ruined throat was a harsh, broken wheeze—the sound of air scraping through shredded meat. My body began to thrash against the floor.

"Doctor! We need a doctor!" Sienna shrieked, lunging forward to pin my shoulders down. "She’s having another episode! She’s completely unhinged—sedate her! Hurry!"

Panicking, Lucas stepped in and helped her hold me down.

The nurse plunged a syringe of heavy sedative into my IV line.

What they didn't know was that during those four months in the dark, my captors had pumped me full of tranquilizers to keep me quiet. I had built a massive tolerance to this exact chemical.

Still, I stopped fighting.

I let my eyes slip shut and allowed my limbs to go limp, playing the part of the unconscious invalid.

The room fell quiet.

After a moment, I heard Sienna’s hushed, calculating whisper:

"Lucas... are you really going to make me move out? I haven't even met Mom and Dad yet. I don't want to leave."

I lay beneath the veil of darkness, waiting for the answer from the boy I had called my brother for twenty-two years.

After a brief hesitation, Lucas’s raspy voice drifted down to me:

"I just said that to keep her calm and get her to drop the act. Once we get home, she'll stay in her room. You're not going anywhere."