Seemed even in unconscious terror, I’d trained my voice not to speak.

Padding to the bathroom, I wrenched on the hot water and climbed into the shower. I did my best to distract my weary thoughts, but washing myself was foreign. My body didn’t feel like my own: ridgelines of scars and bumps of broken bones. If I stood too long, heat built in my spine and unwanted aches throbbed in my knees.

I wasn’t stupid to think those pains would cease. What I’d lived through had wrecked my young form. But then again, I’d been at war. Whoever returned from war in one piece? Body or mind?

Once I was clean, I dried myself with a fluffy towel and hung it up neatly. Despite the chill of being damp and tired, I didn’t dress and climbed into bed naked.

I exhaled heavily and closed my eyes.

* * * * *

“You little bitch. You thought you could run away from me? You can never run away.” Master A struck with the chain, slapping it hard with a metal bite against my ass. I bit my lip to staunch my scream as I always did. But it only made him rage harder.

“Speak to me, sweet Pim. Yell. I want to hear you beg.”

I tried to curl into a ball, but the ropes on my wrists and ankles prevented me. Tied face down on the bed, I couldn’t protect any part of me.

“I know what will make you scream.” His chuckle was pure evil. “I know how to break you, pet.” His feet thudded on the white carpet as he headed to a remote control on his bedside table.

No.

No. Please.

I squirmed. It only made him laugh.

“Ready for it?” He dramatically punched the play button.

Instantly, classical music rained from the overhead speakers, drenching me in violins and pianos and god-awful melodies.

Master A danced in a morbid sway. “Ah, don’t you just love Chopin at two a.m.?”

I bit my lip hard as he came closer, the chain in his hands clinking with every waltz step. “Now are you ready to talk?”

I pressed my face into the bedding, hating that I inhaled his scent but begging the mattress to suffocate me and let me go.

I could die like this. I could be free.

But Master A pre-empted me. Dropping the heavy chain across my naked back, he wrapped a thin piece of rope around my throat. “Can’t have you trying to run from me now, can we?” Hoisting my neck up a little, my spine bellowed at the wrongness. The rope throttled me but not enough to kill me. Just enough to prevent my nose from pressing into the sheets.

The minute he had my head in position, he tied the rope and picked up the chain again.

And this time, I knew he would break me.

Two long years but tonight was the night he would end me.

The music swelled louder, poignant and sad with cellos and drums. Master A’s determination became an instrument in the chorus pounding me.

He struck.

I tensed as best I could in my bindings.

“Speak, sweet little Pim.”

Another strike, this one so cold and hard my skin split over my kidney, tickling me with blood. “Speak!”

As the music grew louder and louder and Master A’s strikes hit faster and faster, I made a decision. He wouldn’t let me walk away tonight without hearing my voice. And I wouldn’t remain living the moment he heard it.

We were both at the end of our patience.

Tonight, I would scream.

And then, I would die.

“Speak!”

The chain lacerated me. I became ribbons of flesh. Each strike pushed me closer to the blackness I so craved.

Yes, let me die. Please…

“You don’t want to speak? Then scream.” Master A hit faster until the blur of connection on my back and the sting of air in the moment’s reprieve melded into one.

I was dying.

I’ll be free soon.

Knowing he could no longer hurt me, that another few more strikes would be the death I needed, I opened my mouth.

The music crescendoed with cymbals and flutes, and I threw myself into nothing.

I screamed.

My throat burned.

My eyes shot wide.

The scream was otherworldly and wrong.

My jaw ached from opening so wide. My ears rang from the noise.

Just a nightmare. Only a nightmare.

Instantly, I began to sob. My scream cut short, and somewhere deep inside me, I realised this was the first time I’d broken my silence unwillingly.

My sadness crested, doing its best to mute the outside world. But something tickled my ears, something harsh and hated and harrowing.

No.

Music.

Classical music.

The notes threw me headfirst back into my nightmare.

He’s here.

He’s not dead.

He’s come back for me.

My back bellowed. My skin sticky from dream-blood and sweat. I couldn’t stop my body or the instinct to run.

My legs bolted from the bed before my mind even knew I was standing. I flew across the suite, charged into the corridor, and galloped.

I ran and ran, down plush carpet and past expensive artwork.

I careened into walls and clamped hands over my ears for silence.

Yet the music chased me. Threatened me. Warned me that it would catch me, and when it did, I would die.

Sobs interfered with my breathing. I bounced into another wall, shredding my shoulder on an intricate gilded sconce. My blood smeared the neutral paint as I stumbled forward.

I didn’t know where I was going. My brain wasn’t cohesive. All I could think about was the music.

Music.

Music.

I came to a door. The door opened beneath my fumbling fingers. My bare feet flew up the stairs. Up, up, up. Away from hell. Fly to heaven. Where there was no more music or the devil.