Chapter 2

Reina’s POV

I thrashed, trying to run, but I couldn't. I was still too weak from the accident.

“Where do you think you are going, sweetheart? There's nowhere to hide… nowhere to escape, love. You are all mine.” She snickered.

I pleaded with my eyes as tears ran down my face, but she looked at me with pure hatred. A hatred I had never noticed in the past twenty years with her.

How didn’t I notice?

She took my drip and inserted whatever liquid was in the syringe into it, mixing it in.

The syringe looked small in her hand. It didn’t look dangerous. But the way she pushed it into the drip, like she had done it before, made my stomach twist. I tried to shake my head, but it felt slow, delayed. My body wasn’t listening to me anymore.

“Thank you for trusting me. You were such a naive little girl that you didn’t realize I was making you go dumb with all the soothing drinks I gave you.”

That was why it always felt weird after a while when I drank it. Thinking about it now, I had been drinking whatever she gave me for the past twenty years, silently, slowly killing my voice.

I shook my head in disbelief.

“Now you’ll go to where you actually belong, Reina, away from us… forever.” She sarcastically blew me a goodbye kiss and left.

The effect kicked in already, from my bones to my head, which felt mushy now.

My fingers felt strange at first. Like they didn’t belong to me. I tried to move them, but they barely listened. My arms felt heavy, like someone had placed weights on them. I wanted to sit up. I wanted to pull the drip out. But I couldn’t even lift my hand.

For twenty years.

Twenty years of trusting her.

Every drink she handed to me. Every time she said it would calm me down. Every time she told me it was good for me. I never questioned it. I thought that was what love looked like. I thought care meant obedience.

I thought she loved me. I thought she accepted me as her daughter.

Now it felt like betrayal.

Now everything made sense in the worst way.

The tiredness that never left. The way my head always felt slow. The way I stopped arguing back. The way my thoughts felt foggy sometimes.

She wasn’t helping me.

Grace was shaping me.

My chest felt tight, not painful, just really heavy. Reality was hitting me now, and I couldn’t even scream or react. My legs were numb. I couldn’t even feel the bed under me. My breathing slowed without me trying to.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to call someone. But my throat felt dry and useless. My voice stayed trapped inside me, the same way it had been for years.

“You were such a naive little girl.”

Her words kept replaying in my head.

Maybe I was naive. Maybe I never wanted to see what was right in front of me. It’s easier to believe someone loves you than to believe they are slowly destroying you.

The room started to feel far away. The walls didn’t look steady anymore. Everything looked slightly tilted, like I was underwater.

She called me Reina.

She only uses that name when she wants to remind me of something. I don’t even know where I actually belong anymore. Her voice when she said “forever” didn’t sound angry.

It sounded conclusive.

Like she had decided this a long time ago.

Like she wanted me gone the first time she stepped into our house.

My ears started ringing softly. My heartbeat felt slower and heavier. My eyelids were getting harder to keep open. I blinked, trying to fight it.

Stay awake. Just stay awake.

I screamed in my head.

But my body wasn’t mine anymore.

My arms were cold now. My thoughts were slipping. I tried to hold on to one clear idea, one memory, one reason to keep my eyes open. But everything felt mixed up. Faces blurred in my mind. Words faded before I could finish thinking them.

Why?

That was the only word that stayed.

Why spend twenty years doing this?

Why smile at me?

Why act like you cared?

My vision darkened at the sides. The ceiling above me looked plain and white. I stared at it because it was the only thing that wasn’t moving. There was a small crack near the corner. I focused on it like it could keep me here.

My breathing slowed again.

My body felt soft. It felt like there were two of me. Weak and heavy.

All I saw was the ceiling before I finally gave in.

With one thought at the tip of my tongue.

I had lost my family.

And worse, I couldn’t speak anymore.