I Knelt For Three Years For A Lie. Now I’m Back For Blood Chapter 05
Disinfectant and old urine. That’s all I breathed in the rehab center on the west edge of the city.
They forced me into striped rags and shut me in a padded room.
Four soft walls. One bed. A cage made of pillows.
Every few hours, a nurse brought the pills. If I didn’t swallow, the orderlies came.
Straps on my wrists. A tube down my throat. The chemical fire poured in.
The pills kept me in a fever dream. My head was a swamp.
I couldn’t tell the difference between the cold floor and my mother’s face at the funeral.
Marcus was thorough.
My chart said it all: paranoid schizophrenia. Violent tendencies.
He’d stripped me of my voice. In here, a “sane” word was just a symptom.
Time was just a blur of white lights. Then, Jenna appeared.
She wore a perfect beige coat. Clean. Expensive. She held a thermos like a peace offering.
The nurses practically bowed to her. Marcus’s money had bought me the best prison in the city.
“Feeling better, Mia?”
She sat down and twisted the cap. The smell of chicken soup hit me—greasy and sickening.
I was strapped down. All I could do was glare through bloodshot eyes.
“Come to watch me rot?” My voice was a rusted hinge.
Jenna stirred the soup, clinking the spoon against the side.
It sounded like a death knell.
“Don’t be like that. Owen’s busy. He sent this specifically for you.”
She brought the spoon to my lips. I jerked my head away.
The scalding liquid splashed across my cheek, raising a welt.
She didn’t flinch. She just dabbed it off, patient as a saint.
“I actually came to tell you something. Something about your brother.”
She leaned in. The corner of her mouth twitched into a tiny, ugly smile.
“You always wondered why Marcus stole Owen’s blame. Why he claimed the baby was his.”
I went rigid. The straps bit into my skin.
“It’s because Marcus has hated you since the day you were born.”
Her voice was a poison whisper.
“He said you took everything. Every scrap of attention from your parents. The favorite child.”
“He was suffocating with jealousy. So when he found out I wanted Owen, he offered to help destroy you.”
My breathing turned into a jagged rasp.
“No… you’re lying…”
I thrashed, the leather straps cutting bloody lines into my wrists.
Jenna looked down at me, bored.
“Why would I lie? You think I learned your routine and planted those cameras by myself? You think I knew exactly when to comfort Owen?”
“That was Marcus. Every step of the way.”
“He watched you sink. He watched everyone spit on you. And he loved every second.”
The words went in like venom, shattering twenty-five years of memory.
There was no brother. There was no family. I was just the prey they hunted together.
“So stop fighting, Mia.”
Jenna stood up, looking at me like I was a broken tool.
“There isn’t a soul left who cares if you breathe.”
She walked out, and the lock clacked shut.
A final, heavy sound.
I lay there, staring at the white bulb.
Then something hit me. The cold wind. My blood on the dirt. Those three smiles.
Something hot ran down my neck. Or maybe it was cold. I couldn’t tell anymore.
What did I ever do wrong?
The question kept coming back. Morning. Night. Morning. Day by day.
Then, the fever broke.
Not the drugs—the madness of my hope finally died.
If the last three years were a joke, then I was finished with the punchline.
That night, they unstrapped me for the bathroom.
The nurse was lazy. She didn’t lock the door.
The window had no bars. Fifth floor. Nothing but concrete below. Cold and unforgiving.
I pushed the rusted glass open. The cold air hit my skin like a slap.
I climbed onto the ledge, looking down.
The dark was waiting. The only way out I had left.
If I jump, they win. If I died, they’ll get the perfect ending.
Instead, if I survive… I’ll make them wish they’d stayed dead three years ago.
I straightened up, facing the dark, and laughed. It was a dry, jagged sound.
“Marcus. Owen. Jenna.”
I whispered to the empty room. “Let’s make a bet.”
“Let’s see who wins this time. You or me.”
The frozen metal bit into my bare feet.
I didn’t tremble. I smiled. Just a flicker of a ghost.
Then I stepped into the air.
The wind roared past my ears.
Then the dark swallowed me whole.