Walking The Edge Of The Razor Blade
I can't sleep. The nightmares have kept me awake again – although this time they're not images of a hairy, clawed beast shoving his hand through my guts. No, this time they're something entirely worse...
The water from the basin is cold as it splashes against my face – such as it is. There are still puffy welts raised around my eyes, my lips are split and broken, and my cheek is an angry purplish-yellow colour, with knuckle-shaped marks clearly visible. My body aches all over, and not just from the numerous wounds (remembered or otherwise) that the Marauders inflicted on me. There is something missing inside of me, yet again, and it's making my soul feel more hollow than it's ever felt before – which is saying something.
The irony is, I've got back what I always wanted – my English face, and my English body; my true self, so to speak – so I should be feeling happy right now; but not more than a week after it happened, it's almost taken away from me again, by animals not worth the flesh they inhabit. I can still feel the blood turning my hair into matted clumps, and I can still feel every single blow and every single caress that they gave me. I can still feel Vertigo licking the sweat from my body and kissing me on the mouth, making me taste the iron flavour of my own blood, as I bleed and cry and beg for mercy. I can still hear Scalphunter laughing and grunting as he pumps at my hips, as I scream in lancing agony, my sex tearing excruciatingly with each rough thrust. I can still feel it.
I can still feel everything they did.
I despise them.
And I hate myself.
I hate myself for not being able to escape on my own, for letting them do what they did (even though I know that I had little choice in the matter), for not killing them all when I had the chance. They should have paid for what they did – paid more than they eventually did – but they got away with it, and they're probably going to do it again to some poor unsuspecting woman before the week is out. I have no doubt about that. Unfortunately.
And now I'm here in the infirmary, at three-thirty in the morning, looking at what used to be "The World's Most Beautiful Face", its oh-so-perfect contours interrupted here and there by thick, black scabs and ugly bruising, and wondering if I'll ever get over what's happened to me. I turn away from the mirror, unable to stomach what I see there any longer, a thick feeling of self-disgust and revulsion settling in my belly. I'm still alone here, apart from my sedated daughter. She's still under about three litres of chloroform – she won't wake up until Henry and the Professor are sure of what to do with her. I can sense her dreams even from here, however, and they're not very pleasant company – they're foul, disgusting things; all slaughter and destruction and mayhem in the name of evolution and "progress". Sinister programmed her very well, it seems. Once again I'm forced to wonder why I brought her back here – the very sight of her reminds me brutally of what I went through in the Bronx. She makes me sick to my stomach. Most of the bruising I have now is down to her.
Most of the visible bruising, anyway.
Rebecca beat me to a pulp, and I brought her into my home – should I be congratulated, or institutionalised? I'm not sure. It certainly makes no sense to me right at this moment.
Nothing seems to make sense any more – not to any great degree, anyway. Warren's tried to help me – he's tried so hard to understand, to help me come to terms with what happened – but how can he, really? Unless I give him my memories of what they did – put them directly into his brain so that he can experience them directly – he'll never know how I feel. He'll never know, he'll never be able to empathise completely, and that hurts him a great deal – I can feel that even now. Even if I couldn't, it would be obvious from his voice whenever he talks to me. He can't forgive himself for letting me down, as he sees it, and it's put such a strain on us both. He can't touch me without my stomach churning and my body trying desperately to get away – I need him so much, and I can't even have that, thanks to those... those bastards. I'm sure Grey Crow and his friends would be proud of what they've done to me. It's what they take the most pleasure in, after all.
Warren doesn't understand.
They drove a wedge between me and the person I love more than anybody else in the world, and yet he keeps coming back for more. Every single time I scream at him and push him away, he comes back for more. Every time I tell him to leave me alone, he comes back for more. Every time I tell him he hasn't got a clue how I feel, he comes back for more.
He doesn't understand, and he still wants to help me.
I look briefly at the ceiling of the infirmary, its featureless tiling not offering me any change from the monotony of the ward itself, and I can feel the tears coursing down my face already. I bite my lip to stop the sobbing that is building in my throat, and I feel it split under my teeth, the metallic tang of my blood filling my mouth abruptly.
"Why me?" I scream suddenly, my throat raw and painful, throbbing with every word. "Why me? What did I do wrong?"
I don't get an answer, and I didn't expect one – the relative silence in the infirmary, interrupted every so often only by the bleeping tones of monitoring machines, remains unbroken. I rub my eyes, feeling the burning sensation at their edges growing stronger. I get up off the hard bed that has been my entire world for the past week or so, and limp (my insides still feel like they've been beaten with a meat tenderiser, so a slow limp is all I can really manage right at this moment) painfully over to where Rebecca is lying silently, her face twisting in pleasure at her dreams every so often, her Cupid's-bow lips pulling back over her perfect, too-white teeth. Her little snub nose lets air in and out gently, her breathing even and regular – which is more than I can say for my own.
"Bitch," I whisper, before I can stop myself. "Why are you so happy?" I grab her by the shoulders and watch her head loll as if she's a puppet with her strings cut – evidently the drugs in her system won't let her wake up, which is fortunate, I suppose. It might get ugly, were she awake to hear this. "Why can't I be happy, just once? Just once I wanted to enjoy something good happening to me! Why can't I be happy?" I release Rebecca from my grasp and she falls bonelessly down against her bed again, her lungs protesting a little as the air is momentarily driven from them with a wheezing sigh. Oh, what's the use... nobody's listening.
Nobody's listening.
You're alone, remember?
I turn away from her, feeling a cold shiver running down my spine. My bruised cheeks ache dully, and my abdomen throbs in time with the beat of my heart, starkly accentuating the pain I feel every few seconds or so with its pounding. I normally have a resting heart beat of around twenty-five beats per minute, but at this moment it feels like my heart is hammering like a machine gun inside my chest. I take a deep breath and rub at my eyes again, to try and ease the burning sensation that has spread out from their corners and is now making keeping them open extremely difficult. My body wants to sleep, but I can't.
There is a noise at the door of the infirmary. What feels like a boiling lightning bolt runs down my spine and, for a moment, I cannot feel anything but an all-consuming terror – terror that settles in my guts and renders me immobile, my fingernails forming little crescent-shaped wounds on my palms as they break the skin. Then, I see that it is Warren – I suppose my mental turmoil must have woken him, too, thanks to the link we share. A shame, then, that I couldn't sense him right away.
Yet another negative side effect, I suppose.
"Couldn't sleep either, huh?" he says softly, unsure of how I'm going to react. He moves hesitantly towards me, his steps short and faltering. He stops when he sees the dejected look on my face, and when I open my mouth to speak.
"No," I say, equally softly, staring down at my bare toes, the long stripes of dried and crusted blood on my legs still a few days away from falling away yet. "But that's no surprise, really, is it?" I run my hands through my hair, feeling its dampness coat my perspiration-soaked palms with a fresh, thin smearing of sweat.
"I..." Warren's voice trails off, and he coughs, as if re-examining what he wants to say. "Can I do anything for you while we're both awake? Should I get you some fresh blankets, maybe get you some more Tylenol –"
My laughter is almost a shriek, bitter and cold. "No, Warren, I don't think so. But thank you for offering, anyway. Maybe you could find me another new body while you're at it – this one looks ruined, doesn't it? What do you think?"
Warren scratches behind his right ear and tips his head slightly to one side, his blond bangs falling to either side of his head, and he sighs. Then he looks at me again, and fixes his gaze on mine, his big, blue eyes filled with concern. "Betts, please don't do this to yourself. Don't push me away. Please don't."
"Why bother?" I whisper, my throat raw, and my voice dry and cracked. "You don't understand. You can't understand. Nobody here can."
"No, Betsy, you're right. I don't and I can't understand." Warren nods slightly, looking down at his feet for a second. "I don't understand. At first I thought I could compare this to what happened to me when I was changed by Apocalypse, but that's nowhere near accurate enough, is it?" I shake my head, silently, and he moves forwards again and slips his hand apprehensively into mine. His expression lifts a little when I don't immediately move it away, and he continues "Would you like to talk?"
"About what?" My voice is dead, leeched of all emotion – and I would guess that my eyes are the same, given Warren's sad expression.
"About what you want me to do for you, Betsy. About what I can do to help."
"I don't know if that would do any good, Warren," I say. "They... took away what little humanity I had left. I can't feel much of anything any more. I might as well be dead, for all the difference it would make." I rub my eyes. "I can't even show you how grateful I am for you just being here. They took everything away from me, Warren, and they left me with that –" I wave my hand at Rebecca's sleeping form "– to remind me of the whole thing. She'll be there for the rest of my life and every time I look at her she'll make me want to vomit. I can't stand being in the same room as her any longer."
Warren blinks. "You don't mean that, Betsy."
"I don't?" I laugh coldly. "Believe me, Warren, I do mean it. I saw what she is while I was in the Bronx – I don't think you did, did you?" His face falls. "No, I thought not. Don't try and tell me what I can and can't think, Warren. Don't you dare. Not now."
"Betsy, I –"
"No, Warren, you stay quiet, and you listen to me," I say, a single glare silencing him. "This is a nightmare, Warren – this is a nightmare and I'm going quietly mad trying to make it stop and I don't need you trying to coddle me. I told you that. I know you're just trying to help and I appreciate that, I really do, but I just... I just –" Against my will, the tears return, and I curse myself for my weakness. "Oh, God... I don't know what to do any more, Warren. I used to be so sure, but I just... I have no idea any longer. I feel as if my body isn't my own, yet again. I feel as if I can't trust anyone any more. I feel as if I've lost everything that makes me who I am." I wipe at my eyes for a second or two, and I take a deep breath, feeling my hands start to shake a little. "And it makes me so angry that I can't do anything about it. All that power I'm supposed to have, and I can't do one damn thing about it!"
Warren looks briefly at the bare, dull ceiling of the infirmary, runs a hand through his tousled blond hair, and bites his lip. "You don't have to suffer like this, Betsy."
"Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting, Warren?"
He nods. "Hank gave me the number of a doctor who specialises in talking to people who've gone through the kind of things you have. It might help you a lot if you went to see her, even if it's for just the one time." He lays a hand softly on my shoulder, and smiles uncertainly. "It's got to be better than sitting wide awake at three in the morning, right?"
"That depends on your point of view," I whisper sourly. "Do you really think it'll make me feel better to tell someone who isn't family about what I went through?"
"It might," Warren replies, with a short shrug. "Doctor Gold'll understand, Betsy. She knows what you're talking about, better than I ever will. Trust me." He doesn't elaborate, and he doesn't need to. The thought of talking to somebody without losing my temper is appealing, and the thought of that same someone knowing precisely what I'm talking about is even more appealing. "Do you want to go make an appointment tomorrow?" Warren asks, hesitantly. I ponder the point for a while, weighing up the positives and negatives of the situation as best I can, considering my current circumstances.
"All right." My voice is still soft, but I can hear a little of my old strength in it. "Anything to get out of here." The attempt at humour is weak, but it breaks the tension, just a bit. It's the best I can manage under the circumstances, really. Warren smiles, and he reaches for me, as if to hug me to him. Instinctively, I draw myself backwards with a sharp, involuntary intake of breath.
"I'm sorry –" Warren begins, looking both embarrassed and angry with himself, but I shake my head, silencing him.
"It's not your fault, Warren," I tell him reassuringly. "It's just... too soon, I think. Please... just try to understand." Raising my hand to his cheek, I give him as encouraging a smile as I can. "Just... be here for me, my Angel. Chances are I'll need that hug sooner or later."