CHAPTER 548: NO ONE WOULD EVER MESS WITH HER IN THIS LIFE (2)

Abram was used to such, and it usually turned out to be a ploy to get him assaulted.

He didn’t bother to lift his head as it would probably earn him another round of beatings or insults. Maybe they’d come to toss his tray in like they always did — no cutlery, of course. He no longer got those, as they were considered a luxury.

Before he could figure out who had said that, two guards marched in and dragged him from his cell like a sack of meat — bruised, broken, barely clothed, his lip was split. One eye swollen shut. His dignity long gone.

But someone had requested to see him.

A visitor. That in itself was a miracle.

’Who would want to see me?’ He wondered.

When allowed to move on his own again, he limped into the glass-walled visitation booth and slumped onto the metal chair. The chill bit through his bones, but it was nothing compared to what walked through the other side.

He blinked, surprised at the person.

No. It couldn’t be.

Him.

The man who ruined them, well, close enough as he was Ian’s assistant. Abram refused to believe that their downfall had nothing to do with Ian, for it had his signature written all over it. Only a fool would think otherwise.

This was the very man whose name made guards flinch and criminals fold — the very same man who was the reason for his ill-treatment.

Dressed immaculately in a tailored charcoal suit, the visitor, Currey, sat down slowly, with calm composure. Not a single button out of place. His hands clasped lightly on the table as if this were a business meeting — not a showdown in hell.

Abram stiffened, a new variation of fear washing over him, but the guards pretended not to notice.

"You’re... here," Abram rasped, voice cracked and faint,

"Of course," Currey said with a smile that never reached his eyes. "After all, my boss likes to pay respects... even to those fallen from grace. It’s just that he cannot be here himself. I hope you understand."

Abram tried to stand but couldn’t. His body betrayed him.

"I wanted to deliver this message in person," Currey continued. "So, you would truly understand. Despite your thoughts, we did not destroy your family." He leaned closer to the glass, voice soft and deliberate. "You did. You raised wolves without fangs. You bred pride without loyalty. You ran a household like a king without a kingdom.

You raised your daughter like a princess to want for nothing, but you forgot that in this world, she is not the only princess. Others are and will be even more untouchable that she was... and you let that brat touch the one person that she should NOT have."

Abram stared, stunned, as if this was the first time he had taken a look at that perspective.

"Oh... and your wife?" Currey added casually. "She tried to cover the sun with her palm. Now she sits in solitary confinement, weeping to her daughter’s screams on loop. You might say it’s... poetic."

Abram’s fist hit the table, trembling with rage. "You bastard — !"

But he was cut off with a look. That calm, amused, terrifying look.

Currey stood.

"I didn’t come here for theatrics. I just wanted to say: your punishment is not prison. It’s survival. Day by day. Knowing you failed... and no one’s coming to save you. Your family is doomed! You can’t even feel sorry for yourself, and you waste such sentiments on an unworthy person."

Currey turned and nodded at the guard. "He’s had enough for now."

The guard didn’t even blink.

As Currey walked away, Abram slumped forward, unable to hold back the sob that broke from his throat.

That was the first time he truly felt it. It was not the pain nor the loss.

But total, irreversible defeat.

He remembered his past self, vowing to get rid of Ian, Shelby and any other person that stood in his daughter’s way.

Haha!

His vision blurred as Currey’s words repeated in his mind. He could not contend, for the worst part was that the assistant was right!

His heart clenched at his daughter, knowing very well that she may be having an equally, if not harder, time than they were.

***

... and he was right.

Maximum-Security Women’s Facility – Block G, Cell 37

A blood-curdling scream shattered the early morning silence of the prison wing ... again! How much longer could they endure this from someone universally despised?

Inmates groaned and cursed, pulling blankets over their heads or banging fists against the steel bunks.

"Shut her up before I do it myself!" one yelled from across the cellblock.

But Cell 37 had already gone eerily quiet again.

Brianna sat upright in her bunk, drenched in sweat, her breathing ragged. The same dream. The same damned dream. Every night. Over and over.

At least on the island, she could go out and sleep under the night sky, avoiding any repercussions that her recurrent dream brought, but confined in a cell with other inmates, this phenomenon was cruel.

In the dream, she was on that cursed cliff, high above a swirling abyss that felt endless because of the dense fog that made it hard to see how far the valley below it was. The sky overhead was dark and clouded, the wind howled and the earth beneath her knees always crumbled just a little more each time.

In the dream, she never stood. She was always kneeling, with a flash of déjà vu as if she had done that in real life before, but she was unsure. The sure thing was that Brianna always felt powerless.

She was always begging and sobbing.

And then... the same voice would come.

A mocking, cold and all too familiar voice.

"You don’t get to run, sweetheart. Not from me"

And ...

"Don’t worry... I will never let you forget. Your love was so great that it deserves this constant reminder"

And then the push.

She would fall, her scream caught in her throat — the sharp rocks below rushing up in terrifying silence.

Just before the impact, she would wake up, heart pounding so loudly it hurt. And behind them all... that one man, that monster, smiling with cold eyes – IAN!

His voice kept re-echoing in her mind and was getting her crazier with each passing second.

She slapped her ears.

"Shut up!" she hissed. "Get out of my head!"

But the voice just chuckled softly in her skull, cruel and constant.

"SHUT THAT BITCH UP!!!!!!"

Brianna curled into herself, trying to breathe, trying not to cry. In here, crying was a weakness. Inmates smelled fear like blood. She was already a target for trying to kill her best friend, and they already hated her for it.

The girl bond between the inmates was strong, and the fact that she had violated it was beyond them. At least, in this, she was not alone; there was another inmate who had borne the brunt of this treatment before Brianna had come in, and that was none other than Avril.

Brianna didn’t get to walk the yard when she wanted. She didn’t get silence. Not ever. Her cellmates — three hardened women with zero tolerance for noise—had grown tired of her night terrors.

"You think you special ’cause you cry in your sleep?" one sneered the other night. "Ain’t nobody here gonna coddle you, princess."

They poured cold water on her last week. Stuffed her pillow with pebbles from the yard the week before. And when she wouldn’t shut up, they tied her hands in her sleep and laughed when she woke up screaming with absolute terror, reliving that moment, all over again.

But it wasn’t just them.

There was another one — a familiar face from before, Avril. Though she had been bullied, Avril had gathered enough merit and was now in the middle of the hierarchy. She had enough wit to outsmart and now direct the play at Brainna. It was both payback and venting.

Brianna had it hard, both physically and mentally.

A food tray with something that looked and tasted suspiciously like floor scraps. That was precisely what they fed Brianna with a whispered promise: "You’re not special anymore, little royal. You’re just another inmate now — and we’ll make sure you stay in hell."

A rough kick brought her back to the morning and her surroundings. She had pissed them off good that morning, and she knew that she was done for!

She clenched her fists now, trying to breathe through the panic as she curled from the pain. More kicks followed, but it was as if she was numb to it. She wanted a window. She wanted a breeze. She wanted out. But she was powerless! She could not fight back, especially when her mind was in constant torment.

But there were no time-outs here — no safe spaces. Brianna just had to live with it.

After a long while, and still shaking, she sat up, wincing in pain and buried her face in her hands. But the nightmare was only half of her torment.

Because when the cell grew quiet again, the voice returned.

Not from a dream this time, but from within.

"You’ll never be free, darling. Not awake. Not asleep. Not ever."

And she believed it. It had now been ingrained deep inside her.

Because in all her screams, no one had come for her.

Not her family, only that voice.

She was literally a shadow of her former self, and even if she wanted to regret her past actions, she no longer had the will to do so. The emotional and physical torment at the hands of everyone had taken its toll.

In there, Brianna just had bars and voices. The haunting promise of that devil in human skin:

"I will never let you forget."

By then, the family of three, although in separate spaces, as well as Avril, had reached a common conclusion: no one should ever mess with Shelby in this life. It was a bitter lesson learned too late.

*********

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