Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 115: They Didn’t Know (Trigger Warnings: mentions of r@pe (not of the FMC) and abuse)

Chapter 115: They Didn’t Know (Trigger Warnings: mentions of r@pe (not of the FMC) and abuse)

It took me a minute to orient myself once I went back to my own body, but unfortunately, I didn’t have that minute.

"Fuck you want?" demanded Rip, coming to his feet in a flash. The piece of his shirt that I was holding was ripped out of my hand as he stood.

"Alpha called Healer," grunted the Reaver standing in front of my cage. He held up a key, and I could feel my stomach sinking. I had originally thought that no one other than Alpha had access to my key. The knowledge that that wasn’t the case made me want to puke.

"I will take her," grunted Rip, and I saw the other creature’s eyes narrowing on him. No, he couldn’t do anything stupid. I needed him with me, and that wouldn’t happen if the Alpha caught wind of what was going on between the two of us.

If he was raping me nonstop every minute, that would be fine for the Alpha as long as I could still heal his fighters when needed. But having tenderness or feelings for me? Well, that was just a death sentence for both of us.

"Which fighter?" I asked, knowing that I shouldn’t have spoken but needed to break the staring contest. The Reaver drew back his foot and kicked my cage, hitting me in the feet.

"Does it matter? You heal them. That is the only thing stopping me from ripping you apart," sneered the Reaver, but at least I managed to get his attention away from Rip.

I huddled even more into a ball, frantically nodding my head like I was terrified. And I was. Just not of him.

But the idea that they could take Rip away from me was enough to make me break out in a cold sweat.

I heard the key in the lock, and suddenly, I was being pulled out of the cage by my ankle.

It was a reactive instinct to claw my way in the opposite direction of where I was being pulled, my body in nothing more than a fight or flight mode. But I never chose to fight, so all that was left was to try and get back into the safety of my cage.

But then I forgot the pain of flight as a few of my fingernails ripped off as I gripped them into the hard soil under my prison.

Quickly letting go, I forced my body to relax as I was dragged out of the women’s area, my head bouncing off every bump and rock on the ground.

Did you know that most of the time, an individual who was intoxicated would get out of a car accident without injuries, while those perfectly sober would end up with injuries? It was proven that intoxicated people don’t brace for impact like someone who was sober did. They were normally limp, and their muscles were relaxed. And because their reaction time was slowed down, they didn’t brace for impact like a sober person. By keeping their body relaxed, it prevented injuries.

Unfair but true.

After I learned that, I always tried to get my body to relax as much as I could every time they came to get me. But sometimes, they caught me off guard, and I would just react. And that would normally result in me getting injured. Case in point: my bleeding fingers.

I was tossed into the metal bars of the cage, my back bowing with the pain radiating through me.

Struggling to my feet, I swayed for a moment, trying to get my bearings.

I was back at Yin Jie’s cage.

He was once again lying on his bed, his face beaten in, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, so I guess there are small mercies in that.

"Get her the fuck away from me," he hissed. His right eye was swollen shut, and there was a cut on his lip, but apparently, he could speak just fine.

Oh yeah, did I mention I was more hated by the prisoners than the Reavers were? Wasn’t I lucky?

The guard that came to get me took out another key and opened the door, pushing me in and closing it behind me before Rip could slip in.

Not like he would. Not like he could.

No, he would stand on the other side of the bars beside the Reaver like a silent bodyguard. I knew if shit hit the fan in here, he would be the first one inside to protect me, but for now, we all had our roles to play.

I hobbled forward to the bed, my ankle bruised from where I was dragged here.

"Didn’t you hear me? I don’t want you anywhere near me, you fucking psychopath. Do you get off on doing this shit? You know we all hate you, right? If we could, someone would have snapped your neck a long time ago when we figured out what type of freak you were."

I tried to ignore the venom coming out of his mouth, but I would hear the same song upward of ten times a night every night.

And when we all found out that people got powers? When they found out that my power was healing? Oh, that was just a beautiful day for me.

A fighter had come in a week ago, talking about all the things that had happened in the past little while. He said that people were now becoming stronger, developing powers like fire and spirit in order to fight the zombies.

That healers could heal people with just a simple touch.

He continued to talk about how healers were protected by the most powerful people in the world and that they were richer than Midas. How loved and revered they were.

Well, when everyone heard that, they threw me in the same category as the other healers, thinking that I was treated like a fucking queen.

Didn’t they see me? Didn’t they know I was living in a cage a fraction of the size of theirs? That if they died, I was beaten? That if I didn’t even try to save them, I was told I would be put on the list for the VIPs to rape and abuse me? Did they not see any of that?

No, not even the women sharing the cages around me saw it.

Nope, because I didn’t suffer their same fate, I was living the life of a princess.

He wasn’t wrong that I was the most hated person in this Camp, but they didn’t know the cost to me. They didn’t know that I took their pain as my own in order to heal them. They didn’t know I wasn’t given any time to recover between sessions.

And they didn’t know I was too weak to end my own life.