Broken Innocence

Ch. XVII

My screams echoed in the small room, and I tried to move my hands and feet away, but the leather straps held me down-refusing to allow me to get away from the cold water. My eyes widened and I thrash around, feeling the cold liquid running down my warm body, sending chills up my spine. 

“Don’t fight it, hon.” The nurse said softly before moving to take another bucket and dumped it on me, causing me to scream even louder. Feeling the water running up on my chest, ice cubes falling and hitting me. I tried so hard to try to avoid it, but the woman didn’t give in, only to pour more and more water on me. 

“W-What is the point of this?!” I screamed, shivering roughly. 

“It’s to cleanse you.” I looked over at Miss. Pierce who smiled. I could tell she was really freaking enjoying this. “It’s an old method hospitals would use.”

“To torture??”

“Of course not.” 

Liar. I didn’t believe her for a minute. She was pissed that I stabbed the teacher and bit the officer, so this was her way of trying to make sure I didn’t do it ever again. I wanted to call her out on it, but as the ice water poured down on me, it was slowly starting to drain my energy, making it harder for me to fight. The way my body shivered, it was making my muscles ache since they were so tensed. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to picture a warm place, but when water was dumped on my face, I gasped and opened my eyes wide, coughing water up and spit it to the side. I looked up, seeing nurses coming in with new buckets of water handed it to the main nurse. It felt like it was going on for hours, but it was literally only a few minutes. 

“Okay, sweetheart.” I looked over and saw the nurses taking the straps off. “Time for the next step.”

I slowly moved to sit up, feeing the water running down my body and I moved to get off the table. I looked over and saw  the nurses were bringing in a large metal round tub and I nervously moved to stand. “W-What are we doing?” 

“It’s okay, hon.” The nurse tried to reassure. Her hands gently on my arms and moved to help me over to it and helped me inside. I moved to sit in the empty tub, and felt the women strapping my hands down onto the tub. 

I was hoping it would be warm water when they walked over with more buckets, but as soon as they started to fill the tub, I gasped and tried to stand, only to be yanked down by the restraints. They filled the tub up with the ice water, and I could see ice cubes floating all around me. I screamed, trying to kick, only to kick water up onto them. The main nurse hurried to myself, kneeling down and moved my wet hair from my face. “Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay.” The more I tried to fight it, the more tired I got. Only to shiver so much that it was draining me. I looked around quickly, seeing the nurses moving to sit and I even watched as the police officer was picking at his fingers. The nurses remained next to me, hoping to relax me but I was far from relaxed. 

I continued to sit in the ice bath for a few minutes, until I was moved back onto the table. Where they strapped me down again and continued on with the ice water. We went back and forth for about an hour. Five minutes each and I felt so emotionally and physically drained that I couldn’t move. It got to the point where they had to carry me back and forth, which I didn’t fight because the feeling of their own warm bodies against mine. But the feeling didn’t last long when I was put back into the tub or on the table only to have ice water dumped on me. My teeth chattered, and my skin was covered in goose bumps. Every once in a while I could feel warm tears running down my face. “H-How mu-much l-longer?”

“Only a couple more buckets...” I heard. I didn’t even look up. Instead I just closed my eyes and tried to keep my teeth from chattering because it was seriously starting to hurt my jaw.