The Fabrication of Eden Pruitt by K.E. Ganshert

Author:K.E. Ganshert [Ganshert, K.E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: K.E. Ganshert Books

Dr. Norton handed Eden a towel and a hospital gown. They went upstairs, which was much less like a medical facility and much more like a home. They walked past another kitchen—much larger than the one downstairs—and a high ceilinged, sunlit living room. He showed Eden into a guest room with its own bathroom. The house felt large, especially after being crammed into a dormitory. It was safe and secluded, hidden away from the bad guys chasing her. And yet, she felt the opposite of safe. She felt so unsafe, the feeling of it rattled her bones, fissuring her brain. The only thing keeping her from full-fledged hysteria was Dr. Norton’s words in the kitchen.

They tried to control you, but something went haywire.

Nothing more than a theory. But she clutched onto those words like they were valuable pearls. She snatched them up like bricks and built a wall—a barrier between the truth and her sanity. Something went haywire. They couldn’t control her. At least not until they fixed whatever was broken.

“Once you’re cleaned up, meet me downstairs in the medical room.”

Apparently, Dr. Norton didn’t want a blood-streaked, sweat-stained girl on his examination table.

She nodded numbly, then closed herself inside. She bolted the door. She turned on the shower. She stripped out of her filthy clothes and she stepped beneath the hard spray as it turned from warm to hot—clear water running reddish brown down the drain. She picked up a bar of soap and scrubbed her skin like being clean on the outside might fix every wrong thing on the inside. She used a washcloth to scrub and scrub until her skin was clean and pink.

Then she turned off the water, stepped onto the mat, and dried herself. She slipped on the gown, tied it securely in the back, and wrapped the towel around her head like a turban. Her reflection was indistinct in the foggy mirror above the sink. She wiped an oval into the condensation as Erik’s voice echoed from a past that no longer felt like her own.

“Do you know how obnoxious it is that you never get any zits?” he’d said once while examining his own. In eighth grade, he’d gone through a particularly rough patch of acne.

Her fingers slid across her chin, up her cheek, over her forehead, then down the slope of her nose.

Flawless.

Further evidence that this wasn’t a nightmare. This wasn’t some horrible mix-up.

A man named Mordecai was after her. He wanted to control her, had already controlled her. Made her do things—horrible things—against her will. He was holding her parents hostage, using them as bait. Because he wanted her. For what purpose—she didn’t know. Neither did Dr. Norton.

“You have your mother’s heart,” her father always said, “and your old man’s eyes.”

But it was a lie.

He’d made her see what wasn’t there.

She didn’t have his eyes. She couldn’t have his eyes.

She wasn’t his.

She removed the towel from her head. She combed trembling fingers through her thick, wet hair, then pulled it up into a high, messy bun.

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