trigger warning; full chapter contains abuse [no sexual abuse!!], lots of blood and gore.

This chapter was inspired by the song above! [She wants revenge ⸺ tear you apart | the American Horror story Hotel soundtrack]

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Madison's slim, now scrawny and unhealthy body winced as the door opened again. No tray of food was pushed at her feet this time⸺ food that she only ate when she was about to faint anyway. To this day, she didn't know exactly what the point was in keeping her in a room for weeks.

Steven wanted to see her suffer for the abortion she had years back, for taking away his child, she was aware of that. But he could also just kill her, but that would probably be too good for her in his eyes. She was beginning to really doubt herself. Did she deserve to be treated like that? Maybe it was the universe's unishment for getting rid of an innocent soul.

No, don't let him brainwash you, she mentally told herself as she took a deep breath. She couldn't let Steven break her and take away her dignity. Although the brunette was really close to give up.

The worst part, however, wasn't the daily physical torment and pain. The pain of being separated from Happy and her family was far greater than the physical pain. That probably sounded like a cliche, but it really was. And her heart hurt every single day⸺ probably also because Steven wasn't giving her her heart meds.

"Look how awful you look." With his lips pursed, Steven squatted down with a mocking smirk and grabbed her chin, after which he roughly turned her head in his direction when he realized how dismissive she was and just stared out the window. "Are you giving up already, Madison? Almost looks like it."

She had often thought about breaking the glass of the windows and jump out, from the heights the jump would certainly put her out of her misery⸺ but then Steven would have won and Madison was too stubborn to grant him this victory. First of all, there was still a small, tiny glimmer of hope in her that one day she would get out of here. And that tiny glimmer of hope kept her alive.

Her eyes squint slightly, the inner corners of her eyebrows angled up. A peaceful, almost angelic smile now on her lips. She knew that pissed him off the most⸺ seeing that he still couldn't break her.

"No, I told you that'll never happen", she croaked. Due to her dry mouth and throat and the lack of water she got here, it was hard to speak with her sore throat.

Her neck still hurt from his rough grip yesterday when he pulled her to her feet with his hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing until she had no air left to breathe while he just watched with satisfaction. Besides chocking her almost to death, he also enjoyed hurting her in many more ways.

Steven loved to push her head under water until she wriggled like a fish on land and tried to push herself away from him with her hands and feet. Another thing he liked to do to humiliate her was to inflict pain on her with his cigarettes, which he regularly stubbed out on her bare skin after he was done with one.

Sometimes he would come up with new ways to hurt her and sometimes he would repeat his actions. Then he left her alone for two days and only gave her a bottle of water, an apple and a piece of toast in the morning. That had been her life for the past month. Honestly, Madison was surprised that she was still alive and that her heart hadn't given up yet.

"You know, you really start to get on my nerves", he spat through gritted teeth, sinking his fingers deeper into her already bruised skin. "What do I have to do to break you, huh?!"

"You can't", she let out a humorless laugh only to be slapped across the face hard. So hard that she lost balance and fell.

Before she could pull herself up, she felt Steven's foot kick into the pit of her stomach. Her eyes widened in pain, the gasp that escaped her lips was barely audible, but the next moment she threw up. Fucking great, not humiliating at all, she thought.

"That's gross. You're cleaning that up later", Steven scoffed, licking his lips as he took small, slow steps towards her as the brunette crawled away from her own vomit. It really was a pathetic sight. But it gave him a sense of satisfaction.

With an unexpectedly rough grip on her hair, he pulled her back up and with her back against his chest, a yelp of pain erupted as his grip only became more assertive. With a wrathful grimace, he dragged the skinny woman in front of the full-body mirror.

"Look at you. So fucking pathetic. You have no idea how much I wanna fuckin' tear you apart", he whispered in her ear, his voice sharp. "Do you want to look worse before I kill you? Or is this enough? It's your choice now. If you wanna be a pretty corpse you just have to ask nicely. I want you to beg me to kill you."

Madison was doing her best not to throw up again at the sight⸺ and his words. She didn't look gross, but she looked sick. The brunette lost at least twenty pounds, if not more. The bones on her arms and hips stood out visibly. Her wrists were nothing more than bones covered with a layer of skin. Her face was sunken in, making her look like an extreme addict, and her hair looked like a bird's nest. The top and jeans Steven had given her after the shower yesterday, which he allowed her to take twice a week, were just hanging on her body.

"Answer me", he whispered menacingly, his eyes boring into hers in the reflection.

Even though she felt like screaming and crying, she just shrugged in the end. The young woman had lost all will to fight.

"Do what you want, Steven. I don't care", she replied resignedly.

"But you should care!" His loud screaming made her flinch and when he bashed her head against the mirror with full force and a loud clang echoed through the room, her pulse and heartbeat increased to a level that actually almost gave her a heart attack.

Howling in pain, she placed her palm on the right side of her face that felt wet. The thick, warm liquid was definitely blood from the shards pressed into her face. Even though she was used to pain by now, this was a new pain she had to deal with first. And right now she couldn't, she was at the end of her strength.

"I⸺I'm sorry", she whimpered, for the first time ever apologizing to him.

Her chest heaved rapidly, bile rose in her throat and her head was throbbing painfully. Her sensitivity to fast movement or noise had increased over the past few weeks anyway, and the added pain was killing her. But Steven wasn't done yet.

"No, you're not sorry", Steven scoffed, pulling her back to her feet as she collapsed in his arms. Again he pressed her body against the mirror, this time with her back. He felt drunk on his rage and wanted her to bleed. "But I'll make sure you're really sorry."

The mirror's sharp broken fragments pierced Madison's back and before her deafening, pained scream could draw the neighbors' attention, he clamped his hand over her mouth and put the other on her shoulder. Then he pushed her body along the mirror to the floor.

Her scream stopped halfway, instead hot tears ran down her cheeks. The olive colored top she was wearing was soaked in her own blood within seconds. However, it wasn't the loss of blood, but the burning, penetrating pain that ran through her body that almost caused her to pass out.

Maybe this was her last day. Actually, she was pretty sure about that. It had never escalated to such an extreme and if Steven didn't take her to a hospital in the next few hours, she would bleed to death anyway. Or her weak heart, which was beating like crazy right now, would kill her first⸺ which might be better.

With fluttering eyelids she watched as Steven got a lighter out of his pocket. The already wide grin on his lips widened even more as he slowly let the flame ghost down her arm, his hand pressed over her mouth again to muffle the screams that were like music to his ears.

This was it. Madison couldn't handle it anymore. The pain was too much and her eyes rolled back as she silently started to pray. Yes, she was fucking praying. Her parents would be proud. Thinking about her parents and how proud they would be at her for praying in such a situation made her laugh even through the great pain that was inflicted on her. She was fucking laughing.

Steven's eyes darkened. Was she laughing at him? Was she fucking stupid or just suicidal? He was hurting her and she had the nerve to laugh. Was she losing her god damn mind just like him?

"The fuck are you laughing about?", he barked at her after throwing the lighter in a corner. Grabbing her chin once again, he turned her head to get a better look at her. "You got nothing to laugh about, Madison!"

Anger ripped through him as he spit in her bleeding face. The blood coming from her back already soaked the beige coloured carpet in the room. That was nothing new, there already were enough older deep red stains everywhere that he had to get out soon.

Half unconscious she noticed that he drew his gun and somehow that gave her the will and the strength to fight back. She had to at least try, also to prove to herself that she could save herself. She had hoped for so long that someone would come looking for her, and she was sure that the others were looking for her. But Steven had picked the perfect place, so she knew from the start that no one would find her.

"I'm going to kill you now, ya hear?", he hissed, a nervous, utterly disturbing laugh piercing her ears. He slowly removed his hand from her mouth and ran the gun along her lips, his finger always on the trigger.

"Open your mouth", he commanded, his voice bittersweet and chilling, yet so menacing and demanding. "Open your fucking mouth, bitch!"

Her weak body trembled beneath him after he sat down on her so she couldn't escape. Thanks to the adrenaline that was pumping through her body, she managed to gain a little more strength. She had to try.

"Fuck you", she hissed, venom dripping from her voice, and while she parted her lips to speak, Steven used the moment to slip his gun between them. Then he pulled the trigger before she could do anything.

Squinting her eyes, she waited to feel a brief ache before she would die, but that didn't happen. But her body was now shaking so badly that she could probably get injured by that alone.

"I was just kidding!" Steven jumped up, amusement in his tone. His laughter only got louder and crazier as he stood over her and knelt down a little, looking at her almost in disappointment. "Oh man, I was hoping you'd at least piss your pants, but you're tougher than I thought! That's no fun."

And the moment he was making fun of her like that, laughing at her and humiliating her with words, she gathered up her courage, heaved herself up and kicked him between his legs. Her kick was so hard that Steven fell to his knees with an exaggeratedly loud yelp.

"You stupid whore! I'll kill you for that", he yelled as loud as he could, trying to catch up with Madison, who had fled into the hallway.

The brunette ran through the small apartment and frantically searched for the kitchen. From the knife block she pulled the largest knife she could find and ran back into the hallway, where Steven came to meet her. He was still having trouble walking. The brunette could only snort mockingly. His little injury, that wasn't even a real injury, was nothing compared to the pain he had inflicted on her over the past few weeks and he had the nerve to act like a drama queen while she was actually close to dying.

"Are you trying to hurt me with that?", he asked in amusement, pointing his finger at the knife in her hand while holding his gun in his own.

"I'll finish what I started back then. And this time I'll do it right", the brunette gulped and continued to walk towards him. When he suddenly came towards her with fast steps, she thought to turn around and run, but she didn't. Instead, she just waited for him to come to her.

"You're dumber than I thought", he said with a snort, pulling the trigger after he pointed the gun directly at her face. She only smirked slightly as, once again, there was no bullet in her head.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Steven stared at her after realizing he was the fool here. How could he take the wrong, not loaded gun? His own stupidness got him in trouble. He was the fucked one now and Madison couldn't wait to give him what he deserved.

"Now it's my turn", Madison whispered, her voice almost sweet. Revenge was a beautiful thing. Without hesitation and without feeling guilty, she rammed the knife into his torso, pulled it out and rammed it back inside, deep into the pit of his stomach.

With his hands clutching her shoulders, he stared at her, his eyes wide enough to presumably fall out as Madison pulled the knife from his stomach up to his chest, lips pressed tightly together as blood spurted from his lips.

It cost her a lot of strength and willpower to do that, but it felt fucking good. All the things he had done to her replayed in her mind and as he fell to the ground she sat down on him and stabbed him countless times. All the pent-up anger flowed into the stabs, tears streaming down her face, which was covered in her blood and also his.

Only when he was choking on his own blood and it was running out of his mouth and his lifeless eyes stared at her did she stop the stabbing and let the knife slip out of her hand, shocked at herself as she looked down at Steven.

She choked out whinper and covered her mouth with her bloody hand to keep herself from screaming, not even noticing the metallic taste that was spreading in her mouth due to the shock. With almost robotic moves she got up and walked to the door and straight out without thinking about what people might think of her.

Apathetic yet in panic, she searched for the right way that would lead her to Charming. Being only in Stockton it wouldn't be a long walk and the darkness of the night made it easier for her not to get spotted and stopped immediately. And then she started running, in any direction, hoping to get to Charming and St. Thomas in time before the blood loss would knock her out.