The Escape Artist

by Kitty Thomas

  “Look at me,” he said.

  It was a fucking command. He thought he could order her around when he was the prisoner? But she turned and looked at him.

  “I would never starve you. Ever,” he said, holding her gaze in his.

  He'd already starved her, and they both knew it. These head games... she had to regroup her strategy or he was going to get inside her head and mess with it. If she lost her nerve... if he got free again, he'd kill her this time. She was already in too deep. She had to get her shit together and finish this. It was the only choice.

  She didn't reply. She just took the dustpan and broom and left the cell.

  Ari watched the door. She'd been gone a while. His first assessment of her was quickly fading, and now he realized how foolish it had been. This girl was not crazy. She wasn't some psycho out for vengeance or attention for some petty drama. This girl had been broken... by someone who no doubt looked a lot like him.

  He'd seen the haunted expression in her eyes more than once already. She'd revealed precious few details but the very little she'd given up told him it was bad. Starvation. Probably beatings. Probably rape. How long had her captor had her? Ari wondered if she'd been planning revenge the whole time she'd been free.

  Finally the door slid open. When she came in this time she held a whip.

  “Don't get too excited, we aren't acting out your kinky fantasies, today,” she said.

  Ari bit back the urge to say his kinky fantasies involved him holding the whip. It would end badly.

  “I can take whatever you have to give,” he said. It was true. He had a high pain tolerance, and he doubted this girl had enough upper body strength to really make it hurt. If she got this out of her system, she'd break down, and then he could convince her he wasn't the guy who'd done this to her. He just needed to be patient and wait for her to break.

  “Stand up,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly hard. Impressive even.

  “Or what?” The retort slipped out involuntarily. What was this tiny slip of a girl going to do to make him comply with her demands?

  The whip came down hard across his cheek.

  “Owww, fucking bitch!” Ari kept forgetting they weren't playing by kink rules. This girl was serious, and she didn't care about the normal safe places to strike someone with a whip. She'd take any exposed skin he offered her.

  “I can go for the face. Or your back. Your call.” Her resolve had hardened while she'd been outside the cell.

  He wasn't about to sit here and let her slice his face to ribbons if he could stop it. Ari pressed his palms flat against the wall and inched his way up to a standing position.

  “Good, now turn around.”

  He shifted, so that he faced the wall. Ari had been on the receiving end of chains and whips and canes and clamps and all manner of fun toys because he'd wanted to know what everything felt like before doing it to someone else. He'd wanted to know the limits and boundaries and how hard he could go before he did damage or how much pain was too much for most people's tolerance.

  But he hadn't exactly been in this position. He still somehow saw himself as the one in control, still thought he could dominate her and get her to comply with his will. Even though he was locked in a cell and chained at her mercy, he couldn't let go of the idea that he somehow had the power here. Old habits died hard.

  He couldn't let himself admit that a girl so small and fragile-looking had the power to break him, given enough time.

  “Do your worst,” he said, unable to stop himself. His mouth was going to get him killed. He knew it. He was so used to being the one with the power.

  Sure, everybody said subs had all the power, but that was only if they weren't with an abuser. The reality was if someone half your size was tied up and you had a whip in your hand, you had the power, and they just had to hope you were a decent enough human not to abuse their trust. The person chained up never had the power.

  But it was a nice idea to put on a T-shirt.

  The whip struck him with more force than he remembered from the times he'd submitted to it in the past. It was hard to believe this slight girl could put so much power into her strikes. But she was fueled entirely on rage and fear and adrenaline. And a need for payback.

  He winced when the whip came down a second time and then a third and a fourth. She wasn't talking now or screaming at him. Or making threats. She seemed to have found a rhythm and had fallen into a zone.

  Ari didn't cry out or beg her to stop even though after a while the sting of the whip was a real and present thing lighting up all the nerve endings along his back, and not in a good way. He just stood there and took it. He told himself it was because he wanted to save her. And a part of him did. It was another habit that was hard to break.

  But none of that mattered. She would do this no matter what he said or did or no matter how much he wanted to get his hands on the man who had turned her into this. Her pain was a raw living thing, and it was impossible to be exposed to it for any amount of time and not wish an agonizing death on the person who had created it.

  He listened to the crack echoing against the cell walls until he felt his skin break and the blood dripping down. Was she waiting for him to scream, beg, cry? She'd be waiting a long damned time for that.

  He gritted his teeth against the blows that continued to fall until finally the whip clattered to the hard floor. And then she was sobbing. He turned back around to see her crumpled on the concrete, her head in her hands, rocking and sobbing.

  “How long did he keep you?”

  She looked up, and their gazes locked together for a long moment.

  “You!” she screamed at him through her tears. “You. Stop pretending. I know it was you! I can see the fucking scar!”

  Ari looked down at his chest. He didn't ask about the scar and what she thought it meant. It was obviously such an upsetting issue for her, she'd no doubt just start shrieking at him and threatening to kill him. He needed her calm. So he sidestepped that issue for now.

  “How long?” he repeated quietly.

  “Forty-three days.”

  “Is that how long you're going to keep me?”

  She didn't answer. Instead she struggled to her feet and wiped the tears off her face. She withdrew a set of keys from her pocket and put them on the metal table at the end of the cell, far out of his reach—the keys to the chains. Then she took out a syringe.

  “We both know I can take that from you,” he said.

  “And we both know you can't get out of the chains without me. I've got a tranquilizer gun if you're going to make this difficult. Are you going to fight me?”

  Ari thought about it for a moment. The chains might have enough give that if she got close enough he could overpower her, but he couldn't reach the key. He needed her for that. Finally he sighed.

  “No, I'm not going to fight you.”

  She inched warily closer to him like she didn't believe he wouldn't just kill her out of spite and let them both die.

  “Did you get the air out?” he asked. The last thing he needed was someone who didn't know how to operate a syringe.

  “I do it when I first prepare them so I won't forget.”

  He couldn't stop himself from inhaling her fresh clean scent as she moved closer. Ari winced as she plunged the syringe into the muscle in his arm. The drugs burned in his veins. The scent of her shampoo hit him then, and it was all he could focus on. Raspberries, was his last thought before the room went dark.

  Claire sat behind the monitor, watching him. The drug in the syringe had taken a few hours to wear off, though she wondered if he might be pretending to sleep for longer than was necessary. He was a fool if he thought she'd ever go near him unchained any time but right after the drugs first kicked in.

  She knew if he woke unchained and she was in the cell with him, her life was over. The stakes were far too high to break the pattern she'd planned. She'd laid it all out so meticulously, and there could be no deviation from even the slight
est detail. She would get her revenge, and then he would die. She tried not to think about the logistics of body disposal.

  Except for the microphones in the camera that allowed her to hear him from the surveillance panel, the cell was soundproof. No one would hear the chainsaw. She didn't want to think about that right now. It was too grotesque. But if she didn't want to go to prison for the rest of her life she had to get rid of the body when she was done. She'd known when she'd taken him that there was no backing out of this once she started because even if he'd arrogantly forgotten about her and moved on, after this, it was kill or be killed.

  He winced and stood, stretched, and began to pace like the caged animal he was. Blood from the whip lashes had dried on his back while he was unconscious. He stared at the bucket of water at the end of the cell and then up at the camera.

  Claire flipped a switch on the control panel and spoke into the microphone. “Leave your clothes beside the door.”

  He flipped off the camera with both hands, but started to take off his jeans, not particularly concerned with the prospect of nudity.

  She took a deep breath and switched off the microphone. It was an expensive control panel. The microphone wasn't the kind where you had to be constantly pressing a button to talk. You just flipped the switch and could talk hands-free.

  He put his shoes and socks and jeans and boxers in a pile next to the door.

  “Will I be getting laundry service?” he asked.

  Claire flipped the switch again and said, “You won't be needing clothes. You'll spend the rest of your life a naked animal, and then you'll die a naked animal in that cell.”

  Her hands shook as she leaned back in her chair. She'd questioned this choice a thousand times. Even chained, him being naked felt like a real threat to her safety. But she wasn't going to wash his clothes. The thought made bile rise in her throat. She'd burn them when this was over. And even that short period of handling them would be difficult to stomach.

  The simplest solution was no clothes and a daily bath. But it was still hard to justify that choice given how much violence she knew his body was capable of.

  This was the clearest look she'd ever gotten of him. When he'd kept her in the basement he'd always blindfolded her when he'd... when he'd done things. He'd blindfolded her when he'd passed her around, too. She closed her eyes against the memory of all the men who had paid to take a ride on her.

  She watched as he stood over the drain, sponging some of the water over himself, gritting his teeth and wincing again as the now-cold water slid down his back. Good. She hoped his skin burned like the hell he was going to when she killed him.

  Then she watched as he took the soap and lathered up. A sudden throbbing ache started between her legs at the sight of the sudsy water running over the muscles of his chest and abs. She immediately looked away from the screen. What was wrong with her? She was sick. Objectively he was far better looking unclothed than she ever could have imagined. A truly beautiful monster. But she should react with revulsion at the sight of him, not fucking desire.

  When he'd had her in the basement he'd never been able to turn her body against her. Not once. Neither he, nor any of the men he'd pimped her to had the finesse to make her body want anything they did to her or to feel even the slightest pleasure from their touch.

  Part of it was because he'd kept her so drugged and starved and terrorized. But if she'd seen him like this, he might have made her body want him. And in many ways, that would have been worse.

  He was succeeding now—not even trying. He made no lewd gestures or obscene statements now. He just bathed. And he was winning. He was still winning—still breaking her down in new and different ways just by his presence filling up the cell.

  It enraged her that seeing him naked created a visceral physical reaction. Did her body not know what this man had done to her? She wished like hell she could keep him dressed, but clothes got too dirty. The idea of doing his laundry was too fucking repulsive to her. And she couldn't handle the stench if she let him wear the same clothes day after day. It would remind her too much of the basement. She had to keep him clean. And the only way was this way.

  4

  Ari bit back a scream as he bathed and cleaned the whip marks she'd left on his back. In any other situation he would have taunted her. He would have stroked himself for the camera and said filthy things to the woman watching. But he wouldn't do that with this girl.

  He had too much of an idea of what she must have suffered in order to bring her to this point of desperation. So he just cleaned up, rinsed out the sponge, and poured the remaining water down the drain. He shivered in the cell as he paced, thinking through everything. It had been a comfortable temperature with clothes on, but the room chilled him now that he was naked with water dripping off him.

  He didn't have a problem with his own nudity. He wasn't particularly bothered by this girl seeing him naked. And he had no fears she would try to force anything sexual on him, not after what she'd clearly gone through. And even if she did try, he wasn't sure it would be forced. In spite of how fucked-up this situation was, he wanted her. The real problem now was, she was going to know that. And given her current emotional state, she would see it as a threat even if he couldn't touch her. It could go very badly for him.

  Ari sighed and crossed the room to the metal table. He took one of the waters, broke the seal on the cap, and drank the whole bottle down in one long unending gulp. He needed to keep his wits and figure out how to outsmart her and get out of here. This girl knew she had to kill him. If she really believed he was the man who'd hurt her enough to drive her to this reaction, there was no reasoning with her or talking her into letting him go.

  Behind the rage, he could see the fear. She'd obviously thought all this through very carefully. She'd set things up so he couldn't hurt her, but she was still petrified of him, even through the rage, even while he was chained up and at her mercy locked in a cell he had no hope of getting out of. She still feared him.

  He took the hard plastic bottle cap and crossed to one wall and etched a faint white line. He needed to estimate the days that passed so he could keep up with the number of meals. He needed to figure out if there was a pattern to which meal she drugged or if it was entirely random. A pattern would be better for his escape odds.

  He had no idea what time it was, or if it was day or night now, but he was exhausted. Cold and exhausted. He lay down on the hard floor and, in spite of everything, slept.

  Ari jumped, ripped from sleep by a scream coming through the speaker overhead. For a moment he thought she was fucking with him with some kind of sleep depriving sound torture, but then he realized the screams weren't a recording. They were her.

  Agonized, sobbing screams.

  “No! Please please please,” she pleaded.

  It finally occurred to him, she'd left the microphone on. Her bed must be right next to her surveillance set-up. She was having a fucking night terror.

  “Please!” she screamed. It came out a long seemingly endless wail for mercy.

  It was the most gut-wrenching sound he'd ever heard in his life. All he wanted in this moment was to get to her and make those screams stop.

  Ari crossed the room to the metal door and banged on it. “Wake up!” he shouted. “Wake up! You're having a nightmare!” He felt more powerless now than he'd felt when she'd been whipping him. He wasn't sure how far the cell door was from her—if she'd even be able to hear him.

  But she just kept screaming and sobbing and begging the man in her nightmare not to hurt her. Something shattered suddenly—like she'd kicked a lamp in her sleep and flailing struggles. The screaming stopped. Then all he heard was soft crying.

  Claire sat shaking on the edge of the bed, taking deep gulping breaths, trying to slow her panicked heart. It was just a dream. Just a dream. She told herself this over and over as if to convince herself. She hadn't had the nightmares in a year. And now they'd come back. It was because he was here, so close to her.
Even with him caged, she couldn't sleep with him so close to her. How could she have thought this revenge fantasy wouldn't break her completely? How had she ever thought the rage could outstrip her terror?

  She looked up at the screen across the room to see him staring at the camera as if he could actually see her through the lens. She leapt out of bed and raced to the control panel. The green light was on. She'd forgotten to turn off the fucking microphone. He'd heard her screams. That fucking bastard had heard her screaming and begging him.

  And now he knew he still had all the power. He stared quietly at the camera, and she couldn't read the look in his eyes.

  “Did you enjoy the show?” she asked into the microphone, venom threading her voice.

  “No.”

  “Why not? Because I know you don't feel guilt. Was it because I interrupted your precious sleep?”

  He didn't respond. Claire searched through her sound files and selected one.

  “Here, let's have a change of playlist. Here's a fitting song for you to sleep to.”

  She turned down the volume on the sound coming from the hidden microphones in the cell, plugged in a cord that would send the music to him and not her own room, cranked up the volume, and pushed play on Rob Zombie's, “Living Dead Girl.”

  A satisfied smile curved her lips as he paced, agitated, holding his hands to his ears.

  5

  Claire was exhausted from so little sleep the previous night. She'd played that song on a loop for about an hour until she was satisfied she'd gotten payback for his intrusion into her privacy. Then she'd turned the microphone off and tried to go back to sleep. She'd failed and finally got up when the sun streamed in through the curtains.

  She made bacon and eggs and fixed two plates. She ate hers first, then slipped the cold leftover food on the second plate through the slot to her prisoner. She wasn't going to let her own eggs get cold while delivering his breakfast. She didn't drug it this time.