Until You're Mine: Requested Trilogy - Part Two

by Sabre Rose

  “I don’t know,” I wail, and the man takes the phone off me, giving instructions down the phone and letting my mother know he’s called the police. Flashing lights reflect across the window.

  “Go to the station,” he says. “The police have just pulled up. They will meet you there.” He listens for a moment as the little girl walks over to me, tea falling over the edges of the cup with each step.

  “I’m not sure, sorry. She hasn’t said much.”

  “Here’s your cup of tea.” She holds the cup out. “I hope it makes you feel better.” She leans in closer as her father continues to answer questions from my mother. “Are you scared?” she whispers.

  All I can do is nod and pull the blanket closer.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “My Daddy will look after you.” She darts away, her footsteps light on the ground and comes back holding a teddy bear. “Here.” She shoves the bear at me. “He always makes me feel better when I’m scared.”

  Reaching out to take the toy, I pull it close to my chest and cry some more. I cry because I remember being her. I remember being the girl who thought that she was protected, safe, who didn’t know the danger that can lurk even in the most placid of places.

  And I cry because that girl doesn’t exist anymore.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MIA

  Mum clutches my hand tightly, as though if she lets go I might disappear again. The seats we’re sitting on are cold and hard. Everything about me is numb.

  My skin.

  My thoughts.

  My memories.

  We’re at the police station and there’s a man who I assume is a detective, although he’s not in uniform, looking at me curiously. I can’t remember his name. I can’t remember anything about him, or even if he’s told me his name.

  My memories are a blur from the moment the police arrived. Their words were all spoken in hushed tones that jumbled into confusion inside my head. They asked what happened, where I had been, who had hurt me. So many questions. Enough to make my head hurt.

  I wish I could say I answered them confidently, but I’m not even sure if I answered at all. It was like I was caught in a dream, just a spectator of all the commotion going on around me. A policewoman sat beside me in the back seat of the car and rested her hand on my thigh. I remember it feeling heavy and hot, burning my skin. Everything inside me wanted to wrench it off, but it was like I was frozen, unable to do anything but watch.

  I felt nothing until I saw my mother and then I felt her tears soaking into my shoulder. My father’s strong arms wrapped around me too and I heard his voice, deep and comforting, but I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. Things jumbled in a jerking fast-forward motion until I found myself here, sitting on the hard chair and staring into the eyes of someone who is frustrated with my lack of answers, though he’s doing his best not to show it.

  A heavy blanket is wrapped over my shoulders, the one from the farmhouse that the man insisted I keep when the police came to collect me. I keep glancing down at it as though it holds the answers to the questions I can’t fathom.

  “What about where you were held? What can you tell us about it? Anything would be helpful, anything at all.”

  A pen is poised on top of paper, waiting.

  “Stables.” My voice is far away as though it is coming from someone else and I am only a spectator to the answer.

  “Stables?” the man repeats.

  I close my eyes and see the white breath of the horses escaping into the night. “There were horses.”

  “And you were kept in one of these stables? Is that where they kept you?”

  I shake my head. “Below.”

  The pen is put back on the desk. “Below?”

  “Below the stables, down the stairs.”

  “And where are these stables? How far away? How long were you running before you got to the farmhouse?”

  Tears gather and fall. “I don’t know. It could have been hours, it could have been minutes.”

  The door opens, and a different man walks in, making me jump in fear. My mum squeezes my hand harder and smooths my hair. The man looks over me and my skin crawls as I wonder if he could be him. Could this man with the cold eyes and pocked skin be my requestor? There’s a folder in his hands. His fingers are long and pale, reminding me of Marcel.

  “Here’s the statement from the farmer.” He places the folder on the desk. “Nothing all that helpful.”

  The man behind the desk’s response is clipped. “That will be all, thank you.” He dismisses the man and he leaves with barely a glance my way. Not my requestor, after all. I don’t think.

  “And the name of the men that held you, do you remember them? Did they call each other anything? Get you to call them something?”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. His eyes dart to my mother.

  “Perhaps it would be best if we spoke to Mia alone.”

  “No!” I shake my head violently, tears springing to my eyes once more. “No,” I say again, but this time gentler.

  Mum pats my knee, strokes my hair, and smooths the blankets, a constant flow of motion.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispers. “Do you remember anything? Anything at all?”

  “Marcel.” The name rips from my throat and I squeeze my eyes tightly, willing away the memory of him that comes flooding through my mind.

  “Marcel?” The man repeats, just like he’s repeated each of my answers, though whether it is to clarify or challenge, I’m unsure.

  “Do we have to do this now?” my father says, frustrated. He leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, and glares at the man asking the questions. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow? Until she’s had some sleep, some food in her stomach? Hasn’t she been through enough?”

  I want to cry at the pain in his voice. Instead, I lift my head and manage a wobbly smile. Tears well in my father’s eyes and he clears his throat as if it will dislodge them.

  “It’s okay, Dad. I need to do this.”

  Forcing myself to picture him, I describe Marcel in detail. The blackness of his curly hair. The sinister way he smiled. I tell them everything he said to me about the man who requested me and how it is the family business. My mother covers her mouth when I speak of some of the more explicit details, but I don’t spare her. I can’t. It’s like I’ve opened a floodgate and the flow of information is unstoppable. I explain every aspect of my life in the cell in detail, right down to the red stone in the floor and the scent of the shampoo in the shower.

  But when it comes to talking about Ryker, his name gets stuck in my throat.

  “And this Marcel,” the detective prompts, “he was the one who was…” he pauses his eyes flicking between my parents before coming to rest on me again. “He was the one training you?”

  I shake my head, but I can’t bring myself to look at him.

  “There was someone else? The man you said requested you?”

  I shake my head again, twisting my fingers together as they lay in my lap. “Marcel was a trainer but not mine,” I whisper. “And the man who requested me only came to visit the once, but I was blindfolded, and I couldn’t hear all that well, so I don’t know much about him other than what he said.”

  “And what did he say?”

  The pen rises off the desk again, poised between the detective’s fingers.

  “He called me his sweet songbird.”

  “His songbird?” His insistence on repeating my answers grates.

  “Yes, and he said he couldn’t wait until I was his.”

  The policeman has to lean forward to hear my answers, my voice is so quiet.

  “Do you sing?”

  “She’s got a beautiful voice, so beautiful,” my mother answers for me.

  I cringe, not knowing if I will ever be able to sing again. If I’ll ever be able to return to the thing I love, knowing it was what attracted him to me.

  “So it would make sense to conclude he had heard you sing before.
”

  The pen starts to scrawl across the page. “I’ll need a list of everywhere that you’ve sung in public over the past year. But,” he looks up at me, “you still haven’t told me the name of the man who trained you. Do you remember it? Did you ever hear it?”

  I blink back tears ignoring the knot of pain at the base of my throat. “I don’t even know if it’s his real name.”

  “It’s probably not.” The detective attempts a small smile. “But it still might help.”

  Closing my eyes, I’m taken back to my cell, to Ryker’s eyes, so tormented, so conflicted.

  In the background, the detective talks to my parents. “She could be feeling some sort of emotional bond to…” I block the sound of his voice out, not wanting to hear the words he’s about to say. The words which I’ve thought all too often myself.

  “Ryker,” I say, interrupting him. “His name was Ryker.”

  The pen scribbles across the paper, the noise invading my head and burning across my brain.

  “Ryker?”

  I grit my teeth together and Mum squeezes my hand as though she is trying to send me strength through the connection.

  The detective’s deep voice is murmuring again though I’ve blocked myself from the words. I think back to Ryker tearing the clothes from my body as I swung from the chains. I try to remember the bite of the metal, the terror that had settled within me. Those are the things I need to remember. Not the way I felt when he looked into my eyes. Not the feel of his mouth on mine. Not the roughness of his hands as he ran them over my flesh.

  “We will take you down to the hospital soon. We’ll need to get a rape kit done,” The detective is saying when I tune back into the conversation.

  “I wasn’t raped. Not really. Not in the way you’re thinking.”

  Dad clenches his fists. Mum’s hand on my hair freezes mid-stroke. The detective lifts a single brow.

  “Marcel,” I swallow, “he…” My father walks out the door, his jaw set in a hard line, tears in his eyes. “He put his…” words fail me and I drop my eyes to the ground, wishing I had a red stone to fix my gaze on.

  The detective clears his throat. “Mia,” he says softly, more softly than he’s spoken before, “would you prefer to talk to a female officer? There’s none on duty at the moment but we could call Officer Hardy down from the city. She would be more than hap—”

  “It’s fine,” I bite out, my eyes darting to the window where my father paces the hallway, hands threaded through his hair as though he’s tugging on the ends. “I’m fine. I just need a minute or two.”

  The detective gets up from his desk. “I’ll go get us some water.”

  As soon as he’s out the door, I turn to my mother, hoping she will understand. Needing her to understand. It’s so hard to say the words aloud.

  “I don’t want you to think… I don’t want you to—” Tears start to fall again, the intensity cutting off my words.

  My mother clasps my cheeks between her hands. Her gaze flicks between my eyes, boring into me. “There is nothing you can say that will change the way I feel about you. Do you hear me, Mia Cooper? Nothing that those men did or didn’t do can change a thing. And there’s nothing you can tell me that you did or didn’t do that will change the fact that I love you. I love you, baby girl. I always have and I always will. If you need me to leave while talking to the policeman, I can do that, but never, even for a moment think that anything you say will make me think differently of you Mia. Nothing. None of this is your fault.” She pulls me close and strokes my hair. “I love you. Nothing will change that. Nothing can change that. I know this is hard. You’ve finally got free, finally home and now you’re having to relive it all over again.”

  She just holds me as I cry. She doesn’t know the truth. She doesn’t know I willingly fell into my captor’s arms. I’m overwhelmed, tired by the questioning, the mental exhaustion of reliving my escape and my captivity over and over.

  “I just want to go home,” I manage to sob.

  Mum smooths my hair again and pulls back to look me in the eye. “No more questions,” she promises. “But they will need to gather any evidence they can before you go home. Do you think you can do that?”

  I nod numbly, knowing I have no other choice. If I want the police to have a shot at capturing my requestor they will need all the evidence they can.

  The policeman walks back in and sets a jug of water and some plastic cups on his desk. After sitting down, he clears his throat and opens his mouth to speak, but my mother talks before he can.

  “That’s enough questions.” Her tone leaves little room for argument. “We will go to the hospital, but then we are going home. My girl needs to go home. She needs a good night’s sleep in her own bed.”

  “According to Mia herself, the person who requested her knows everything. They know who you are and where you live. It would be best if you and your daughter—”

  “I don’t care what you think is best. I know what is best. I will be taking Mia home. I will stay with her and never leave her alone. Post a guard outside the door. Have someone watching the house at all times. I don’t care what you do, but you will do everything you can to ensure her safety at home.”

  “Mrs Cooper.” The policeman places the pen back down. “I really think that you and—”

  My mother leans forward, the expression on her face fierce. “I don’t care what you think.” She blinks once. “This is what is going to happen.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MIA

  Each time I fall asleep, my body jerks back awake, startling me with terror prickling over my skin. But then I feel the hand of my mother resting on my shoulder, I see the crack of light coming through from the hallway, the familiar color of my walls, the smell of my bedding, and I know I am safe. For now, anyway. I can’t help but think of my requestor out there, watching and waiting for the perfect time to take me again.

  I’ve done my best to block out going down to the hospital. The way they examined my body, checking it for each and every injury, reminding me of the early days in the cell and the way Ryker would run his hands over me, getting me used to his touch, teaching me not to flinch. Being with the nurse was just the same. I went into some trance-like state, only focusing on the voice and smile of my mother instead of what the nurse was doing and why she did it. I blocked my mind off to the scraping under my fingernails and the combing through my hair.

  When it was done, my father drove us home, a police car following our every move, me in the back seat, my head pressed against the window and looking at the sky.

  Once home, I hopped under the stream of hot water and let it burn until my skin turned red. Getting into my familiar pajamas, I lifted the covers and climbed into bed, my mother lying down beside me, but my nightmares mean I can’t get to sleep.

  Beside me, my mother breathes easily. Lifting her hand, I slide out from the bed and walk over to the window, tugging the curtains open and sinking to the floor with my back against the wall. I hug my knees close to my chest, my chin resting on the bent caps, and stare out at the night sky. Searching the stars, I look for the ones shaped in the pattern of a cross, hoping that somehow, if I find them, they will tell me if Ryker’s okay. But they aren’t out tonight, hidden by cloud. Or I can’t find them. I can only see my own reflection.

  I think back to standing in front of the small mirror in the bathroom of my cell and chanting the words that gave me the strength to escape. “You were a captive. He hurt you, broke you. You do not love him.” But the girl in the window looks back at me with only one word on her lips.

  Liar.

  I must have fallen asleep there with my back pressed to the wall because I wake to the scent of freshly baked bread. Pulling myself from the warmth of the blankets, I drape my dressing gown over my shoulders and head for the bathroom. Turning the water to scolding, I watch as steam fogs up the mirror.

  “You do not love him,” I whisper to the girl looking back at me. Her skin has a lit
tle more color to it. Her eyes a little brighter. Her flesh isn’t so bruised with abuse. But I still don’t recognize her. She’s a stranger, this girl who stares back at me.

  A stranger who longs for the man who held her captive. It suddenly dawns on me that I will never see him again. He will never take me in his arms. I will never see his forehead deepen with frown lines. I will never look into those ocean-blue eyes. An empty void threatens to overwhelm me. I feel both pain for the loss of him and guilt for that pain.

  It’s only when the fog completely blurs my vision that I step into the shower. I don’t flinch at its heat. I welcome the burn. The pain. Because that’s what I cling to. Pain is the only thing that makes sense at the moment. The only thing I can relate to.

  I stay under the heat of the water until it turns cold, and then I step out, eyeing the clothing I had placed on the floor and wonder if I will ever be the same girl again.

  If I even want to be the same girl.

  Every part of me longs to return to that time of before, but if I did, I would have to let go of the memory of him. My emotions are in constant battle.

  The relief of freedom.

  The worry of capture.

  The guilt of regret.

  Before I walk into the kitchen, I plaster on a smile of before. The girl before she was taken. The one who laughed and smiled and told jokes. Not the stranger left in her place. But my smile feels wrong, foreign, as though it’s meant for someone else now and not for me.

  “Mia!” Roxy flies into my arms before I could even register she was sitting at the table and hugs me fiercely. “I was so worried about you.” She squeezes the air out of my lungs. “Why didn’t you call? I would have come over straight away. I would have—”

  My mother gently peels Roxy’s arms off me. “She’s been here since first thing. I told her you were still sleeping but she wouldn’t leave.”