by K. Webster
I leave the bedroom door open to test her. Her chain is long enough to give her a false sense of security. She can make it halfway down the hallway on that length. They all come to a screeching halt when they try to burst from the door. The chain bruises their tender stomachs. And when I hear the chain moving, I grin as I scrape the leftover food into the trashcan in the kitchen.
But much to my disappointment, the room goes silent. I rinse the dishes and then stalk back to where she’s at to see what in the hell she’s doing.
Creak.
Creak.
Creak.
I stand in the doorway and find her sitting in the rocking chair staring out the window. Not running. Not crying. Not pleading.
“He’s probably losing his mind right now,” she mutters absently.
The floorboard groans under my weight as I take a step into the room. This woman confuses me. I don’t understand why she doesn’t behave like the rest. “Who?”
The creaking stops and she turns her head my way. Her fog-gray eyes narrow upon seeing me. “Alan.” Then a long sigh. “My cousin.”
I wonder if her cousin misses her like my buddy Gold’s wife missed him when those motherfuckers kidnapped, tortured, and ultimately stabbed him to death. Fury bubbles up inside me. “Good.”
Fear flashes in her eyes. “He’ll find me.” Her words come out as a whisper.
“He won’t. You’ll be stuck here for the rest of your miserable existence,” I growl and take a step toward her.
“He will,” she says in a firmer tone. “It’s only a matter of time. He has money and resources.”
“You think I’m afraid of that asshole?”
“You should be,” she replies, her words broken with terror.
I kneel down and grab the slack of her chain before standing. Sensing my move before I make one, she stands just as I yank the chain to me. The bony woman stumbles and crashes right into me. She’s stiff as she grabs hold of the front of my shirt to steady herself. Her dark brown eyebrows furl together as she lifts her chin to regard me. This close, she doesn’t look like Anta.
“I’m not afraid of anyone.” Anymore. “But you should be very afraid of me. I’m sorry, but your precious cousin isn’t coming to save you.”
She smiles. Fucking smiles. Completely unhinged in this moment. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’d see him before he even left his house. I have eyes everywhere.”
A crazed cackle rattles through her. “Are you serious? He can’t ever get to me?”
“I’d put a bullet through his skull the second he set foot on my property,” I threaten.
The dumb bitch hugs me. “Thank you.”
Grabbing a fistful of her hair, I yank down on her tangled locks until she’s looking at me. Her naturally plump lips part open and a rosiness spreads across her cheeks. For a moment, I simply stare into her wrong-colored eyes. “What do you want? Right now?”
“Water. Food. A blanket.” She shivers in my arms. “A shower.”
I give her a little shove and she falls onto the bed. “No. No. No. And no.” With a smirk, I wave at her pillow. “Enjoy page number eighty-seven.”
I’m not met with tearful screams or sobs. Instead, she quietly tucks herself into a tight ball—her eyes flaring with a flash of defiance—before she faces the window. She’s so small. Barely takes up any space on the twin bed. Her back rises and falls evenly as she breathes and stares out the window.
With my eyes never leaving my enemy, I walk over to the rocking chair and sit.
Creak. Creak. Creak.
Her breathing gets deeper and I know she’s fallen into what I hope is terror-filled slumber. My own eyelids grow heavy and I drift off.
“Mack,” I whisper. “Stay with us, man.”
He sobs and shudders violently, his chain rattling relentlessly in the dark. “I can’t. I’m so c-cold.” Loud coughs echo around us.
Gold is quiet, so I say the words. The false hope he needs to hear.
“We’re getting out of here. Soon. Just stay with us.” My voice is calm—a deception that I flawlessly deliver to my friend in his final hour.
“I want to see Em and the twins,” he chokes out. “I can’t remember what they look like.”
“They have the same blond hair as your wife,” Gold reminds him, his voice shaking. “Remember how at your wedding I said she was too pretty for your ugly ass?”
Mack lets out a small chuckle, the warm sound wrong in the harsh hell hole we’re locked in. “Yeah.”
“I still think she’s too pretty for your ugly ass. If you die on us, man, Heart over there will swoop in with his GQ hair and smile. Do you really want that dick to be the stepdaddy to your kids?”
Mack laughs again. “Heart isn’t so bad. Better than your old ass.” His laughter turns into a violent cough.
“This old ass has a cock bigger than both yours put together,” Gold says, a smile in his voice.
How these two are smiling and laughing in the wicked blackness is beyond me.
“Gold?” Mack says, his voice cracking. “Make sure she and the girls know I loved them.”
Gold snarls. “Don’t fucking talk like that.”
“They know,” I assure him, a wobble in my voice.
Mack starts coughing again. It sounds horrible and deadly. We all know this. Mack, especially so.
“I didn’t want it to end like this,” Mack chokes out. “I thought it’d end with me in my recliner watching Sunday night football. A heart attack from eating one too many cheeseburgers or some shit. Not like this.” He sniffles. “Not like this.”
Gold and I don’t say anything as Mack coughs again.
Over and over.
Louder and harsher.
Until he doesn’t cough anymore.
Until he doesn’t breathe anymore.
“Mack?” The ache in my chest is brutal. “Mack?”
The moment I realize we’ve lost yet another brother, a gut-wrenching wail rips from me—a wail I’m sure Mack’s family can hear all the way from halfway across the world.
I wake in a cold sweat. It’s dark and cold.
Anta.
She’s here.
I can hear her breathing.
My entire body trembles from fear and the chill that never seems to leave my bones. I yank at my chain and let out a choked sound of surprise to find I’m free.
I’m free.
“Heart?” The voice. Small and innocent. Sweet.
Not Anta.
I blink away my confusion. An icy hand finds mine, but I don’t jerk away. Anta was always hot to the touch—a vivid reminder that she was the queen and we were her prisoners.
I squeeze the hand for a quick second, desperate to make warmth between us. My eyes adjust to the darkness, the moonlight illuminating the space and revealing the person knelt beside my chair. She’s naked and shivering but clutching my hand like she’s offering comfort.
I’m snared in her gray-eyed stare. Not accusing or calculating. Worried. Compassionate. It fucks with my head. I jerk my hand from hers and stand quickly. She rises to her feet and studies me with her brows furrowed together.
“Are you ok-kay?” she asks, her teeth chattering together as she hugs her middle where the chain holds her as my captive.
“You did this to me!” I scream, startling her.
I go to shove her away from me, but she grabs onto my shirt with surprising strength. Still half asleep, I stumble and fall onto the twin bed, crashing on top of her. She’s pinned beneath me with her arms smashed between us, her chest heaving with each breath she takes.
“I’m not her.” Her whispered words simultaneously infuriate me and calm me. Bubbles of rage simmer within, but they don’t escape. Instead, my traitorous body seeks the comfort of the woman beneath me. My muscles relax and I’m sure my weight is crushing her.
I should get up. Not because she probably can’t breathe well, but because I’m messing everything up. I’ve just resolved
myself to moving away from her when she begins to hum.
Sweet. Beautiful. Angelic.
I stiffen and get caught up in the way she smells. She should smell rank from days without bathing, but instead she still smells sweet. Her stomach violently grumbles between us, but instead of complaining, she hums louder. A song I don’t know.
I close my eyes.
One of her hands slips from between us and I nearly groan when her fingertips tentatively stroke through my hair.
What is this madness?
Our bodies create warmth between us that was absent moments ago. The bone-chilling ache is thawing as heat surges through my veins.
This is Anta.
I wait for the rage of the reminder and it’s not there.
Just warmth and a song I don’t understand.
Soothing and peaceful.
I inhale the honey scent of her hair because it doesn’t remind me of Anta at all. She’s not her in this moment. She’s some woman singing to me without words. Some woman comforting me from my nightmarish past, even though I’m her hellish present.
The humming never stops and soon I’m lulled right to sleep.
This time, I don’t go back there.
This time, I dream of waves and sunshine and gulls.
This time, I dream of peace.
I WAKE WITH A HEAVY weight on my chest. The sun shines in through the window and for the first time in days I feel warm. Hot actually. My stomach whines and grumbles, but I’m afraid to move. This man, Heart, is sound asleep on me. Sometime during the night, he’s shifted more to the side of me, but his arm and leg are slung across me as if I’ll go somewhere despite the metal chain around my middle.
His breath tickles my chest and my nipple hardens as awareness settles around me. I’m naked. Vulnerable and completely at his mercy.
Still, though, the immense feelings of terror I have for Alan don’t surface. I can tell Heart is troubled and menacing, but he doesn’t have the same evil dripping from his pores like Alan does. I want to believe that somewhere beneath the black ink, growls, and scowls, a real person lives. A person I can wade through the murky waters and find. A person who may be able to help me.
My stomach makes another loud sound. Heart’s body stiffens and his breathing becomes more shallow. He’s awake.
I don’t move.
I don’t say a word.
I simply wait.
His tattooed hand slides up my ribcage and he gently cups my breast. My breath catches in my throat. I’m immobilized as strange sensations surge through me. Want. Curiosity. Desire.
“I’m not a nice man.” His voice is cold and gruff despite the almost reverent way his thumb strokes the curve of my breast. “I’m a monster. I torture. I maim. I fucking kill.”
My heart rate thunders in my chest, but I don’t move. His hot breath tickles yet calms me even though the words coming out of his mouth are vicious and hateful.
“This will end horrifically for you,” he warns, malice dripping from his tone. “Every second of every day you’ll beg and plead. For what? I don’t know. Every bitch is different.”
This bitch is different.
This bitch wants freedom and she will get it.
I will escape.
He lifts slightly to affix his empty, hollowed glare on me. All his threats are felt by one simple look. I know he’ll do these things. Nothing about him suggests otherwise.
And still…
I grip his hard bicep through his jacket. “Please stay.”
With him close, I feel like I could get him to crack. I need him to crack.
Surprise registers briefly in his expression before he hides it away with a scowl. His hand finds my throat and he pins me down on the bed. Brown eyes seem to liquefy with fire as he bares his teeth at me.
“Your begging won’t work with me. Ever. It’s a waste of motherfucking breath,” he snarls, his grip tightening on my throat. “You may as well make those last breaths of yours in the coming months count.”
A tear slides down my temple.
When he sees it, he smiles.
I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful.
Hate and vengeance and fury are his armor but underneath is something worth looking for. Something worth chancing the consequences just to see. It flickers and dances below the surface. Begs to be discovered and touched.
I smile back.
Help me.
With one shared look, I try to convey to him how much I need him to bend. To take a step back from the crazy ledge and help me.
Please, help me.
He mutters something under his breath and jolts off the bed and onto his feet like I’ve burned him. My eyes follow his movement as he retreats to the doorway. The chill of the room settles around me and I draw my bare knees to my naked chest, desperate to hold in the warmth he provided. He sheds his coat and tosses it on the rocking chair before he sets to pacing the room. His fingers run through his messy black hair and it sticks up in every direction when he’s done. With his manic eyes darting this way and that, he takes on an almost boyish quality. Frightened and unsure. I want to reach out and call him back over to me, but I don’t.
He stops in his tracks and points at me. “You kept us in a windowless cell. The chains that hung from the ceiling were heavy and unbreakable. You starved us and kept us dirty. But that wasn’t good enough, was it, Anta? You had to really torture us.”
“I’m Natalie,” I whisper.
His brows furl and he pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezing shut. He trembles and for a moment I think he’s crying. But then his words start spewing angrily from his mouth.
“You stabbed us. You cut us. You peeled away our skin.” He lets out a pained growl. “You tore our fingernails and toenails off one by one. You shocked our genitals. You forced your disgusting cunt on us and ordered your men to take our asses. You got inside our motherfucking heads because it wasn’t enough to destroy our bodies. You had to destroy our minds.” His hands fall to his sides and he blinks at me. “You didn’t win.”
Tears stream down my face because the horrors he described are much worse than anything I ever dealt with when it came to Alan. This Anta chick was seriously demented.
Which means Heart is demented too.
He wants payback.
For some reason, he thinks I look like her.
The very idea of having my body cut and torn and destroyed has a terrified sob ripping through me. This seems to satisfy him, though, because he grins once more. All hope is lost. It fades like when the sun peeks out and chases away the fog.
“There’s my girl. For one fucked up second I thought I screwed all of this up.”
He stalks from the room, slamming the door behind him.
I waste no time climbing off the bed and wrapping up in his abandoned coat. It’s long and still warm. Quickly, I check the pockets for anything of use. I come up empty, so I take to staring out the window and rocking in the chair. With my eyes transfixed out the window on the bright sunny day, I can almost imagine that I’m not imprisoned.
My stomach twists painfully.
Almost.
I wake to being dragged to my feet and his coat being torn from my body. It’s dark outside, so I must have slept the day away in the rocking chair. My body is stiff and achy. I’m alarmed when he pulls out a key ring and unlocks the padlock at my waist.
Is he letting me go?
Tears of joy spring in my eyes when the chain hits the wood floor with a clank, but they’re short-lived when he grabs ahold of my hair on the side of my head.
“Deprivation. Food. Warmth.” His eyes are like staring into two black holes that lead deep into the earth. “Among other things.”
I don’t have time to process his words before he’s dragging me from my room. The rest of the house is warm and a moan of delight ripples from me. When I see that I’m being taken to a small bathroom, I nearly collapse in relief. I don’t fight him as he pulls me into the small space. He tur
ns on the shower before flashing another wicked smile my way.
“You kept us dirty. I made up new rules, though.” He reaches into the shower and touches the water. When he brings his cold wet thumb to my chest and drags it along my nipple, I cry out in surprise.
Before I can question what the new rules are, I’m pushed past the shower curtain and into the icy spray. I scream at the way the cold water pelts my already painfully numb skin. It hurts and an uncontrollable shivering takes over my body. My teeth chatter together as I desperately hug my middle to warm myself. His black sweater gets soaked when he tries to keep me under the assaulting spray. I don’t have the energy to fight against him. My shoulders sag in defeat and I silently cry.
He’s rough as he scrubs my body with a bar of soap. I slip into the depths of my mind—a place I used to go when Alan was hurting me—and disappear from the moment. He cleans me from top to bottom, but I’m not mentally present for any of it.
I think of Mom.
I think of my old high school.
I think of her spaghetti that Alan would never let me cook for us.
My mind is in a happier place and it gets me through the harsh reality I’ve been thrust into. I’m able to stay in my happy place until a finger and thumb bite into my jaw, dragging me unwillingly into the present.
Bone-chilling cold.
My teeth want to chatter, but he wrenches my mouth open slightly. The shivers roll through my body wave after wave. Cold water drips from my hair onto my chest and rolls down my chilled flesh. I’m no longer in the bathroom but instead lying on the bed. He sets to wrapping the chain back around me, its grip like death around my middle. The links press into my back and remind me I’ll be bruised by it for the rest of my miserable existence.
My eyes roll back in my head as I chase my memories once again. I’m happily sitting at my old dining room table telling Mom about this boy I like in school named Marcus when something jolts me from the past.