Chained

by Escalera, Tessa

  If Travis suspects, he is good at hiding it. I think he doesn't know. Usually I can wait until he leaves the room before I throw up.

  I dread the day when he decides to rape me again. What if I throw up on him? I know how angry that will make him. I know he will hurt me.

  Oh, God, I can't do this again. I'm not strong enough.

  I woke that night to a distant sound. I sat up in bed, my ears straining. There it was again. It came from outside. I got up and pushed the window open a few inches, placing my head in the crack.

  “Help! Someone, help!” That was Rachel's voice. It was quickly accompanied by Tanya's scream.

  Heart pounding, I shoved the window closed and bolted out of the room. I grabbed a throw blanket from the couch and wrapped it around me against the chill. I threw the front door open and leapt down from the porch to the dusty ground, my bare feet avoiding the rocks with skill even in the dark. The bite of early winter was in the air.

  I had recognized that scream. I knew it. I had made it, only a few months ago.

  I put my shoulder to the barn door and shoved. The heavy metal squealed in protest, and I slipped in as soon as there was enough space. I flipped the switch that flooded the barn in orange light from the lamps that hung from the ceiling far overhead.

  “Tanya?” I called as I reached the stall in which she lay. She was in shadow, writhing in pain.

  “Help her!” Rachel cried, her fingers wound through the mesh on the door and her face pressed against it. “It's the baby!”

  “No!” Tanya wailed. “It's too soon!”

  I slipped the latch and moved into the stall, kneeling before Tanya's prone form. She was right. It was too soon, by well over three months. A baby born this early had very little chance of survival even with access to a NICU and top-notch medical care.

  “Tanya? What's going on?”

  Tanya groaned and lunged almost into a sitting position, gripping her belly between her hands. “Oh, it hurts. Help me!”

  I took her hand in mine and let her grip it until the contraction passed. “Okay, I have to look. Is that okay?”

  Tanya nodded mutely, sweat pouring from her pale face.

  I pulled the blanket back, and was greeted with a sight that made my stomach turn. Blood soaked the blankets beneath the pregnant girl. It was too much blood. Way, way too much.

  This all passed through my mind in an instant. I also saw that Tanya was, in fact, in labor. The baby would be here within minutes. There was no going back now.

  “Tanya, I need you to push. Can you do that?”

  Tanya shook her head, crying out in pain. “No! It's too early!”

  “You don't have a choice. The baby is almost here. I need you to push. Now!”

  With a groan, Tanya curled around her belly and pushed. I counted for her, breathed with her, held her hands. I encouraged her when she relaxed, and held her each time she leaned forward.

  All too soon, the tiny body came sliding into the world, still encased in the amniotic sac. I had never seen a baby so small. For a moment I could do nothing except stare in wonder. He was so tiny, so perfect. His little chest moved rapidly up and down as he breathed the water that was his entire world.

  Tanya cried out, and blood began to gush faster from her newly empty womb. I gathered the baby into my hands and the sac popped, splashing fluid all over my arms and clothes. I wrapped the miniature body and limbs in a corner of the blanket and moved to hand him to Tanya.

  “No,” Tanya groaned, pushing me away. “Take it. I don't want to see it. I want Rachel.”

  I stumbled to my feet, the tiny baby cradled against my chest. I moved to Rachel's stall and slid the latch. She pushed past me and hurried to Tanya's side.

  Alone, I stood in the center of the barn, staring at the little life cradled in my arms. I could barely feel him among the weight of the blankets. His chest moved and he cried, a weak and mewling wail. I touched his thin, pink skin with a fingertip, and gasped when he reached up and grabbed my finger. He was so tiny. His little fingertips on mine reminded me of the first kicks of my own son. Like the gentlest of butterfly kisses.

  “No! Tanya!” Rachel screamed, and I rushed back into the stall. Tanya was lying limp and ghost white in the straw, the blankets between her legs soaked with blood. She wasn't breathing. Rachel leaned over her friend, sobbing bitter tears.

  My lungs would not draw breath. Still cradling the baby, I stumbled out into the main part of the barn. Travis had just entered and was advancing rapidly toward me, his eyes wide. I motioned to Tanya's stall and staggered out into the night. I collapsed to the ground against the side of the barn, tears streaming hot down my cheeks. A single light shone down on me, illuminating the impossibly small features of the baby I held.

  As Rachel wailed inside the barn, I sat and stared at the dying baby in my arms. I was determined that this one, at least, would not die alone. For as long as he lived, he would know that he was noticed. He would know that he was loved.

  As the baby struggled and gasped for breath, I took him from the blankets and placed him directly against the skin on my chest, against my heart. I gave him my heat, willing some of my oxygen and my strength to pass to him.

  “You are loved,” I whispered, the tears burning on my face, my heart feeling as if it would stop beating altogether. I could barely speak around the huge lump in my throat. “You are loved, little one.”

  As the moments passed and the baby's strength began to fail, I begged God to take him. “God, give him peace,” I whispered over the tiny, beautiful head, over the miniature fingers and toes. “God, take him where he will never be hurt, where he will always be loved.”

  The baby drew one last, gasping breath, and then the only movement was the fluttering of his heartbeat against my skin. “Go in peace, little one,” I murmured. “Fly like the butterfly. God's arms are waiting for you. It's okay. He will love you more than you can ever imagine. Say 'hi' to Jenny and little Essie, okay? Tell them I miss them. Maybe Jenny will be your mommy in heaven. She's a good mommy.”

  Gently, quietly, God welcomed the baby into His waiting arms. I sat unmoving until I was sure that the new soul had been reclaimed by heaven.

  There are moments where time seems to stop, where nothing of the outside world can intrude. This moment was one of those, where the minutes I sat with the baby in my arms seemed to last forever and I felt as if a tiny piece had broken from this world, a piece no less important because of its size. For that single moment I knew no pain, no joy, no sorrow. All I knew was that I had witnessed a soul pass into eternity, and God's kingdom had grown in number even as the Earth had experienced a loss that none besides me would ever mourn.

  I looked up to see Travis walking from the barn. He carried Tanya's body in his arms, while Rachel cried and screamed in the barn behind me. I rose and followed.

  The first rays of dawn were staining the valley sky pink as I followed Travis around behind the barn, to a spot near where the flat ground turned into hill and soared up toward the sky.

  There was a hole already dug in the ground. It was like they had been prepared for someone to die. I briefly wondered if it had been me, the day after I had “fallen” in the stream.

  Travis lowered Tanya's body into the hole, and motioned me forward. I stepped toward the depression in the earth, baby's tiny body cradled to my chest, my eyes so blurred with tears that I could barely see. Carefully I knelt at the edge of the hole and placed the baby at Tanya's side, placing him so that he was cradled in the crook of her arm. If she could not love him in life, perhaps she would be able to love him in death.

  Then I stepped back and watched as Travis took a shovel and began to fill in the shallow grave. I stood with my arms wrapped around my stomach, painfully aware that I had lost my blanket somewhere in the chaos. I shivered violently in the chill air as I watched Travis dig. Sweat gleamed on his forehead in the growing light of dawn. I could still hear Rachel crying, the sound echoing in my ears and through my bon
es.

  As Tanya's face was covered and the body of her baby disappeared beneath the dirt, I began to cry again. My chest and my stomach ached with the pain of loss.

  How can you so deeply love someone who you have barely met? How can such a small hand so deeply touch a heart? How can such a short life burn so brightly in someone's memory?

  At least he is safe now.

  When the hole was full, Travis turned to me. My body still shaking from the force of my crying, I did not resist when he gathered me into his arms. He moved as if to lead me back to the house, but I was frozen in place. My feet wouldn't move. Finally he picked me up in the same way that he had so recently carried the body of my fellow prisoner. He carried me across the yard and into the house, where he laid me on the bed and knelt next to me.

  I knew I was going to be sick if I didn't stop crying, but I couldn't stop. All I could see was the memory of that tiny body cradled against my chest. All I could think of was another new life destroyed.

  I didn't even care when Travis climbed into the bed with me, holding me to his chest. I didn't have the strength to push him away, and no matter how much I hated him in that moment, I wasn't sure I could bear to be alone.

  When he began to hold me in a different way, for once I did not resist or fight. Even this was preferable to being alone in the darkness of the room and of my soul. I was afraid I would descend into insanity completely if I was alone. So I let him hold me and I cried into his arms. Something broke in me that night. After I thought there was nothing left in me to break, I was proven wrong. Another piece of my heart was lost, chasing after a soul no longer in this world. Another string of my sanity was broken, bringing me one step closer to the separation from reality that was the only thing that could relieve the pain.

  At some point during the night, I woke from sleep to find Travis snoring next to me. I pushed myself upright and searched the floor with my feet for my pants before walking into the bathroom.

  When I returned, I couldn't bear to crawl back into my bed with Travis lying there. Instead I sat on the chair in the corner, leaning back to watch him sleep. He looked so peaceful. Pure. There was no trace of evil or malice on his face when he slept. I could almost forget the pain his hands had dealt. I wished I could forget. Wouldn't life be easier if we can just forget the bad things? If we didn't have to hold onto the darkness from the past.

  Maybe not. After all, as someone once said, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

  I sighed. I placed my hands on my abdomen, over the still invisible life that grew within me. I rubbed my belly gently, remembering Tanya's baby lying in my arms.

  You are loved, I thought to the little one inside me. You are loved more than you can ever imagine. I will love you to the end of my ability for every day that I get to hold you, in my belly or in my arms. You will always be loved. Always.

  Pregnancy exhaustion pulling at me, I finally decided to go out into the living room and sleep on the couch. Hopefully it wouldn't upset him too much.

  Despite my tiredness I could not sleep. I used the remote to turn on the TV and stared unseeing at the scenes that flickered across the screen.

  God, I don't understand the evil of this world. I don't understand how you could let such things happen. I know the baby is in a better place...but what about Tanya? Did she join you in heaven, or has she passed from one hell to another? Why did this have to happen to her?

  I didn't expect an answer. There seemed to be some things I was never meant to understand.

  Chapter 23: Second chances, last chances

  “Sarah. Hey, Sarah?”

  I startled awake and looked up to see Travis leaning over me. “Oh...hey.”

  “Why didn't you come back to bed?”

  “I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep.”

  Travis sat down at the other end of the loveseat and put my feet on his lap. “Master comes home today.”

  I wasn't surprised...now that I was able to tell days and weeks, it was pretty obvious the man was gone all week and came home on the weekends with occasional breaks where he left on Tuesday or Wednesday instead of Monday. “Yeah.”

  “He said he's tired of seeing you in the house. He said you have to go back in the barn.”

  “Okay.” What else was there to say? It wasn't like I had any choice in the matter.

  “I will let you back in when he's gone, though.”

  I was listening without looking at him, my eyes focused on the blank blue screen of the TV. “That's fine.”

  “Don't you want to stay in the house with me?”

  The tone in his voice made me focus on his face. “Of course I do.” Maybe not for the reasons I needed him to believe, but it beat living in a horse stall. With how sensitive my nose was lately, I wasn't sure I could handle the barn smells.

  “Because if you want to stay out there, then...”

  I pushed myself up to a sitting position. “Travis, I want to stay with you. Really, I do. I'm sorry if it doesn't seem like I meant it.”

  Travis shrugged sadly. Even though I knew he was manipulating me, and I was lying to him in turn, I had to play along with the game...or pay the price. “I just wasn't sure.”

  “I'm sorry. I just woke up, I'm not thinking clearly. Please let me stay here when Master leaves again.”

  Travis's face brightened and he hopped up off the couch, patting my head as he passed. “I'm glad, Butterfly. We have so much fun together, don't we?”

  That wasn't quite what I would call it...but whatever got me farther into Travis's trust got me closer to finally figuring out a way to escape.

  September 17th: day 366 of my captivity. I only have a few minutes to write...Travis is fixing breakfast in the kitchen and he thinks I'm taking a shower.

  I think I finally know how they capture the girls. I asked Travis where Master goes and he acted like I was being stupid. He asked me if I've never seen the semi truck parked at the bottom of the hill.

  Master is a truck driver. That's how they take the girls. That's why nobody has found us. Because they take us far away from our homes.

  The only thing I can't figure out is why Travis came to meet me. As far as I can tell, it's usually Master who does all the capturing. Travis just keeps us alive. He barely even leaves the property, and never for more than a few hours.

  Maybe I really am special to him.

  September 20th: I had to stay in the barn for the weekend until Master left. It still smells like blood and death. Rachel wouldn't stop crying and throwing herself against the wall separating us. I think she truly has gone crazy. All she did was mutter nonsense and scream and cry.

  I think Tanya's death threw her over the edge. Even if she was rescued now, I know she will never be the same. I am afraid I will join her soon if something doesn't change.

  I wish I could explain to her why I'm in the house and she isn't. That I'm only doing it because I want to help us both escape.

  That last part sounds like a lie. How can I deny that I would so much rather be in this house than out in that barn? I have a bed, running water. Someone to talk to that at least pretends he doesn't hate me.

  No, I know he doesn't hate me. Crazy as it is, I think he loves me. The only thing he knows of love is that it goes hand in hand with control and pain. His father sees girls as objects, a way to satisfy his desires and an opportunity for profit.

  Travis at least sees us as human, albeit lesser humans that can be treated however he wants.

  Yes, I think he loves me. He doesn't know any other sort of love.

  September 21st: I am so, so sick. I'm not sure I can hide this from Travis any longer. Maybe if I tell him, I won't have to worry so much about him hurting me. Even the smells of foods make me sick.

  The only thing that sounds good right now is ice cream. Not that it matters. I'm surprised I even remember what ice cream tastes like.

  “Sarah?”

  “Yes, Travis?”

  A hand settled on my shoulder. I was laying on
the bed, trying not to throw up after eating lunch. It helped if I didn't move and kept my eyes closed.

  “I was going for a walk. I was hoping you could come with me.”

  I groaned quietly. “I really don't feel good, Travis.”

  “You should come out in the sun for a while. That will help.”

  Pretty sure it won't. “Please, Travis...”

  Now he was pulling on my arm, tugging me to an upright position. “Come on, Sarah. It's just a walk.” Swallowing hard, I pushed myself to my feet and allowed him to lead me out of the bedroom.

  I managed to make it to the front porch before I had to rush down the steps to the grass to avoid losing my lunch on Travis's shoes.