Either Side of Midnight (The Midnight Saga Book 1)

by Tori de Clare

  She had no clue what time it was. Morning? Afternoon? Late afternoon? She stood slowly and walked to the window, straining the chains as far as they’d allow. She wished she had Nathan’s skill of glancing at the sky and assessing the time or finding north from the position of the sun. The sky held no clues for her. The sun was about to be swallowed by an ugly black cloud, which was being pursued by crowds more. Mind empty, she stood watching as the cloud eclipsed the sun and the others huddled in and the room dimmed and cooled quickly.

  The constant suspense of waiting was inescapable. There was only waiting, watching, wondering, following a ring of doubt and fear that circled endlessly. Losing her necklace had meant losing something precious and personal. It had been her token with God, the private agreement they shared that she would wear it and remember Him, and He would protect her. At least, that was her take. The value in gold wasn’t worth mentioning. What mattered was the deep-rooted symbolism that connected with a childhood she’d always remember and would rather forget. The necklace had been her companion during long spells spent alone. She took hold of it whenever she prayed. Maybe God was the real friend, but the necklace had become the link. She liked it that way.

  She didn’t know how long she stood there by the window untouched by stunning scenery, unaware of anything but the oppression of profound hopelessness. Her growling stomach brought her round. She felt no urge to fill it. She thought again of her parents coping with the news that something dreadful had happened, and couldn’t imagine the pain and powerlessness. The thought that, with a phone she could assure them she was alive, caused a physical pain that made her legs drop into a crouching position. She stayed there until she ached all over.

  She clambered back onto the bed and decided to drink at least. Not trusting what he might have added, she took the cup to the bathroom to refill. There was a new toothbrush in its pack, with toothpaste. She hadn’t logged them until now. She drank two cups of water then awkwardly cleaned her teeth. There was a small window on the opposite wall fastened with a curly black wrought-iron handle. The whole thing would swing open. It was big enough for a body to squeeze through, probably. As she blotted her mouth with a nearby towel, a car was crunching towards the house again on loose stones.

  Her legs weakened as she rushed to the bed and buried herself beneath the covers. As time passed, her breathing steadied. She listened carefully to the noises downstairs. Cupboard doors were opening and closing, bags rustling, drawers being pulled open, pushed shut. The kitchen must be directly beneath. She pictured him stocking up the cupboards for the long stay.

  What was she doing here? Her mind threw up two recent cases where girls had been found after years of captivity. Both had been held by older men who’d cut them off from all life outside. Children had been born. One of the girls suffered Stockholm Syndrome and struggled to adapt to freedom.

  Nauseous now, Naomi tried to clear her mind which was also being plagued by the other scenario, death. The only thinkable option was escape. Her mind latched on to it quickly, an attempt to push the vile stuff out. Concentrating on escaping as if it was a choice, was the secret to remaining sane.

  A door closed beneath her, then the stairs were groaning again as steady footsteps drew closer. She froze. A key turned in the lock. Naomi, buried, didn’t move. She felt him enter the room and walk towards her. He paused by the bed. Air felt in short supply under the covers. After an everlasting wait, he peeled the duvet back as far as her shoulders. She looked up and shuddered. The black balaclava was the first thing she saw hanging over her, pale blue eyes inside it. There was a small tattoo on his left arm, black ink, no colour. An animal? She looked away, too afraid to be caught staring. He spoke in his deep rich voice.

  ‘Eat something.’

  Naomi shook her head and closed her eyes. ‘Let me go.’

  A pause. ‘Not going to happen.’

  ‘I’m pleading with you, let me go. Please,’ she whispered. Naomi opened her eyes and looked into his, taking what felt like a necessary risk. She didn’t want to give him a reason to stay, but she meant for him to read the agony in her eyes.

  ‘You’re going nowhere. Get used to it.’

  His voice was level, devoid of the kind of emotion that was strangling hers.

  ‘I need my husband.’

  Expecting a reply, Naomi refused to look away. Time passed in a brittle silence and her nerve faltered. She couldn’t back down. His pale blue eyes calmly blinked and narrowed behind the mask. His hand stretched out towards her. She tried to withdraw, but there was nowhere to go. He firmly snatched her wrist. Naomi closed her eyes, shutting him out. Something soft was being pressed against her hand.

  ‘No, no,’ she said.

  ‘Eat,’ he ordered. Her eyes opened first, then her hand. He deposited the bread roll in her palm and let go. ‘You’ll never see him again.’

  She breathed hard and fast while he strode unhurriedly towards the door.

  ‘Is he hurt?’

  He didn’t look behind, didn’t acknowledge her question. Rage got the better of her, replacing the fear long enough for her to sit up. ‘What’s happened to him?’ she yelled.

  Still he didn’t look round. She pictured herself leaping up and circling the chains around his throat and squeezing full strength.

  He opened the door and slipped quietly through it. Before he closed and locked it, he said, ‘Save your energy. You’re going to need it.’

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  Left alone for the remainder of that day, an everlasting night with only fits of sleep, and a long way into another day, Naomi was now slouching listlessly on the edge of the bed watching the sky, studying the spectrum of green shades that clothed the hillsides and ran flat to the house. She realised she hadn’t eaten since the wedding reception. The soup was gathering dust. The rigid roll sat where she’d left it the day before when he’d tried to force-feed her. Her back ached from too much lying.

  It was Monday. It was important to keep tabs on the days. She’d washed in the sink and brushed her teeth like she was getting ready for college. One tap wouldn’t shut off properly. It didn’t drip, but dribbled a thin stream of water. So now she sat alone waiting with her churned up feelings that were difficult to label. Fear was there in bucket loads. It had infected her mind and body, leaving fertile ground for other things to take root.

  Left to stew and sit and sleep and rot and fume, boredom was becoming an issue too; frustration, a bigger one. Fury came and went and was surprisingly useful. It got her hunting for solutions and jumpstarted her brain into plotting an escape, until despair came round again and pinned her to the bed more effectively than the chains.

  During the fury part of the cycle earlier that day, she’d paced the room as far as the chains would allow and discovered that the monster hadn’t left her without clothes. In the wardrobe beside the bed, just within reach, she’d found two plain T-shirts, one white, one navy blue; a new pair of jeans her size, and a plain black fleecy zip-up jacket. These were hung side by side. Folded neatly and lying at the bottom of the wardrobe, was a spare nightshirt and new supermarket-style pack of 5 knickers in black, also her size. Beside them was a carrier bag with a hand-written label taped on which said, washing.

  She’d stared for minutes in shock, then changed her knickers and put on the jeans beneath the nightshirt. She felt more secure in the jeans and was warmer. She put her wedding underwear in the washing bag, hoping he’d never take it. How the hell was she supposed to change tops with her arms in chains?

  That done, she’d delved under the bed to investigate why it wouldn’t move more than a centimetre. She found that the bed wasn’t bolted to the floor, but that two brackets held the metal legs to the skirting board with screws. The screws were only slim. She had a go at loosening them with her fingers. Fat chance! In one of three dusty clusters beneath the bed, which had dodged a vacuum cleaner, she found a single brown hair grip. Uses, if any, had to be considered.

  Naomi lay on top of the bed aga
in and examined the hairgrip like she’d never seen one. She removed the small plastic tips. Even now with sharper edges, it was hardly a weapon unless she could jab him in the eye. She couldn’t imagine him holding still while she aimed and fired, but she fantasised about it pointlessly.

  So if it wasn’t a weapon, was there any mileage in using it as a tool? Naomi got up and slid under the bed again until the chains tugged on her arms. She tried to loosen the screws with the curved end of the grip, but it wouldn’t insert properly and wouldn’t grip! She straightened it into a line and tried to insert one of the sharp ends, but it was a hopeless fit and there was nothing to hold on to. It had no grip. Any effort bent it.

  Defeated, she threw herself on the bed again and her mood sunk. She put the hairgrip inside a pillowcase. So here she was now, slumped in a pit with no footholds in the darkest part of the cycle. She didn’t know if the monster was in or out. She’d heard no car leaving, but then it was dead downstairs too. She couldn’t sense his presence the way she had in the night when she’d lay tense and restless in the darkness, curtains partly open, wondering if Nathan was looking at the same moon, listening to the wind rifling through the trees, terrified of losing consciousness, her pulse impacted by every small noise and movement from the next room.

  The voice. Whose voice? Where from? When had she heard it? Would her memory ever match it to a face? It was like seeing a vaguely familiar actor in a film without any clue which film he’d last been in. It was an itch she couldn’t scratch. Thinking about it was like drinking salt water to quench thirst.

  She dragged herself to her feet and padded barefoot to the window. A dot on a distant hill caught her eye. She watched it, vacantly. The sheep were white dots; the odd-figure-out was dark. A black sheep? It seemed at first to be static, but a patient study told her that the figure was moving as well as growing, which could only mean it was drawing closer. Over several minutes, the speck evolved into a line then a person with working limbs on a direct route towards the house. Not long later, she decided it was a man wearing a black hat, knitted, snugly fitted to his head. He skipped over the winding stream, something tucked under his arm, and headed for the house.

  Plans to jump up and down and bash on the window, died. She knew who it was – the only person who already knew she was a prisoner here. Beneath low cloud, he climbed over a wooden fence and walked up the garden, emerging through a small wooden gate that sat between two bushes, carefully clipped. As Naomi willed him to look up so she could see his face, she wondered if her face was splashed across the front cover of the paper he carried. She also wondered which photograph would have been submitted, as if it mattered.

  He didn’t look up. Head hung down, wearing black canvas shoes, dark jeans and a blue and pale blue striped hoodie, he strode out of view. A door opened downstairs, disturbing her peace, and suddenly Naomi didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to see the monster, but she had questions. She had no appetite, but she needed strength. After a few minutes of noises from the kitchen, the stairs were carrying him to her again.

  She’d already decided not to move, not this time. She guessed that if he’d wanted her dead, she wouldn’t be alive with a stiff bread roll behind her. The key turned in the door. She sat, her back to it, chained, fingers knitted together. He walked in. She didn’t look round. She heard the tray being moved from the bedside table. He didn’t speak. She wanted to look round about as much as she didn’t. She felt exposed out of bed.

  He was leaving. So quickly? She’d braced for a confrontation he didn’t want. Now she was panicking. She didn’t want to be left for hours more with her fears and her unanswered questions. Without time to think, the words spluttered out.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ Naomi began in a small voice, pausing for an answer. She could hear him breathing now – short expulsions of air, long intakes. None of them carried any words.

  ‘What’s this about?’ she pressed, eyes blurred into the greenery outside. ‘Where am I and what am I doing here?’

  Still nothing.

  ‘What’s happened to my husband? Why did you take me from him?’ Tears pricked her eyes. The longer he stood in silence, the more questions flooded her head.

  ‘What happened the night you brought me here? I remember lying in a grave. I was in a graveyard, wasn’t I? You had a gun. You fired it. I saw a bright light.’ She hesitated again. ‘Then I woke up here, dressed, wound covered.’ She paused again, reliving the confusion of those first thoughts. ‘I’ve tried to piece that night together and I’ve wondered what you might have . . . done to me, what you might be planning to do. . .’ Her voice tapered off. The tears came so that she could only carry on between sobs. ‘I recognise your voice. Where do I know you from? Talk to me,’ she said, voice rising now. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  Another silence rang out which caused a tightening inside Naomi’s chest as she pictured him behind her, cowardly, face covered with his intimidating mask. A noise was developing outside. In the time it took to realise it was an approaching car, he’d flown in front of her to the window. For the first time his voice changed. He swore in an eruption of temper. His movements were quick and agitated. Naomi withdrew onto the bed and curled up by the headboard.

  He flew to the bedside table, snatched the tray of fresh food and dumped it in the bathroom. Then he lunged at Naomi on the bed. She screamed. He clamped her mouth shut, leaned in to her nose-to-nose, and told her that if she screamed again it would be the last thing she ever did. He withdrew a tiny key from his pocket and unlocked her at the wrists. The chains, still attached to the bedframe, he buried with pillows, stacked up. Grabbing her right arm, he yanked her to her feet and bundled her into the bathroom.

  There was a convincing knock at the front door, then a wait.

  He tugged Naomi in front of him until she was inches from the black mask and in full view of his eyes again. He lowered his head to hers.

  ‘You’re going to sit quietly in here and not make a sound. Got it?’

  There was nothing Naomi could do but agree. She nodded her head, wishing he’d let her arms go.

  ‘If you value your life, do not move. Do not use the toilet or the taps. Clear?’

  Naomi nodded again. Whoever was at the front door knocked again, less politely.

  ‘Keep a cool head,’ he warned, fixing his eyes on hers for a second before releasing his grip. ‘Good girls get answers. You don’t want to know what happens to bad girls.’

  He pushed past her and shut the door, leaving Naomi panting and trembling. He thundered down the stairs. Naomi strained to listen. The front door opened to another male voice.

  It marked the first opportunity, this. The possibilities ran riot in her head as she fought for calm and clear thought. It was hard to take in that she was free of the bed and that another person was in the house with them. Who was it? The risks occurred to her too. Should she yell and stamp her feet and beg for help? She looked longingly at the window, but had no plan.

  While she scrambled for the right choice if there was one, two sets of footsteps were climbing the stairs; two voices exchanging words. She found her teeth chattering in the warm room. A decision had to be reached, and quickly. A discussion was going on outside the bedroom. She couldn’t decipher words, she could only hear what sounded like a hammer bashing against concrete inside her left ear. Her eardrum was vibrating with the force of her pulse. By now, the voices had broken into the bedroom.

  Naomi’s mind had branched into two divisions, each had a cheer-leading team. One was urging her to scream, the other ordered her to be still and keep her word. Both made sense and neither made sense. Not used to taking risks, she was unprepared.

  ‘You’ve moved the bed.’ The stranger’s voice.

  ‘Oh yeah, I hope you don’t mind,’ the monster replied in a tone that sounded more-or-less normal. ‘My girlfriend liked the view so much, she begged me to put the bed closer to the window.’

  The stranger laughed. ‘Per
fectly understandable. So you’ve found the en-suite bathroom then?’ A rhetorical question. ‘The hot tap needs tightening up, so my wife informs me. I’ve brought a tool just to – ’

  ‘Slight problem,’ the monster cut in, apologetically. ‘My girlfriend is in the bath.’

  Naomi’s limbs stiffened. Her breathing sounded heavy. Think. So, the house was being rented, and the man standing right outside with the friendly voice would try to help her if she raised the alarm.

  So what was she waiting for? There was a light rapping on the door, followed by, ‘You still in there, babe? Everything alright?’

  No! Help me. He’s holding me here. Get me out. ‘I’m fine,’ she heard herself saying in Annabel’s voice – friendly, unconcerned. Why was she cooperating? She hated herself for it.

  ‘Can I come back to fix it next week?’

  The monster was more than reasonable. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ came the stranger’s voice, cheerful, not wanting to intrude a minute more. ‘Any problems, give me a buzz. I’m away this week with my missus, but I’ll stop by next weekend, OK?’

  ‘Please do.’

  She heard the footsteps move towards the door and small-talk start up. They were drifting away. ‘Here’s my mobile number in case of an emergency,’ she caught. ‘There’s a newsagent just over the hill that way that has all the essentials.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  It was now or never. Naomi was shaking with the panic of knowing her chance was slipping. One thing stopped her from letting rip at the top of her lungs – the thought that the stranger might get killed if she dragged him into a problem that wasn’t his. His ‘missus’ might never get him back. She pictured the monster ready with a weapon in case things turned ugly, and the man – defenceless apart from a spanner to fix the tap – falling prey. She couldn’t do it. Panic gave way to nausea as her moment melted. She stood, listening to the footsteps of her only hope moving down the stairs and safely out of the front door.