by Lily White
A hand was placed over my mouth and another ripped at my skirt that now clung to my legs from the rain. Kicking my legs, I fought to get free, eventually raising my arms to claw at the person’s face. They moved their head out of my reach, striking down at me with their fists to block my hands. With every punch, I cried out, my ribs feeling like they’d been broken and my hair feeling like it was being pulled from my head.
I reached up again, desperate to grab on to any part of them while still kicking to free my legs. Pushing up on their chest, I gasped suddenly, my jaw falling open for only a split second when I realized that whoever was on top of me had breasts.
My mind searched for any logical explanation and then I remembered how Sarah had been made to leave the house. There was no other explanation as to why a woman would be attacking me. Rage ignited inside me and I tried to roll over to throw the bitch off my body. She moved quickly and her agility made it so that I was unable to shake her weight. Desperate to save my life, I reached up again, digging my fingernails into the skin of her arm, breaking one off in her skin from the force of my grip. She screamed out, cradling her bleeding arm to her chest. With her other hand, she picked up a large stone, throwing her weight on top of me before she hit me in the head. My vision tunneled, tears burst from my eyes, but I wouldn’t give up – couldn’t give up.
Reaching up again, I grabbed inside the hood, hooking my hand into long hair pulled back into a ponytail. My fingers threaded through and just as I pulled her forward, a floodlight turned on at the back of the house. The light was faint, but was followed by illuminating lamps throughout the garden. My attention was thrown off for a moment, but I quickly realized I could at least identify who was attacking me. She must have realized it as well, because as soon as I could reach up again, a rock slammed against my face for the third time and I was delivered to darkness.
…
I’m not sure how long I lay in the mud, unconscious and bleeding while the storm continued to flood the yard and drench my battered body. When I came to, the rain had lightened only minimally, the glow of the lamps twinkling as the water drops flew fast. My mind felt hazy and I turned on my back, wincing at the gash on my head and the bruises I could feel all over my body. My shirt was torn open and my skirt was ripped. I had no shoes on my feet.
Memories of the event finally assaulted me, wrenching me from a comfortable haze back into reality where I’d been fighting for my life. The tears weren’t voluntary and I hated myself for having shed them. Not moving, I allowed the rain to fall over my face while, at the same time, allowing thoughts to pour into my mind. My house, my friends, and my life had been destroyed. There was nothing left that I could call my own and I was allowing myself to be used – or at least I had been.
As I lay there, I wondered why Lucas hadn’t come to search for me. It was possible that the storm kept him inside, but wouldn’t he at least look? My pain mixed with my sudden sadness and I cried harder, fed up with life and the shit hand it gave me. Searching my head for every minute, every fucking detail of the time I’d known Lucas, I died inside to realize I’d allowed myself to be a victim to not only him, but his assistant as well. And for what? To become a pampered pet, to be someone of so little meaning to him, that he wouldn’t notice when I was gone? I felt alone suddenly, stupid and foolish. I felt the shame again that I hadn’t known over the past week, the emotion that I’d tucked away, desperate to believe that life with Lucas would be okay.
I was feeling sorry for myself and a tug-of-war between trust and distrust started inside me. I reasoned with myself, remembering that he had just finished his novel. It was possible he was working and hadn’t noticed that I never returned home.
Out of desperation, I convinced myself that it was an oversight, I thought about Sarah. She’d tried to hurt me because I’d won. I’d gained Lucas’ trust. I’d become more important to him than her. He replaced one slave for another, a woman who only worked professionally for him for a woman who fulfilled his every sexual need.
That small ray of hope gave me strength. It gave me reason to plant my battered hands onto the ground and use what little power I had left in my body to push myself up, first to my busted knees and then to my shaky feet. I was hurt, I was sopping wet and I was suddenly angry.
I had to get to the house and tell Lucas what Sarah had done. He was angry with her already and I knew that when he saw me, when I walked into his office and he saw the cuts on my knees and the gash on my head, he would kill that bitch for having touched me. I was so sure of it, in fact, that I smiled a painful grin when I approached the house, slowly climbing the stairs to cross the porch and push through the front door.
There was nobody in the foyer, the library or the front hallway. The kitchen was empty and the dining room wasn’t set for dinner, as was Lucas’ usual custom. Confusion slid across my mind and I started down the hall that led to his office when I heard his voice echo out from behind the closed door.
“I’m so proud of you, Lucas. You finished early for once in your career. This last week must have done you some good.”
Sarah, her melodic tone, her tinkling laugh, it was all there in that room. Shrinking back I winced when my bruised hip met the wall, closing my eyes for a second, only to open them again as I listened to their conversation.
“I had to follow a natural pattern, Sarah, you know that. It was almost impossible to do in the two weeks that I had. But I accomplished it, so that should count for something.”
A hushed gasp sounded and she laughed again. “You actually did it? She believed you after everything that’s happened? You, Lucas, are a brilliant man.”
Silence for a few seconds fell between them and I listened to the sound of my heart falling and shattering at my feet. He didn’t need to respond – didn’t need to acknowledge her words for the truth of what had been done to me to rear up its ugly head to spit in my face.
“Yes, well. The book is finished. It’s time to end this. My investigators have been unable to find anything out as to the true cause of the crimes at Autumn’s house, so I’ve decided to provide her an alibi. I’ll say I was at the house with her on the night of the fire. If nothing else, it will provide her the means to move on with her life.”
“They’ll never believe you. Why wouldn’t you have been there when the police and the fire department arrived? Let’s just set up a happy accident. I could bring the detective back, allow him to find her this time – maybe just force the bitch into his hands on the outside. Or, she could meet with an unfortunate accident while trespassing on your property.”
More silence, and my pulse pounded like thunder in my head. I wanted to march in there, wanted to expose them for the cruel and twisted fucking game they’d played, but I remembered the injuries to my body, wondered if he wouldn’t let her finish the job in order to get away with their crimes.
“No, Sarah. You know I don’t want to hurt them in all of this. They are a tool, but one that we will leave in one piece. You know the rules.”
“You’re never any fun, Lucas. Tell you what, why don’t you get some sleep and I’ll find Autumn and make sure she finds her way to bed this evening. We’ll reconvene in the morning to figure out how to set everything back to right.”
Like a train coming towards me at full speed, the realization that I’d been used resurfaced. All the hatred and anger, the regret and animosity that I’d lost over the past week, colliding with me, breaking my heart, shattering my soul and leaving me a crumpled mess where I stood. He didn’t love me, he didn’t fucking care. I’d been fooled, manipulated and made to believe a lie that every logical instinct in me had refused to believe. It was my own exhaustion that led me to believe. It was my desperation to survive in the cold and bitter tragedy that had become my life.
When I thought the hope I had was the thing that saved me, I’d been wrong. Hope had been the thing destroying me all along. Tears flooded my eyes and I started to back away. I needed to escape this mess. A smart woman would ha
ve left, would have turned around and walked through those front doors finally accepting the freedom he’d been offering. But I wasn’t a smart woman and that much was obvious now.
When the hope had been stripped from me, and when there was nothing left but the tattered fragments of my life left to be scraped together, the thing that filled the empty spaces within me was one last, solitary thought: revenge.
Stepping away from the hallway, I decided to find a place in the house where I could hide. I didn’t know what I would do or how I would do it, but I wouldn’t stop until I destroyed them both or at least until I died trying.
Autumn
I searched every room, pushing on knobs to find they were locked and moving to another in an attempt to discover some crevice where I could hide. Finding nothing but a small cabinet in the library, I bent over myself, ignoring the pain of my broken body, to slip inside and wait. I had no idea what the hell I was going to do, but I had no choice in the matter. They’d set me up, that much was obvious. I was furious with Lucas, I wanted Sarah dead, but it was my anger with myself that speared me through the heart, tearing apart the weak muscle and leaving nothing but scathing rage in its place.
Hours passed while I stayed in that cramped hole. My mind rushed swiftly over different ways I could fight back, but no matter how many scenarios I could devise, I knew they would ultimately fail. Would it be worth the blood on my hands to kill them, to find a weapon and open their veins to allow the poison in their veins to pour from their bodies?
I wasn’t a murderer, I wasn’t as cruel as that and the bastard piece of humanity that still existed within me wouldn’t allow my mind to believe that I could live with the deaths of other people on my hands.
I could have fallen asleep in that hole, I could have just merely spaced out until I was once again floating in a comfortable place where nothing could touch me, where nothing could crawl from the shadows to affect me. Pain was all I felt when I came to, the pain of my injuries, the pain in my heart. It was all I had left.
I’d reached a point of utter desperation. If I stayed here, I’d be cast out to the wolves. I was a marked woman no matter where I turned. I realized that finally. There were no options left open to me except for the one where I grabbed the hands of my abusers and dragged them down into the same hell they’d created from my once perfect life.
So I pushed out of my hole, silently crawling along the floor until I found the strength to stand up. Every movement hurt, and my skin was still covered in the mud that had covered me from my earlier attack. Stopping suddenly, I listened for sounds in the house, listened for anything that would indicate that Lucas or Sarah were nearby. There was nothing, just empty silence that covered me like a heavy blanket.
Stepping away from the room, I’d intended to go back to Lucas’ office. I knew that if there was something to be found that could prove his guilt, it was there. Carefully, I padded softly on my bare feet through the halls, stopping every so often when the sound of my own breathing or the thunder of my rushing blood convinced me that someone was nearby. When I stopped, when I listened intently, just waiting for someone to jump from the shadows, I always found that I was alone. It was confusing, but I shook that off and wondered if maybe I’d been granted a small piece of luck, a reprieve in the world that had shattered down around me like the shards of a broken life.
I gained confidence in those moments, my feet moving faster, my mind finally clearing up enough to allow myself to believe that I stood a fighting chance against the two horrible souls that had set out to destroy me.
Just as I rounded the corner to Lucas’ office, I heard something that stopped me in my tracks completely. I didn’t move, I didn’t breathe and if I could have stopped my heart from beating through my chest, I would have.
Click, Click…Click, Click…
Sarah. She was moving slowly through the house, nowhere near me, but not far away either. The sound seemed to be coming from behind a wall and when she finally appeared, I crouched down to allow the shadows to hide me as she moved between a hidden door and the office. Her head swiveled above her shoulders and I closed my eyes when her gaze crossed my path. It should have been the end. I should have been caught, but within seconds, she returned her attention to her path, stepping into his office for only a few seconds, before exiting again and leaving the door partially ajar.
Disappearing back into the hidden door once again, the click of her heels softened until they eventually disappeared. I didn’t dare move, couldn’t force my muscles to abandon the fear that froze them to begin with. I was hypersensitive – prey that dared enter the lair of her predator, my sight, sound and touch so fucking acute that I missed nothing in the large house. It took minutes, but finally I heard a sound that made my heart jump and a smile to peek out from my lips. The front door opening and then closing, the sound of the alarm being set, the sound of Sarah’s car starting and kicking out rocks as she drove away.
Even though I knew the bitch was gone, I wouldn’t allow myself to move for several more minutes. It all seemed too easy and I wondered if I wasn’t being led into another trap. My fear overtook me and I fought against it this time because, having hit rock bottom, I finally realized it was my fear that led me to this place in the first place. I’d been so afraid of jail that I didn’t see that I was being led into a worse situation. Instead of fighting for my freedom, I was fighting for my life. It was almost too much to bear and the hatred I developed, the sheer desperation to repair the parts of myself that I’d allowed to be fractured - pushed me forward towards his door.
Staying low to the ground, I tapped at the bottom of the door until it opened to a point where I could see that there was nobody inside. Crawling in, I closed it behind me, stopping for a few seconds after the light click of the latch echoed down the hall. I listened for approaching footsteps, any sound that would let me know I’d been caught and when none occurred, I reached up to lock the door, finally summoning the strength to stand up and find the evidence I needed to set myself free.
A file cabinet stood in the corner. Running over, I pulled the drawers open pulling out files and papers, quickly looking them over before tossing them on the floor. After emptying each drawer and finding nothing, I moved across the now littered floor to Lucas’ desk. Desperation gave me strength as I pulled the drawers free of their tracks, dumping them on the floors, looking for anything that would prove what they’d done.
There was nothing: no pictures, no notes, not a scribbled scrap of paper that gave away anything that could help me. Sitting back against the wall, I pulled my bent legs to my chest, resting my head on my knees as I cried. The overwhelming desire to give up almost crippled me, but I refused to let go and I refused to admit the defeat I feared would ultimately bury me.
Lucas’ computer sat on the surface of the desk and I pushed up again, flipping the screen open to find that it wasn’t locked. When the screen came to life, two words struck out at me, two words that revealed to me who I’d been to Lucas all along.
“The Target”
It was the title to his book. My eyes couldn’t help but begin to read what he’d written and rage boiled inside when I realized that every word, every fucking phrase that he jotted down in his next dark tale had been about me. The chase, the capture, and the cruel and excruciating abuse he’d committed against my body, my heart and my mind. Tears poured from my eyes again as I scrolled through page after page of the words of a mind that only mocked me.
Sitting down in his chair, I pushed the book aside to look at other files, to see if maybe there was something in the laptop that would prove I’d done nothing wrong.
It wasn’t a surprise to find nothing once again.
I leaned back and wondered how long it would take for them to kill me. How long it would take to cast me aside when I refused to walk away and let them win?
But then, I saw it. A small metal key that sat on the surface of the desk. My mind raced back to the door where Sarah had disappeared. I’d
seen every part of this house, I’d explored every room and large space, but then I remembered Lucas’ rule. It was the only rule I never broke, the only one I hadn’t endured abuse for daring to forget. There was no other place that door could lead.
Reaching out, I grabbed the key on the desk and the laptop, pushing up quickly from his chair and running from the room to find the doorway hidden in the wall. Once I’d moved the false front aside, I was met with a lock and I prayed before pushing the key inside and turning it to hear the blessed sound of the lock giving way and allowing the door to swing open.
I don’t know what I expected to find in that room. I was so completely focused on discovering proof regarding the house fire that my breath was knocked from me to see what existed behind that hidden door.
Surveillance equipment filled every surface in the room; cameras, monitors, film that seemed to be stuck in a repetitive loop, images of my body being used, images of me sleeping, images of me walking through the gardens over the past few days. The gauntlet, the mirrored room, my bedroom, the dining room, it was all here in front of me. A nightmare recorded and played back. Evidence of the way I’d allow myself to fall.
I could barely pull my eyes from the screen, but when I forced myself, I was met with the images of what I assumed were the thirteen muses before me. Still images blown up and framed, each one showing a woman in an exposed and compromising position. Some bore teeth marks on their skin, while others had the same red marks across their body that I once had across mine. Their faces were blindfolded, their bodies left open for abuse. They were trophies forever frozen in time, a reminder of the cruel and depraved acts of an evil man.
My stomach heaved and I had to stop myself from retching as I allowed my eyes to move between each image. There were no names, just numbers at the top of each shot.