Waiting in the Throes

*Song relevant to this chapter located on tumblr

Chapter 21: To hell…

I knew it was over. The indeterminable amount of time that had passed no longer mattered. Everything looked normal until I looked apprehensively to the stall where I had been kept for days a few months prior. I expected to see the medical chair, torture implements, maybe even a gun, instead, inside the stall was an old, rusting brass bed and a sagging mattress covered in a plain white sheet. There were handcuffs dangling from the headboard, waiting for my hands, and in front of it all, a tripod with a camera.

***

I came to in a dark, cramped, enclosed space. The side of my face throbbed and it was dark. My feet and hands were bound together with plastic cable ties. My mouth felt dry and I realized it was because of the cloth jammed between my lips, held in place by duct tape. Just like that, anxiety seemed to crash over me, and I was aboard a tiny craft in a surging sea of panic. I kicked and bucked in the small space, screaming under my gag. It was so dark I had no idea where I was… or worse, how long I had been there. For all I knew I could be in a coffin, buried alive, hours away from Richard’s house, rapidly running out of air. The thought sent a new wave of terror racing down my spine and I kicked harder in the cramped space, but my bound ankles couldn’t gather enough force to make much sound.

Calm down, you have got to calm down. I breathed hard, greedily trying to suck in air through my nose. It was too hot in here. In the darkness my fingers reached out to touch the edges of the box I seemed to be in: smooth, hard plastic. It was too warm inside. Suffocating heat enveloped me along with the darkness, pressing inward. The struggle had made me feel sick so I remained still, still enough to notice I was moving. At least I wasn’t six feet underground. Relief flooded me for a few moments before I realized, I was being transported.

No, you can’t let this happen. You have to stay near Richard’s or they’ll never find you. The thought brought the fight back to my limbs and lungs, and I started to scream at the top of my range, kicking and writhing in the enclosed space until I felt a sharp rocking movement– the car pulling over suddenly. I listened, heart pounding as the seconds passed. There was no way I was going to be able to run, but I was going to make enough of a fuss that if we were anywhere remotely public, there would be a problem keeping me out of earshot. I could hear the crunching of gravel, muffled swearing, and then suddenly the box I was in shifted and slid slightly. Right beside my ear I could hear the rattled and grinding sound of a lock being hastily opened. Very suddenly the lid swung back and delicious, cool air flew in, shocking me for a few seconds before I scrambled to get up, inhaling deeply before I could make my next yell for help.

“I don’t fucking think so,” Phil swore, shoving me back down on the box with one hand. I was in the back of an SUV, the roof of the car blurring and contorting above me. I yelled, at the top of my lungs I started struggling in the box, and that was when he reached in and grabbed me by the hair with one hand and produced a damp rag in the other. When he held it over my mouth and nose, I remembered Jason telling me about the night Richard had abducted him. The strange smelling cloth was over my mouth and nose, and then I remembered nothing at all.

***

The second time I opened my eyes, the never-ending nightmare began. The first thing that registered was that my face hurt, then that I was lying on the floor and my hands and feet were no longer bound. Above me was an unfinished ceiling, pipes and beams and wires running in a grid. The only light was warm and yellowish– a dim, bare bulb on the ceiling.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Phil’s voice seemed to echo around the room, rebounding off the walls and floor. Slowly I pulled myself up from a raw cement floor on weak, shaking arms. The room twisted and warped before coming into focus. My head and body still feeling slightly disconnected but they slammed back into place, the second I turned my eyes on the source of Phil’s voice. All four men stood in front of me in an imposing row. I backed up slowly on my hands and knees.

“I asked you a question,” Phil growled. My eyes passed over the men quickly. Phil was in the forefront, his expression dark and vicious. Al stood behind him, staring at me with an expression somewhere between disbelief and despair. On the other side of Phil were Cole and Richard. While Cole looked just about the same as Phil, it was Richard that made me recoil. He looked like he was ready to kill me. The rage rolled off of his form in waves.

“Answer me!” Phil screamed when my tongue refused to move. Gone was the insane, giddy feeling of victory from before. Help was not coming for me. I could only hope that Jason had managed to come across the right person to help him– that he had come across anyone at all.

“No,” I finally muttered. I knew that freeing Jason was big, was probably an unforgiveable crime. No amount of groveling would get me out of this situation, but it didn’t matter– I was completely unrepentant.  Jason was free now which meant he could lead the police back to Richard. The asshole would eventually get caught, and hopefully, would drag Al and Phil down with him.

“Well let me explain it to you,” Richard hissed acidly, taking a step towards me.

“I spent years training him, molding him. I did not do it so that some little brat could come along and FUCK UP MY ENTIRE LIFE!” Richard screamed the last sentence, less than a foot from my face. His face had grown red, veins in his forehead and neck bulging. Al stepped forward to intervene but Phil’s arm slapped backwards against him, preventing him from coming closer.

“So now we have to talk about an appropriate punishment for the crime,” Phil continued, while Richard stepped back to gather himself, brushing his hair back into place, chest heaving. The box in my head started to rattle as a million thoughts raced through my head. Phil and Al were going to sell me to Richard, beat me, rape me, kill me– and not necessarily in that order.

“Oh I can think of an awfully good place to start,” Richard sneered, “He can start by making good on what I promised Cole here– at least, part of the promise…” Behind him Cole smirked.

“What do you say, instead of having Jason and Brennan together, how about Brennan alone–twice?” Richard proposed. Cole grinned lecherously and shrugged.

“Sounds like a plan,” he replied.  I immediately looked to Al for reprieve. He wouldn’t let this happen would he? Indeed the man looked torn. I knew he regarded me as his… but I had done something unforgiveable.

“Well then… let’s get started– time is of the essence,” Richard replied. Suddenly it was like every nerve-ending was alight. My body was ready for pain, waiting on the first strike. It didn’t take long before it received it– a swift, sudden kick to the stomach from Phil, knocking the wind from my lungs. When I bent double, gasping for air, my arms were grabbed and I was dragged across the floor to a flight of stairs.

When we got to the top of the stairs it felt like someone dumped a bucket of ice-water over me, and just as I had started to regain air, it was gone again. I knew instantly where we were. Richard’s cabin– the one Jason had been taken to when he was first abducted. I struggled feebly to get to my feet but couldn’t co-ordinate my legs. I looked left and right. Sure enough there was the front door and back door, almost straight across from one another, just as Jason had described, the back door with a window cut out of it, revealing the woods– probably still riddled with bear traps– beyond . Phil and Richard dragged me in a semi-circle, and dragged me down a short hall before shoving me through an open door, into a bedroom.

“Get on the bed,” Richard ordered, from above me. The room was small and clean. A bed, two nightstands and a dresser occupied the space and that was all. I stared at the bed, knowing, in all likelihood, a scared, teenaged Jason had been raped in this very bed here a few years ago. Fighting nausea, I crawled across the floor towards the bed.

The door closed and I stared forward. Phil had just left the room to go ‘keep Al company’ and I was alone with Richard and Cole. The unfamiliar man climbed behind me on the bed, putting himself between me and the headboard. As soon as the red light of the camera came on, his heated lips started kissing me. Soon my jaw ached from the strain of keeping pace with him. It felt like knives were stabbing into my lungs over and over, deflating them every time I tried to catch a breath. Cole wasn’t outwardly violent like Phil was, but persistent and firm, lips and hands never leaving my body for more than a few seconds before returning to me, kneading and prying and pushing. If I winced or wriggled out of his grasp, he was able to easily subdue me and manipulate me back to where he wanted me. When he finally cut to the chase and pulled me onto all fours I gave in to panic and the desire to protect myself from more pain and dove for the edge of the bed. As brave as I thought I was, I couldn’t handle this anymore.

“Please… I don’t want to. I don’t want to,” I protested, wriggling in Cole’s firm grasp. He didn’t listen, didn’t care, just pinned me between his form and the mattress, and covered my mouth with his hand to muffle my cries.

It felt like hours before everything finally stopped. Richard turned off the camera and Cole let out an exerted sigh as he flopped to the mattress beside me. I coiled onto my side, a miserable heap of sweating, hollow flesh. I tried to tell myself that it was worth it, that Jason was free, that Richard would get caught, that Al and Phil would too, that it would all happen soon, but it no longer felt that way.

“Shower’s down the hall,” Richard said with a smirk as he turned off the camera. I knew he was talking to Cole and not me. I watched as my latest rapist stood, stretched and swiped his underwear from the floor.

“Mmm, good fuck kid, too bad I won’t get the chance to do it again,” he groaned, clumsily pulling the fabric over his legs.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make you a party favor,” Richard joked, popping the panel of the camera open to pull out its mini DVD. Cole smirked.

“I’ll grab a quick shower then and should probably be on my way,” he replied. I watched the door close behind him and closed my eyes, folding an arm across my stomach.

“I bet you think you’re pretty smart,” Richard said casually after about a minute of silence. My eyes snapped open but I said nothing, knowing that no matter what answer I gave, it wouldn’t be the right one. Aside from that, my jaw ached both from Phil’s punch and Cole’s violating kisses. Instead I watched in silence as Richard removed the camera from the tripod and packed it safely away into its case. He picked up the stand and collapsed it.

“You are not smart, you are a petulant fucking child who has no idea what he is involved in,” Richard continued, “Jason can go crying to whomever he wants, but first he will have to find someone and now that’s he’s a fucking cripple, it is going to take him awhile. Did he tell you how that happened? Assuming he finds someone, he’d have to convince them that he isn’t crazy. If he manages that, by some miracle, he’ll have to retrace his steps and bring them back to the house. After that the police will have to find me, and that, that won’t be easy. One of the things I’ve learned over the years from various mentors and colleagues; Always have a backup plan, an out in case things go wrong, and I am very, very well prepared.” Richard paused and went to the dresser, picking up the memory card.

“This little gem right here? It’s earned me enough to keep afloat for a few months at least, without so much as touching any of my bank accounts, so thank you.” My face burned as I realized what he meant– I’d just given him the means to escape– to potentially find someone else and do this to them too.

“What I am more upset about, more than the money you cost me by not having Jason around,” Richard continued as he strolled around the foot of the bed, hand gliding across the frame, “is that you took something that belonged to me.” Richard moved suddenly, quickly mounting the bed and straddling my aching hips, while I remained coiled on my side.

“You have no idea how long it took to make him into what I wanted,” Richard seethed, “So how much did he tell you? Hmmm?”

“I know it started here,” I retorted, groaning the words out through the pain of the pressure on my hips. Richard looked impressed. I wanted him to know that Jason had told me about him, that I knew he was a sick monster, that he couldn’t control Jason anymore, hadn’t fully ‘trained’ him when he’d still had him.

“Actually it started out back… in the shed,” Richard replied, he moved over me, lowering himself so that his torso pressed against my side. His hands clamped over both of my wrists, making the left one sing in pain. His lips moved close to my ear.

“Did he tell you about that?” Richard asked, “Did he tell you about begging me to let him go? Promising he would do anything I wanted? Telling me he’d suck my cock, he’d fuck me, he’d be my little toy if I just let him out? Did he tell you how much fun we had out there?” I swallowed hard. Jason hadn’t told me about the shed. He’d shut down at that point in our conversations, simply telling me that Richard had forced him to do ‘horrible things’. I had a feeling I was about the find out what they were…

I had nightmares. After Richard had told me in alarming detail all the things he had done to my friend in the first week of his life in captivity, raping him, beating him, telling him he had killed members of his family– even when he hadn’t. Telling him all the various things he could, and would do to my friend if he didn’t fall in line. When he’d told me all there was to tell, he used not only handcuffs, but also a set of plastic cable ties to secure me to the headboard. I’d fallen into a horror-laced state of semi-consciousness and rose to full consciousness several times in the dark, heart pounding, parts of me aching in phantom spasms of pain. It was night time now, my guess was around 11:00 judging by the dark sky outside the small window. I could hear voices out in the living room; low, conspiratorial murmurs. They made every nerve tingle with unease.

I wasn’t even in Vermont anymore. I was hours away from Al and Phil’s place, hours away from home and hours away from help. There was a reason I was isolated. They were going to do things so horrible to me that they didn’t want to run the risk of anyone hearing my screams. Don’t kid yourself, they’re going to kill you and dump your body somewhere you’ll never be found. I couldn’t quell the tremors that were racing through my frame. I just wanted it to be over. If I wasn’t going to get my freedom, I was ready to die.

The entire house had gone quiet when the bedroom door opened, a sliver of moonlight illuminating the floor and part of the bed. I didn’t even pretend to be asleep, I turned my head to see who my nocturnal visitor was and wasn’t entirely surprised to see Al. He stayed in the doorway, silent for almost an entire minute before he stepped into the room. I didn’t say anything at all to him, didn’t even ask to be let go.

“Why did you do it?” he asked, voice low, wavering ever so slightly. I stared at him for a few seconds before I decided that answering wouldn’t put me in any worse of a position than I was in now.

“Why wouldn’t I do it?” I retorted bitterly, “I knew what you were going to make us do.”

“I was going to make sure you didn’t have to do anything you didn’t want to do,” Al replied.

“You always make me do things I don’t want to do,” I muttered in defeat.

Al was silent for another solid minute before moving closer, crossing the space between the door and the bed so that he stood at the footboard. In the light from the window I could see that he had likely been in bed. He was clad only in plaid pyjama pants, his hair down.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked, his hushed voice full of anguish. He moved and sat down at the foot of the bed, long limbs folding under him.

“You’re asking me that question and I’m the one handcuffed to the bed?” I retorted. Again Al responded with several seconds of silence, head in his hands.

“You have no idea what they want to do to you…” he finally murmured. Al turned his head, dropping his hands into his lap so that I could see his face.

 “Did Rich let you shower?” he finally asked.

“What do you think?” I replied miserably. Al nodded and stood up, the only indication that he was coming back, the fact that he left the door ajar.

You have no idea what they want to do to you. I did now. Richard had whispered a fair bit of it in my ear and I was sure Phil could come up with the rest. Al returned with a metal bowl in his hand before my brain could stray too far down the path of how my life was going to end.

“I don’t have the keys… Richard does,” he supplied, setting the bowl down on the nightstand beside me as he sat down on the mattress. I could see a cloth floating in the middle, light and fluid like a jellyfish. My stomach flip-flopped.

“Whatareyoudoing?” my words came out rushed despite the fact that I already knew. I backed away the few inches the cuffs would allow as Al wrung the cloth out in the bowl of water and brought it to the skin of my ribcage. When I squirmed away he quickly brought his other hand to my hip, fingers spreading out across the bone, pushing me into the mattress, shushing me as he slowly started to clean the day from my skin.

I woke up, bladder aching. At first, it sounded like the house was completely silent. I could hear the hum of a refrigerator out in the kitchen, the birds outside, the rush of wind through the leaves outside. I didn’t want to have to beg someone to release me, but things were getting to that point. Just as I was waging an inner war, the bedroom door opened, framing Richard in light from the rest of the cabin behind him.

“I bet you want out of those cuffs,” he said conversationally. I swallowed hard, it was coming, some sort of deal I would have to make. I opted to say nothing but thoughts of what Richard had told me last night swirled in my head; things I had never wanted to know about Jason. How he’d been locked in the shed for days, whipped for peeing on the floor because he had nowhere else to go– or worse, in the cot when he got too weak to move.

“I’ll give you the same deal I gave Jason,” he continued anyway, strolling into the room, “I’ll let you out of your uncomfortable situation, but you have to do something for me in return.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, trying to push the panic down.

“Or I can leave,” Richard said after a moment, moving towards the door. The word “no” tumbled sharply from my lips before I could stop myself. Richard raised an eyebrow. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and climbed over me. He undid one side only and the produced a knife, efficiently slipping it under the plastic cable ties, and gave a quick jerking upward motion, and then I was free.

I stumbled in front of him to the washroom, the handcuffs dangling from my wrist. Everything in the cabin was so white. All the wood– which there was a lot of– was white, the walls, off-white. The bathroom too was white tile, white towels, white soap. It was sterile, and blinding, and made everything feel so much more sinister. While I relieved myself Richard filled a plastic cup with water at the sink.

“Drink up, you’ll need your energy,” he said, his expression twisted into a gleeful, dark smile as he thrust the cup at me after I finished washing my hands. I stared at his hands for a few seconds before I took the cup from him. My mouth was dry I could taste the stale remnants of unwanted kisses. As the water passed through my parched lips, something nagged at me that this was a bad decision, but nonetheless I drained the cup nihilistically and handed it back. Let’s get this over with.

About four steps inside the bedroom door I realized something was wrong. My feet faltered and Richard grabbed my hips. It was like a tide of darkness was trying to pull me under… and I didn’t care.

“And they say blondes are stupid,” Richard mumbled against my ear and then I was out.

It was too hot. I was in the box again, but this time I was naked, skin sticking to the sides of the plastic, moist from the heat. I didn’t feel right. Like something had happened and I was missing pieces of information. I didn’t want that cloth in my face again, didn’t want to die in the plastic box from struggling in its suffocating, dark heat, so I closed my eyes, and let the rocking motion of the car lull me back to sleep.

I awoke in total darkness and total silence and terror quickly over-took me. My eyes were open but I couldn’t see, and though my ears didn’t feel covered, I couldn’t hear. I was blind and deaf, shut away from the world. I was laying on something soft– a lumpy mattress, covered in a flannel sheet– a bed. I scrambled around in the dark only to find my hands fastened to the headboard, ankles bound together and tethered to the footboard. Everything hurt. Why did everything hurt so badly? It was only when the terrified whimper tore its way from my throat– and I could actually hear it– that I started to gain some clarity. I wasn’t actually blind or deaf. I was blindfolded, and even so, I could tell I was in a dark, probably windowless room. My ears were stuffed with foam earplugs– the kind that construction and factory workers used keep out the sounds of loud machinery. With the basics covered, next came the more complicated questions of where I was, how I had got there, and what had happened.

Where do you remember being last?

The bathroom at Richard’s– no wait– the bedroom... no, that isn’t right either.

Just as the terror of not knowing started to pound at my temples, a single, wisp of a memory floated to the surface; a smell, one that was recent and familiar; warm plastic. I lay in the darkness, listening to my heaving breaths, the blood rushing in my ears, waiting for more to surface. The box– I had been in the box again and it had been too hot, so hot I’d passed out from the heat. Then what? I knew there were pieces missing, there had to be, something that explained why my body ached, especially my stomach and back… and elsewhere. I pulled against the handcuffs– and cable ties– that held my wrists above my head and something in my ribcage roared to life, the pain almost paralyzing and the memory to match the ache flashed inside my eyelids; A foot, sailing towards my ribs that I didn’t have enough time to shield myself from.

The fragments start to come back and it’s like watching a clip of something breakable shattering in reverse, shards and slivers jumping back into place to make it whole again…

From my place on a cold floor again, my brain feels foggy, my tongue thick and dry in my mouth. Something is wrong with me. I’ve been drugged, but I am not so out of it that I don’t see the tip of a work boot, sailing towards me. I can’t bring my hands– secured together with cable ties– down to protect my stomach and sides fast enough. The kick lands hard in my stomach, launching me backwards towards another kick, aimed at my shoulder. I shriek in pain, but it comes out a muffled moan. I feel like the beating goes on for hours; the faces of Phil and Richard smearing and swirling out of my vision until I hear Al’s panicked voice order them to stop. I can’t breathe. There are arguing, Al is angry and I immediately cower, fearing another blow. I feel like just one more kick will shatter me. But he isn’t angry at me, his words are directed at Phil and Richard. I them argue, then someone is hauling me from the floor to my feet. I’m so scared I can feel my entire body shaking. Where am I? How did I get here? Why hasn’t help come? The room is another basement? Is it Richard’s cabin? No… this one is different. The floor is rougher, there is light coming from a tiny window nearby. I try to kick as someone drags me across the rough floor towards a doorway. The second I see the bed– an archaic piece of furniture with a dirty mattress I flail and jerk in the arms of my captor. I barely manage to fight the pain enough to kick my feet up and brace myself against the door frame, and even though I feel weak and tired and broken, my legs are determined to keep me out of that room.

“Keep doing that, I dare you,” a voice growls in my ear and my blood runs cold. It isn’t Phil, and it isn’t Al. I jolt in my captors arms– in Richard’s arms, terror clawing its way out of me in a strangled half moan and half scream. It is my ribs, and the pain there that does me in when Richard shoves forward against me. My hips feel like they are going to break and though my mind screams to hold on, my body collapses forward nonetheless. I start yelping like a wild animal that knows it is going to die at the hands of something bigger. I fight and kick struggle as the larger man tries to wrestle me to the bed. Injured, I am no match for him and in what feels like seconds there are fingers in my mouth, shoving a tiny pill under my tongue towards the back of my throat. Hands cover my mouth and nose, suffocating me. They’re sweaty and warm from holding me down. I want to be sick, but I can’t breathe– if I want to take another breath I have to swallow. The question is, do I really want to take another breath? Do I really want to live through what happens next? My body’s will to live wins over my brain’s orders to just stop breathing, to let unconsciousness suck me under forever and I feel the pill dissolve to almost nothing before I swallow.

He raped me. I slam the memory away in a closet somewhere but it rattles around and little pieces escape from under the crack at the bottom of the door, around the jam; The pain of the plastic ties– still painfully tight, cutting into my skin, the sound of his skin on mine, hips slamming against me, his teeth marking me, biting into my shoulder blade when he cums, the heat of him inside of me, ruining me the same way he did Jason.  With no sound and no sight, my own screams bounce around in my skull because I am just so tired, so defeated that I can’t make them stop.

Snap out of it! You need to think and think logically. Where are you? How do you get out? How do you make them let you out?

I can’t. I don’t know where I am. My existence is a dirty mattress and darkness and silence.

At some point I just stopped thinking and starting counting the steady beats of my heart as it pulsed in my ears. I could faintly hear footsteps above me which meant, in all likelihood, I was locked away in somebody’s basement somewhere. The mattress felt cool and slightly damp, matching the smell of the room; dust and moisture and stale sweat. I heard a muffled shuffling minutes… hours... later and tried to stay completely still. Someone was in the room with me. I was successful until fingers grazed the side of my face and I heard the high sound of distress in my own ears before rough fingers grabbed the sides of my face and plucked the earplugs from my ears.

“We should have listened to Rich, started you out like this,” Phil’s voice emerged from the darkness, “made you grateful for whatever we give you. Then we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in now.”

“Retraining me?” I replied feebly. Phil made a sound of disdain.

“You think this is retraining? You’re not trainable. This is temporary until we figure out what to do with you.”

“Like sell me…” I replied blankly. Or kill me.

“Yes, like sell you, and trust me, whoever is willing to buy a used up, disobedient cum dumpster like you is going to be worse than you can ever imagine me being,” he leaned closer “Whoever wants you is going to make me look like a god damned fairy godmother.”

The scary thing was how much I wanted death. Even if I one day got my freedom, I would never be the same again, just like Jason had said about himself. I understood him now more than I ever had. Luckily Phil spoke before I could think much more about Jason– and the fact that I had nobody in the world anymore.

“I’m going to undo your feet and hands, there is a bucket beside the bed, don’t miss,” Phil said gruffly. I could feel heat creep into my skin, unsure of whether the man was watching me or not. When I was done he shoved me back on the bed and grabbed both of my ankles, tying my feet and hands down once more before shoving the earplugs back into my ears and leaving.

               

Being raped while blindfolded and partially deafened amplified every aspect of the experience in the most monstrous ways. It didn’t take long for me to figure out who was who even though I couldn’t see them. Richard favored shoving me face first into the mattress, forcing me to inhale the mildew and sweat and dust, his grip bruising until I started to cry and he would feign mercy– only to switch back to sadist mode the second I started to trust and obey him. Phil liked to deliberately sneak up on me, silent and undetectable until he was suddenly on top of me, grabbing me without warning, never failing to scare the shit out of me. Sometimes he brought toys, most of the time it was just him. Then there was Al, who would always start with a kiss. He was always last– or at least, that was what it felt like... though maybe he was first. It was hard to tell. When their hands weren’t on me, I would wake up, or suddenly jolt out of the trance I was in; heart pounding, eyes wide open, searching for someone I couldn’t see from under the tightly secured blindfold.

I knew that time was slipping by but I had no way of keeping track of it. Phil started leaving my feet untied so that I could reach the bucket if I leaned part of the way off the mattress. Once he started doing that, every time I would hear the door to the room open, I knew why someone was there.  It would actually be a surprise to have water or one of the disgusting shakes from my first month forced past my lips instead of something else. In the beginning I tried screaming and it only got me gagged until my next encounter, starved for days. I could feel a fog creeping in, and with it a restlessness. At one point, Richard stopped coming. I counted the times Al would come and scrub my skin clean. It was the best measure of time that I had and even still, an inaccurate one at that.  I started to think of a way out and there was only one I could think of– suicide.

I lay in bed one night– it had to have been late, they were done with me for now and I could not hear any sounds from upstairs through the muffled fuzz I had grown used to in my ears. If I could somehow make the sheet on the bed into a noose, attach it to the headboard and just let myself fall from the side of the bed… maybe, just maybe I could cut off my air long enough to end it all– or inflict enough brain damage that it wouldn’t matter. I took a few deep breaths, evaluating everything, taking stock in the situation and accepting that my life was only going to get worse if I kept living it.

It took a long time but I managed to wrestle the fitted sheet from where it was tucked into the mattress, twisting and writhing until it was out from under me. Using my feet and my mouth, I pulled and twisted until I could manipulate the fabric with my constricted hands. I tied it tight to the headboard, near the middle, slightly to one side to give me the shortest length without the possibility of tipping the bed. I would probably dislocate both shoulders in my attempt if I was successful, not that it mattered. The noose was sloppy, but strong enough when I shakily pulled it over my head. I was shaking with the relief at the idea of everything being over, just about to go inside, open the box and let memories of my family wash over me one last time when suddenly the fabric was ripped away from my hands.

“No!” I yelped frantically, grappling for the length of fabric, searching with blind fingers for the dirty, makeshift rope that would bring me relief.

“Just for that, you lose the sheet.” One of the earplugs had dislodged itself from my twisting and moving and Phil’s voice sounded through the room louder and clearer than it had in… how long had I been here?

“Please…” I whimpered. I wanted the relief so badly it ached. I was ready to die, I wanted to die, the desire was a big, black hole, taunting me, pulling me in, promising the end before spitting me back out again. I was breaking– broken. Tears flooded from the corners of my eyes.

“Richard warned me that Jason tried to same thing once,” Phil said, “You think you’re the first? There is a solution to everything. You try and hang yourself? We take your clothes, the sheets from the bed. Thinking about smashing your head against the wall? We will make you your own padded room. Starving yourself? We’ll force feed you if it means keeping you alive. Don’t you get it? You die when we say you can, when we’re done with you. Because of your actions Al and I are obligated to deal with you. We just can’t seem to agree on how right yet.”

“Why?” I dared to ask, voice wavering out into the dark. My face was wet under the blindfold.

“Because he says he loves you,” Phil said mockingly, “and that means that selling you to someone else is out the question, that disposing of you is out of the question. So what does that leave?” I could hear it, the breakage in Phil’s voice, the high, reedy note at the end of his question. He was losing it. There was silence, and seconds later, the door to the room slammed. I was alive because of Al. I was in hell because of Al and I couldn’t even muster the energy to hate him more than I already did.

***

I stared at the bed, it’s strange position in the barn barely even registering. I took a deep shuddering breath, the smell of the soap and sweat on my skin filling my lungs before the air came shuddering back out. It was over. I knew it for sure. I had known it the second the lights came on in the room I had spent – Weeks? Months? Years?– in and the blindfold was finally pulled away from my eyes to reveal Al standing over me.

***

The light stung my eyes and I scrunched them closed after Al pulled the blindfold off and leaned over me to free my hands, first pulling a pocketknife from his shirt pocket to cut the cable ties free, before stowing it away and releasing the cuffs without saying a word. I didn’t move except to pull my aching arms down from above my head. My wrists were bloody, swollen, caked with dried blood from where I had pulled hard on the cuffs trying to fee myself. Even in my only semi-conscious state, I could smell the infection in the wounds.

Neither of us spoke. Al pulled me into a standing position and I weakly set my feet on the floor, almost not believing it to be real under my soles. I squinted at my surroundings, the room was small, the walls were raw drywall, unprimed with drywall compound and tape showing. There only light in the room came from the beyond the doorway. We walked, and I barely glanced at my surroundings. When we got to the stairs, Al pushed me forwards gently. It surprised me how easily I took one step at a time until I reached the top and Al shoved the door open from behind me. My stomach seemed to fall out to my feet. We were in the farmhouse, the hallway to the kitchen and living room, bathroom and bedroom extending in front of me from the basement door, the front door just over my left shoulder. What the fuck?

I don’t know how I got up the stairs, but I found myself in the bathroom with Al, the sound of running water filling the small room. After being enshrouded in nothing but near silence for as long as I had been it seemed as loud as a rushing waterfall. Al was shedding his clothes behind me wordlessly, the fabric falling in soft thuds to the tile floor as he stripped.

“Come on,” he said after testing the water, extending his hand out to me from where he stood in the tub. I moved hesitantly before awkwardly lifting one shaking leg over the edge of the tub, staring at our feet and the water sloshing around them. An actual bath– it had been awhile– long enough that what was likely to happen in it didn’t bother me near as much as it should have. What scared me more was why I was having one in the first place, what compromise had been made about me between the two men. Hands on my now jutting hip bones signalled that I needed to sit down.

I let Al shave the stubble from my face and wash me, his fingers moving slower and gentler than usual. When his lips traced across my jaw I didn’t flinch away, I let him kiss me. His kiss grew possessive quickly, and soon my head was bent at an awkward angle at the edge of the tub. I whimpered when he shifted our weight and my ribs protested but I didn’t resist. It wasn’t until I slid several inches and almost put my head underwater with the other man practically on top of me that he suddenly stopped.

“We should get out,” Al panted. I nodded, my head sloshing back into the water despite the fact that I knew what getting out would mean. Al got up and pulled me from the tub, water sloshing over the edge of the tub as I stumbled out. I stood completely still while he dried me with more care and attention that he ever had. I tried not to let his careful ministrations eat at me, even when he temporarily set the towel down to stroke me to physical arousal.  I could feel a menacing force, coiling and writhing at the base of my spine, reverberating out through my limbs. It was different from before. This wasn’t the simple worry that they were going to hurt me, all of my fears from before seemed ridiculous in comparison to this feeling of doom.

At the sound of the towel being dropped to the floor for good, I glanced at Al and he pulled me along behind him in the direction of his bedroom. I wanted to ask him what was going to happen to me, but I couldn’t make my mouth work. We tumbled into bed, Al’s hands moving over my skin slowly, like he was trying to commit every inch of me to memory.

“Why did you do it?” he finally said softly. I pulled my eyes away from the wall behind the headboard to look at Al. I didn’t have to ask what he meant– he’d asked it before– nonetheless I managed to stutter out;

“Wh-what?” Al paused where he was, nipping at the skin of my ribcage, hands holding me down gently, but firmly by my forearms. Al didn’t repeat himself, he knew I’d heard him. I swallowed, my tongue feeling dry and thick.

“Because I didn’t want to do it again,” I murmured. Al tilted his head to the side.

“That still doesn’t explain how Jason got out,” he replied, his lips ghosting across my skin again.

“It was the wrong key– the one under the soap dish,” I replied dully, knowing that wherever he was Jason was either far away from Richard… or dead. Al stopped suddenly.

“You were going to run away from me?” I squirmed as his grip tightened ever so slightly. I swallowed hard. No matter how I answered this, it wouldn’t end well.

“I–I,” I swallowed, started again, “I’m sorry.” Al nodded.

“Show me,” he replied, but it didn’t sound like an order, more like a plea. I must have looked terrified at the prospect because he moved up my body again, easing his grip on my arms as he did so and captured my lips again. I closed my eyes, and moved with him, letting him take what he wanted, all the while the sense of foreboding plucking harder and harder at my nerves.

“Pass me a condom,” Al panted in my ear. My eyes flashed open and I lifted my face from the pillow I had buried it in. He had never used protection– ever. Nobody had. I was lucky if I wasn’t sick with something.

“They’re in the nightstand,” he supplied. Clarity washed over me so quickly it stole the air from my lungs. They’re going to kill you, are you really that surprised?

“Why?” I wheezed out.

“You know why,” Al’s voice cracked with emotion, “I just want to make love one more time.”

There it was, what I already knew deep down, as my fate. Al reached past me to the nightstand, blindly opening the drawer, fishing inside until he withdrew a foil packet. I shrank away from him, unable to breathe. Panic raced through me. When it came down to it was I actually ready to die? I winced when Al used his fingers to hastily prepare me before moving us into a position I hadn’t been in much before– usually because I was struggling and fighting too much for it to work. I sat straddling the larger man, forced to look at him. My ribcage hurt and I had to fight the urge to bend double in an attempt to catch my breath, as it was, one arm crossed over my abdomen protectively.

“Sit up,” Al ordered softly. Hands on my hips pulled me slightly off of him and he spared a hand to align his erection with my body. I resisted when he pushed down on my hip and I felt the tip of his erection press past my guarding muscle and Al quickly returned his guiding hand to my hip to pull me onto him the rest of the way. I winced and struggled against the pain for a moment before collapsing forward into his arms. I didn’t want to look at his face while he fantasized that he was ‘making love’ to me, instead I buried my face against his neck as he guided my hips into movement. After several minutes Al’s hands left my hips and pulled my face to his, cupping my cheeks and chin, fingers fisting in my hair as he clumsily brought his lips to mine.

“God, you feel so good,” he moaned against my lips, bucking his hips harder against me. I whimpered into his mouth before finally finding the strength to pull back. The rhythm was excruciating, each thrust a nail in my coffin.

“Al please let me go,” I pleaded one more time, but my voice was weak, the words were there but only in form, not in function. Inside I already knew that begging would get me nowhere. I was going to die, the decision had been made.

“I want to,” Al replied softly, voice strained as he slowed his thrusts, loosening the grip his hands had resumed on my hips. His eyes were brimming with tears, “but I can’t.” His voice actually cracked at the end of the statement. I went limp in his arms, boneless, and tired and just utterly defeated.

“Why couldn’t you learn to love me… or even just like me?” Al asked after a few seconds, voice gravely and quiet. I lifted my head to stare at him. He didn’t look angry at me, but genuinely confused, hurt even. I would have punched him, would have screamed in his face, had it not been for that look. He was deranged.

“How could I?” was all I managed to utter as every horrible thing he’d done to me, from holding me down in the van and raping me the first night to washing my skin clean after he and Richard and Phil were done with me, played out in my head. Al nodded wordlessly, a single up and down motion of his head before he pulled me off of him and adjusted our positions to our sides, and I knew it was so he wouldn’t have to look at my face.

It felt like both seconds and hours had passed when Al’s groan filled the room. My heart was beating faster than his which thrummed through his chest, against my back. I felt like I was suffocating. I didn’t want to die, not here, not without being able to see my family, or even speak to them again, not being able to just walk to a freaking refrigerator to get a drink, or go to the bathroom without permission. I didn’t want to die a caged animal. I couldn’t tell how much time had passed before I felt wetness on the side of my neck. At first, I thought it was Al kissing me, before I felt a droplet trickle forward. I managed a blink in disbelief before Al sat up abruptly, letting me fall backwards in time to see him hastily wipe at his eyes with the back of one hand.

“It’s time to go,” he mumbled.

“Go where?” I asked, pulling myself up quickly, awkwardly. No, it’s not time yet.

“Outside, to the barn,” Al replied, voice sounding worn. I shook my head, opening and closing my mouth, the words not coming out.

“N-n-no,” I finally stuttered. I sat up quickly, looking to both of the closed doors for an exit.

“I can give you something if you want,” Al offered, “put you out…” He swiped a set of scrub pants from the chair and hastily pulled them over his legs. He wiped at his eyes again. I mulled over the idea in my head. If he drugged me I couldn’t take a chance and run– but I was in no shape to do it anyway. If he drugged me enough I wouldn’t feel a thing when they killed me. If he gives you enough, he could kill you.

“Why can’t you just let me overdose?”

He shook his head.

“I can’t do that to you.”

“So you’re going to hand me over to Phil instead?” my voice was high and panicked. I didn’t want to go to the barn. The barn was hell on earth and Phil was more terrifying than any creature I could find in the inferno. Al said nothing, and hid his face my pulling his shirt over his head.

“Come on,” he commanded, moving around the side of the bed to grab my hand. I started to back away, hyperventilating as I tried to force my limbs into movement. All signals were firing– my brain was overloaded with signals to run, to stop breathing, to beg, to breathe, to scream, to just shut down. Suddenly I ran out of bed, tipping over the edge of the mattress, my head smacking the corner of the nightstand on the way down. I lay in a crumpled, dazed heap on the floor, sheet tangled around me, giving Al enough time to circle around the foot of the bed and pick me up, sheet and all. The impulse to scream won and I wailed, thrashing in his arms violently.  Al dropped me to the floor in the bathroom and turned to the medicine cabinet, quickly producing a vial or clear liquid and a syringe. In seconds, he was on top of me, depressing the plunger to let the excess air out of the end of the syringe. A sharp poke in the bare skin of my exposed thigh cemented Al’s decision.

“Al,” I pleaded, knowing the window of opportunity before I lost consciousness was closing rapidly, “please… more… if you ca-ca-rre about m-me.” My tongue felt thick, my head foggy. Al set the syringe down on the counter behind him and watched me for a few seconds before pulling me up from the floor and effortlessly lifting me into his arms.

It wasn’t enough. Al hadn’t given me enough of whatever sedative it was he’d given me, to actually knock me out. My struggles got weaker and weaker as he carried me over his shoulder, down the backstairs and across the kitchen. When the door opened outside I was startled by how cool the air was on my exposed skin. I could barely lift my head, but when I did, it was enough to see that the fields towards the front and side of the house were going brown, the trees in the distance rich shades of amber, orange and ruby. It was autumn and with a few steps, the blinding light of the fall day was gone.

I could feel the familiar grit of the barn floor against the soles of my feet before I could really see. My eyes adjusted gradually in the dark and when they did, I realized it wasn’t that dark. The barn’s lights were on, and about twenty feet ahead, Phil was standing up from a chair.

“I was just thinking about coming in to check on you,” he said in greeting. He glanced at me. I was swaying, barely able to hold myself up without Al’s hands. Al turned me around to face him. I blinked, he was looming in and out of focus, but even then, I could see him, tears welling out of his eyes.

“I didn’t want it to be like this,” I said quietly, so that only I could hear him. He leaned forward and kissed me one more time.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply, then backed away from me, eyes cast up to Phil for a moment before he turned away from me and rapidly walked towards the barn doors. I watched the last explosion of light through the open door before I was temporarily blinded once more. The scraping sound of the door closing was all too familiar and meant the same thing it had last time– I was trapped.

I wobbled unsteadily on my feet, almost falling over. Phil had crossed the space between where I stood and the chair quickly and effortlessly grabbing me, supporting me against him. I jerked in his arms, more from being startled than trying to get away because I knew I wasn’t going to. I looked to the stall where I had spent days only months before and swallowed hard.

“You know what a snuff film is?” Phil purred sadistically into my ear.

***

The headboard was smacking against the back wall of the stall. The two sets of handcuffs used to restrain me yanking on my wrists with every rebound of the metal against the wall.

“You trying to get away from me?” Phil panted from behind me.

“No,” I sobbed, though the tension in my arms, the gradual movement of my knees slipping forward in my position on all fours said otherwise. Both of his hands pushed down brutally hard on my hips before I felt him slip and he accidentally slammed forward into me, forcing a sharp cry from my lips.

“There’s nowhere for you to go,” he grunted, regaining his footing to thrust into me harder.

“God you are such a little whore, you bent right over for me,” he panted. I stared down at the sheets under me, marked with blood and closed my eyes, the stinging sensation and pain washing over me as he laid a hand flat in the middle of my back, smearing around the blood that slowly leaked from the wounds there, finger-painting on my skin. He’d stabbed me in the side with a box-cutter when he’d first ordered me onto my knees and I wouldn’t do it. Needless to say, after that I’d complied. From there he’d carved into my skin on my back and thighs for the fun of hearing me cry and beg for him to stop.

“Beg me to fuck you harder,” Phil ordered. In my peripheral vision I saw his hand reach for the discarded, bloody utility knife on the mattress beside me. It was the second time he’d raped me and by now, I knew the routine. If I begged, he got off on it. If I didn’t he’d stab me or cut me again and get off on that.

“No!” I yelped the second I saw the knife, jerking away from Phil so suddenly I felt his hips follow me. He chuckled as his fingers wrapped around the blade.

“No?” Phil said, voice questioning and immediately, his tone betrayed more sinister motives, and for a second I thought he was going to stab or cut me again because I’d hadn’t said what he wanted.

“I’m getting tired of this one too,” he added, slowly withdrawing from me. I was too terrified to keep the noise of pain from tumbling from my lips. I looked over my shoulder, twisting as far onto my side as I could manage, watching him look over the small table set up in the corner. He was shirtless, but still had his jeans on, undone, riding low on his hips. He also wore the mask he had put on before stepping in front of the camera at the foot of the bed.

The mask was terrifying; a black hooded style covering that had a skull screen-printed on the front and cut outs for the eyes and mouth. It wasn’t just the mask itself that was horrifying– it was why he needed it. The video camera running behind us, and occasionally picked up for a more personal perspective.

Out of the view of the camera on the tripod, Phil shoved the fabric up over his face so that it rested on top of his head. I couldn’t see the surface of the small table enough to see what he was picking until he held the object aloft– a small, stainless steel, curved hunting knife. I knew those knives– they were sold in hunt shops and could be used to swiftly end the life of any animal who took a bullet or an arrow just south of a kill shot. It was supposed to be used for the humane gesture and I knew Phil was anything but kind. Before he opened his mouth, I was playing right into his hand.

“N-n-n-no,” I stammered and as ashamed as I was to do it, the words he wanted to hear spilled from my lips loud enough that I knew he could hear me. Phil smirked lecherously and pulled the mask over his face again and climbed back onto the bed, the knife still in hand. I whined, the noise trapped in my throat as the man got closer and closer and pulled myself up, scrambling to shield myself from his approach. No matter how far forward I moved, Phil moved closer until I was in a position where I was almost forced to sit in his lap.

“You want me so bad? Ride me,” he growled into my ear. I squirmed, my throat tightening. I could feel the fabric of his jeans against the backs of my thighs and the single section of flesh revealed by the open waist and fly. I could feel him adjusting himself to align with my body and I moved the final fraction of an inch forward to the headboard before I felt the cool poke of metal against my skin and glanced down at the sharp blade of the hunting knife, turned in towards my stomach.

“I said ride me,” he repeated.

By the third rape I was sure he planned to keep me in the stall for the rest of my life and cut, stab, beat and rape me over and over again. He’d untied me for the pleasure of holding me down while he held a knife to my shoulder and forced himself down my throat.

I was bent over the side of the bed trying not to gag and wretch. My throat ached like the first few days of a cold. The deep gashes across my ribcage felt like they were bending and flexing like gills with even the smallest movement. I still hadn’t given in yet and begged him to kill me but my resolve was flagging.

“What’s the matter? You don’t like the way I taste?” Phil quipped from off camera. It wasn’t the taste of his sperm in my mouth that was making me feel like I was going to throw up, it was the wounds that now littered my torso and the backs of my thighs. Even if Phil let me live, I was going to need medical attention– medical attention I would never get. That’s what he’s going to do– fuck you and cut you to pieces and then leave you for dead. I gingerly moved away from the edge of the mattress and closed my eyes and slipped into unconsciousness.

I came to staring up at the hexagon pattern of the chicken-wire above me– the gaping, body sized hole from my last escape attempt had been left unrepaired.  The stinging of the cuts and single stab wound were a chorus of pain that rose to a crescendo as I came fully back into consciousness. My arms were tied down again. I felt cold and realized it had to be because of the sheen of sweat covered my skin like a wet blanket. There was a rattling sound, and it took a few seconds for me to place it– the handcuffs against the headboard, reverberating from my shaking arms.  A strange smell wafted through the air, the tendrils nauseating, and I turned my head, searching for the source.

“Perfect timing,” Phil simpered from the corner of the stall where he was lounged against the wall smoking a cigarette. He inhaled deeply, one last pull, before stubbing the butt out on the wall behind him. He was no longer wearing the mask. He studied me for a few moments before speaking again.

“You don’t look like you’re going to last much longer,” he commented casually. I knew he was right. I stared at him, feeling almost like I was staring through him. In the back of my mind I could hear the faint rattling begin of that box in the back of my head. Don’t do it. If you let it out and he doesn’t kill you, then what? Then I would be in agony– physically and mentally.

“We’d better get started, because as much as I love fucking you, it is so much better when you have some fight left in you,” And with that statement, he’d given me the information I needed to get him to kill me, without actually begging him for it.  I just had to hold it together long enough to get him where I needed him– but I didn’t know if I’d have the willpower to do it. I watched Phil reach behind him and grab the mask from the table, pulling it back over his head but not his face.

“Where’d that smart mouth go, hmm?” he asked as he climbed back onto the mattress and pulled the mask over his face. Even cringing away from him the small amount that I did made the cuts across my ribcage– the deepest next to the small stab wound from the box-cutter– sting and burn from the movement.  Phil clambered across the mattress, but stayed in between my legs, not moving any closer. Normally I would have been grateful, now I was apprehensive. I watched his hand as he reached down and palmed his own crotch.

“I think this is the most we’ve fucked in a single day,” he snorted back a laugh, “Remember the first day? You were such a perfect little virgin and now look at you… such a little slut. I bet I don’t even need lube anymore.”

I watched him fish into his jeans for his erection I stayed silent– and perfectly still except for the tremors that I couldn’t control. If I didn’t give him what he wanted, he would get mad. If he got mad he would either kill me or cut me up in little pieces.

“What do you think?” I didn’t speak a word, instead turned my head away from him and squeezed my eyes closed. I could feel the mattress shift as his weight left it, heard his bare feet shuffle across the floor, pause and then shuffle again, the mattress compressing under his weight. I couldn’t help but look at him again. The knife he held was another hunting blade, larger, sharper than the last. I flinched the second I saw it, and groaned when the resulting pain seemed to set fire to my nerve endings.

“Spread your legs.”

Shaking, I obeyed his order but bit back my plea for him not to hurt me. The sheets stuck to the cuts on the back of my thighs where the blood acted like glue between my flesh and the fabric, but the discomfort was mild compared to everything else. I bit the inside of my cheek and turned my head so that I didn’t have to look at my tormentor directly. His hands were on my thighs, the knife abandoned somewhere nearby.

“So obedient, I wonder why?” Phil mused. I let my eyes flicker to his masked face for just a few seconds, but I did not say a word. He froze and I could imagine the modicum of frustration flutter across his face before evaporating as fast as it came.

“Are you a little slut?” his voice was low, gravely, and despite my compliance with what he’d asked so far, full of lust.

“Yes,” I replied, voice completely hollow, devoid of any defiance or emotion at all. I stared up at the chicken wire above me.

“You want my dick in you?” he panted. I could hear him stroking himself.

“Yes,” I repeated, in the same empty voice as before. In the back of my head the box was thundering, as if its contents held a rabid beast. I squeezed my eyes closed in silent prayer, trying to hold myself together. A sharp, horrific pain robbed me of my concentration and against my will I yelped, the sound hoarse and defeated like a kicked dog. Out of reflex I sought out the source of the pain. Phil moaned, a low rumbling in the back of his throat, nails digging into my thighs. The sharp pain faded to a steady burn as the man moved over me. My vision tilted and blurred as he sharply thrust into me, taking no time at all to develop a brutal rhythm that my abused body couldn’t even hope to keep time with. As silent as I tried to be, my resolve completely dissolved in minutes and I was crying out in pain, sobbing for him to stop.

“There we go, that’s the little virgin I knew and loved,” Phil panted. He bent into me harder, forcing my legs up, my hips back and it felt like every cut on my body shrieked its protest. He was not using love the way Al did. Al was delusional, Phil was sadistic, and I was getting him off.

Get it together. I screwed my eyes shut, clamping my jaw closed as I rode out the pain, shut out the degradation.

“You’re such a slut you aren’t even tight anymore,” Phil panted and I was remotely aware of one hand leaving my thigh. I forced my eyes open, knowing the knife was somewhere on the bed, and barely had a second to register fear before there was a flash of light and agonizing white fire buried in my left side. Every muscle in my body went rigid and for a few seconds, there was no pain, just the frantic need to remove the object in my side. My back arched, my legs bent at the knee and my arms jerked to life, not remembering that I was tied down. When they met resistance, they still pulled until the chains the linked the cuffs to the headboard were taunt, digging into my swollen, infected skin. Sound filled my ears and I felt it vibrate through my vocal chords, by the time I recognized it as a concoction of a gasp for air and a yelp of pain the agony was barreling though me. On top of me Phil groaned.

“Fuck…” he panted, slowly withdrawing the blade from where it was buried in my side. It didn’t bring near the relief that I thought it would, and I winced again, feeling my flesh hug the steel as it slid out.

“God you have no idea how tight that makes you,” he moaned, “like a little virgin again.” He head tilted to the side as he, assumedly studied the blade, my blood making it look like a horror movie prop, and increased the pace of his thrusts.  I could feel blood trickle down my side, curving around to my back before it dripped down to the mattress. On the knife it was vermillion, coating half of the blade. He hadn’t even sunk the entire length into me and I was hurt badly. My head spun with the knowledge of how much I was bleeding and the burn of bile racing up my throat had me sharply turning my head to the side to retch, but there was nothing in my stomach and the reflex only made the wound in my side open and bleed more. I was shaking hard, going into shock and Phil was still brutally hammering into me.

I stared up at the mask, unable to see his face, both thankful and not. Without his face, my only warning that he would raise the blade again would be when he actually did. The next time he lifted the knife I was prepared for it and cringed before it plunged into the right side of my chest, just under my collarbone. The movement caused the knife to hit the bone, and not sink in as deep as it probably would have otherwise, but for the resulting pain, it may as well have. Another groan of satisfaction rumbled from under the mask and the knife slashed at me again, just under my ribcage on my left side. The new stab wound was deeper than the rest, stealing the breath from my lungs until I managed another desperate cry.

“Stop,” I finally begged, the sound evolving into a low moan as it left my mouth. I’d never been in so much pain, never felt so hopeless or weak. I was freezing, my skin damp, my arms aching from continuously trying to pull free from the headboard. But I didn’t actually want him to stop anymore. I wanted him to plunge the knife into the right place and end it all. I was exhausted, any fight I’d once possessed, completely erased.

“You want me to stop?” Phil panted as his thrusts slowed down. His mask swam in and out of focus. Though it felt like my heart should have been pounding, racing along a mile a minute I could feel it thudding like Thor’s hammer against my chest wall, slow and heavy. The mask made me unsure, I couldn’t see the man’s face to know where I stood. And for the second time in the last several months, some higher being took pity on me, and Phil lifted the mask from his face to the top of his head, revealing his expression. His face was flushed red, lips parted as he panted for air. His hand returned to my thigh, digging his fingers into my flesh. But his eyes– his eyes made him look more demonic than the mask did and I knew he had no intentions of stopping. His eyes were an inferno of lust; my pain the pinnacle of his pleasure.

“Please,” I gasped out.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have, been such a filthy, manipulative whore,” he spat and I’d never seen him look more satisfied, with the perfect storm of degradation, pain and control playing out in front of him. In that second I knew without a doubt, that he would kill me, this was the end, and suddenly, everything happened very quickly.

The latch on the box in the back of my mind burst and I let fragments of my life free themselves. It was a blur of sound and sight and sensation; my mom’s voice, my grandfather’s rib crushing hugs, Matt’s laugh, my Dad’s smile, and then– agony as Phil viciously plunged the blade into the right side of my stomach not far below my navel. Everything twisted and distorted and I felt my entire body seize. I could see the handle protruding from my stomach, before Phil twisted it and wrenched it fee. Blood immediately bubbled out of wound, flowing hot and fast, thick and dark, streaming backwards into my navel, down my side. I watch the crimson liquid flood over my skin, trickle down my side and stain the sheets and then… there was nothing at all.

***

It was too bright. I blinked, trying to shut out the blinding light. It hurt my eyes. I closed them again, and relief came. Wherever it was, I was warm, and covered in something soft. Was I in limbo? Heaven? It didn’t matter. It was over. Pain didn’t exist here, and even though I was completely alone, it didn’t matter. There was a soft sound, at first just a melody before starting to take shape– a voice then words;

“Hey, look who’s awake.”

____

END OF PART ONE