9. 9 – Zella
I ’m not sure how long I stay there for.
Maybe hours.
Maybe days.
And then Ethan is there. His voice burrows into my head, his frantic words blurring against each other until clarity returns in a blinding bolt of pain.
My head spins to the side, and I blink, turning back to look at him.
He’s flexing his gloved hand, his face dark as his eyes scan mine.
“Zella – sweetheart,” he murmurs. His brow is damp with sweat, his hair more unkempt than I’ve ever seen it as he stares at me. “I need you to get off the floor. It’s dirty.”
My eyes feel heavy. My heart feels heavier. “You took my windows.”
Ethan presses his lips together. “They were a distraction, Zella.”
It takes effort, but I turn my head to look slowly around the apartment. “Distraction from what?”
Ethan smiles, but it doesn’t look real. It looks tight, and awkward. “From being who you need to be. Get up, now. I have a gift for you.”
He stands up, staring down as I struggle to my feet. My legs feel numb, a prickling, burning pain spreading across them as they come back to life. Raising shaky fingers to my face, I trace the hot patch. “You hit me.”
Ethan closes his fingers into a fist. “I was scared, sweetheart. You weren’t responding to me. I’m sorry.”
I stare at him. He’s never touched me… but he slapped me. Even if he had his gloves on, it’s the most contact I’ve ever had with him.
And it hurt.
My whole body hurts as I silently sit on the stool he pushes out with his foot. His eyes flick over my dress, his face pressing into a fleeting frown, but he doesn’t mention it. I look down at the rusty spots marring the pristine white.
“Don’t worry,” he says quietly. “You have more. I’ll burn that one.”
I’m so tired, I don’t think before the words come out. “I wasn’t worried.”
His face twists, but he ignores my words, turning to a trolley by the door. “Look.”
I take it in dully. “A new statue.”
“Yes!” His previous ire all but forgotten, he rocks back on his heels with a bright smile. “It’s been a while, I know. We’ll need to be careful, the plaster is still drying out – but I couldn’t let her go, not once I saw her.”
Testing my balance, I slide off the stool and walk up to Ethan’s latest acquisition.
“She’s perfect,” he says wonderingly. “Isn’t she?”
Pausing, I look into her face. The churning in my stomach is spreading across my body, rising up my throat, the ache from my screaming subsiding in the face of brighter, fresher agony.
The statue stares blindly out, lips parted. She’s pretty. But it’s not her face I’m caught by.
It’s the expression of sheer agony on her face.
I take a step back, pure reflex. I don’t want to look at her face, don’t want to see that level of pain, but at the same time, I can’t look away from it.
“You see?” Ethan murmurs. He’s close behind me as he sighs. “She’s perfection.”
My hands curl into fists, and I turn, nearly bumping into him before he steps back. Ethan frowns at me, distracted from the terrified statue behind me. “Zella, really. What has gotten into you?”
“Will you let me leave, Ethan?” I ask him baldly. “Am I allowed to leave here?”
He chuckles, but there’s an edge to it as he glances at the windows. “Sweetheart, really. I thought we were past this.”
I shake my head. “We’re not. Can I go?”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “We talked about this. It isn’t safe for you out there—,”
“That’s my decision,” I snap. “And I want to take the risk.”
Holding up his hands placatingly, he moves a little closer, lifting up a lock of hair carefully.
“So perfect,” he whispers. “So innocent, Zella. You have no idea what they would do to you out there. But I do. And I will keep you safe, even if you hate me for it.”
My hair is a mess, my braid falling out everywhere, but I square my shoulders and look him in the eye.
“You have no right to keep me here,” I tell him firmly. My voice rises with desperation, even as I fight to keep it level. “I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”
“But you’re behaving like a child,” he snaps back. “I think you should go and get yourself cleaned up, and then an early night.”
I can feel something pulsing in my head. “I am not a child that you can send to bed!”
He snaps. “If you will act like a child, then I will treat you like one. You’re clearly not mentally capable of managing outside, Zella. Despise me if you want to, but you are not leaving this apartment. Ever .”
I freeze. Ethan is breathing heavily, his eyes flitting to me and away. When he takes a step, I dart back, sudden fear grabbing my throat. “Stay away from me.”
He frowns. “Really, this is ridiculous. I’m going to leave now, Zella. Perhaps the next time I come, you’ll be feeling a little more like yourself.”
“This is me being myself,” I yell at him, throwing my hands out. “I will not change my mind, Ethan!”
“And how will you leave?” he challenges me. “Through the windows? The doors?”
He gestures angrily to the elevator. “It’s locked to a code only I know. There is no way out of this apartment, Zella, not without my permission, and you do not have it.”
Crossing my arms, I stare at him defiantly. “Then I’ll wait until you leave, and watch you put the code in. You’ll have to do it at some point.”
The color in his face deepens to almost purple. “I’m disappointed in you, Zella. After everything I have sacrificed for you – after everything your parents sacrificed to give you a life, you would throw it back in our faces?”
My heart stutters, but I hold his eyes. “A life lived in a cage is no life at all.”
And I refuse to believe that this is what my parents would have wanted, whatever Ethan thinks.
When he begins to nod, the tiniest fizzle of hope sparks to life inside my chest. Maybe he’s finally starting to see.
Ethan spins on his heel, moving towards the storage cupboard he keeps locked up next to my bedroom door. Staying where I am, I watch him warily. His back is to me as he rummages around. The silence is deafening, the rift between us widening with every moment.
A weird clinking noise rings out as he kneels, the metallic chime making me take a step back. “Ethan,” I whisper through suddenly dry lips. “What are you doing?”
He shakes his head as he stands up and turns to face me. The bottom drops out of my stomach as I take in what he’s holding in his hands.
“I didn’t want to do this, Zella,” he says in a low voice. He takes a step, and I back away. There’s pity in his face, real, genuine pity.
Even as he advances on me with a chain in his hands.
I stumble back, horror clawing up my spine as he moves towards me.
“Come, now,” he urges. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, sweetheart.”
“You can’t chain me,” I breathe in horror. “I’m not an animal, Ethan.”
My back hits the far wall, next to my little reading nook, and I dart around the chair, trying to put space between us. He actually smiles at me as he reaches down, and I stare at what he’s holding in his hands.
My hair.
Slowly, he starts to wind it around his arm, and my hair begins to tug at my scalp, into pain that sends tears into my ears as he begins to drag me closer.
“Stop,” I beg him. Tears start to spill out, soaking my face as I grab my hair and try to pull it away from him, but his grip is too tight. He drags me in, his fist firm and wrapped in my hair as he tows me across the open space, closer to the steel pipework decorating the wall.
My hands try to push him away, and for once he doesn’t seem to care that I’m touching him, shoving and scratching as he forces me down. I barely recognise my own voice as it rises.
“Get it off me,” I cry, as his gloved fingers brush my skin. “Ethan! I’m sorry!”
I’m sobbing brokenly as the shackle clicks into place, a heavy grip around my ankle. Ethan pauses, his face close to mine and yet so unfamiliar. This Ethan… I don’t know him.
Flinching, I push back against the wall as he strokes my hair back, my scalp burning from the bruising force of his grip.
“There, now,” he murmurs, his voice low. “I know it all seems strange now, Zella. But you’ll get used to it, in time. And you can still reach everything you need to, I made sure of that. This is for your protection, sweetheart.”
“Don’t touch me,” I force out. Something I’ve always wished for now feels like a violation. My voice shakes so badly I’m not sure he even hears the words, but he drops his hand with a frustrated tut.
“You’ll see, soon. This is for your own good.”
I can’t stop staring at the iron shackle. Ethan’s footsteps sound through the apartment, and I jerk my head up to see him moving towards the elevator.
“I’ll be back soon,” he calls over his shoulder. “A few days for you to think this through, and you’ll see that I’m right, Zella.”
Desperately, I claw myself upright, using the pipe for balance before I follow him. My balance is off, and I stagger across the white marble, trying to get to the doors, to where Ethan is typing in the security code.
But the chain at my ankles pulls taut before I reach him, and I land heavily on my knees with a cry of pain. “Wait. Don’t do this. Ethan—,”
But the doors are sliding closed without another word.