Chapter 2 - Marla
MARLA
“DINNER’S READYYYYY!”
They’re yelling. I hear them. Run. Run. Keep running. Don’t look back. They’re yelling for you. Don’t fall for it.
Thwip-thwip!
I clapped my hand over my mouth just so I could scream out. I couldn’t scream. No screaming. No sounds. Nothing except running.
Come on, come on, come on. Faster, Marla. Run faster.
The ground tore at my feet. More bullets whizzed by my head. I came upon a river and without even thinking, I just… jumped in.
I jumped in, and I swam.
I swam until I couldn’t breathe. Until my arms and legs hurt so much that I couldn’t move.
I snagged myself on a rock, yanking myself up onto the bank with the strength of the reserve that I must’ve had deep down.
It wasn’t like I was a gym rat. If anything, I never really moved from my couch or my bed.
I heaved for air as I flopped onto the wet ground, my heart beating so wildly that I felt it skipping.
Was this the end?
Was I finally having a heart attack?
Run.
The voice in my head kept chanting that one word. Run. My life depended on it, so I had to. The instant I caught my breath, I rolled over onto all fours. I stumbled onto my feet, wobbling in the moonlight.
Moonlight.
When did it get dark?
Fear wrapped around me. I no longer heard the sound of bullets, but that didn’t mean I was safe.
I looked down at my legs. Battered and bruised, and coated in blood.
I felt a cramp rush through my system. It wrapped around my back and cascaded down my hips before I felt something warm in between my legs.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I grumbled to myself.
I dipped my hand back into the water and tried washing myself off in between my legs as much as I could. Of course, I’d start my period while running for my life. Because why the fuck not? I couldn’t leave a blood trail, it would lead them right to me. I had to do something.
I grimaced at the disgusting shirt that I was wearing.
“It’ll have to do, it’ll have to do, it’ll have to do.”
I chanted the phase to myself as I tore at the excess fabric of my shirt.
I folded it up as best as I could and tried not to think about the months I lived out of it.
I shoved it into my underwear, which was ripped to high hell anyway.
And after I got it situated where I needed it, I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other.
The woods had to end sometime, right?
My feet bled as I ran barefooted. Roots and rocks snagged at my aching skin, but I didn’t dare stop. Help. I needed help. I needed to get out of the woods and run for the first building that I—
“Sssshhh, sh, sh, sh, sh.”
An image flashed in my mind. Me, running up to that building.
The car, chasing me down in the background.
I managed to live the entire night, running through the woods, only to break through the tree line and hear a car driving straight toward me.
I still don’t know how I evaded the car.
I don’t know how in the hell I outran it.
All I knew was that when I saw that building emerge on the horizon, I screamed bloody murder.
A pair of arms wrapped around me and began those same words.
“I gotcha. I gotcha. I gotcha,” a familiar voice whispered.
The rhythmic stroking of something up and down my back, coupled with the pressure I felt at my front, helped to steady me as I forced myself out of my head. No, it wasn’t real. I already went through that. Just a memory.
Just a memory.
Just a memory.
“Just listen to the sound of my voice. You can respond when you feel comfortable. Wherever you think you are, you aren’t there anymore.”
My efforts to run and scramble were all for naught…until I heard his voice. That voice. A very familiar voice that was with me for the last couple of weeks. It was the same voice that belonged to the man who found me when I was running. When I was screaming. When I was trying to escape from death.
He’s here.
If he’s here, everything’s all right.
That much I came to learn in the last couple of weeks.
Had it been two weeks?
Longer?
Shorter?
“Here, I gotcha some dinner,” he said. “Think you’re up for a few bites?”
I hated food.
I used to love food, but now I hated it. They used to put things in my food. Just to watch. Just to laugh. Just to make fun of. And it sucked, because sometimes their food was really good, and I couldn’t help myself. They made it so appetizing…
But it made me vomit just so they could laugh.
“Sssshhh,” he hushed softly as his hand ran up and down my back. “You’re all right. You’re safe. I promise.”
I remembered that touch. The up and down motion on my back.
It drew another memory to the forefront.
A memory I didn’t want to entertain. There was no way, anyway.
The man from the bar that night might as well have been faceless as well as nameless.
I didn’t want to think about it, either.
My last good memory before my life went to shit.
I shoved against his chest until he released me before tripping over myself to tuck back into the darkness.
I practically took over his closet. Small spaces made sense to me now in a way they never had before. A wall at my back. A door I could watch. Corners were safe. Open rooms were not.
I drew my legs up to my chest and whimpered softly, trying to fight between the memories in my head and the reality settled in front of me. I heard a soft sigh before I peeked up from my knees, only to see the man sliding a tray of food through the opening of the closet door.
How long had he been holding me?
Why wasn’t my skin crawling?
My skin crawled every time someone touched me now.
But not him.
Apparently.
Had it always been that way?
I tried to remember back through the last couple of weeks, but just like the rest of my memory, most was a blur.
I hated that, too.
“I won’t breach the doorway, okay?” he asked as he set a glass of ice and what looked like a soda can down. “It’s just a plate of food and something to drink.”
I heard something else clinking, though.
Something that wasn’t those things.
“It’s not just a plate,” I said, my voice heavy like grated iron. “What else did you bring?”
At first I thought he didn’t hear me because he didn’t respond. So I got brave enough to draw in another breath to ask again.
He cleared his throat. “You’ve got good ears. I also brought a smaller plate with a little bit of pudding on it.”
I paused. “Chocolate?”
“I noticed how you liked it when Cap made it last week. He made another round for the girls to dip their fruit in, so I scooped you up a bit.”
“Oh.”
I wanted to say no to all of it. I wanted to kick the food away, shatter the glass, and laugh at them for thinking they could fool me. No one was going to watch me get sick again. No one was going to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do. But then my stomach growled.
“I know you’re hungry,” the man said as his shadow disappeared at the crack in the closet door. “I’ll leave you be to pick at your food. And whenever you’re done—”
“Set it outside. I know.”
“Good,” he said simply before I heard him walking away.
Wait a second, was he really leaving?
“Wait,” I said quickly.
I heard him pause. “Everything okay?”
I swallowed hard. “You’re…”
I didn’t know how to ask. I didn’t even know what I wanted to ask. I just… didn’t want him to leave. Who would protect me if he left? I didn’t want him to touch me, though.
Right?
Goddamn it, everything was so confusing.
“I’m just coming over to my desk,” he said before I heard a chair dragging across the carpet.
“Oh.”
“So I’m right here if you need anything. Okay?”
I cleared my throat and nodded before I realized he couldn’t see me. “Okay.”
“Good.”
It wasn’t until I heard the sound of typing that I reached for the food.
I crept close enough to the crack in the closet door that I could peer through it, and sure enough, my long hair savior was just sitting there at a desk.
With what seemed like a million different screens pointed at him.
His fingers flew like lightning, and for a moment, I just sat there and watched him.
It wasn't until something moved at the edge of my vision that I realized he wasn't alone in there.
A massive dog, all black, the kind that looked like it was built for working rather than sitting in someone's lap, had padded silently around the edge of the desk.
It looked in my direction, nose twitching once.
Then it turned, walked a slow circle, and lowered itself back to the floor at his feet.
Like it had checked on me and decided I was fine.
I wasn't sure whether that made me feel better or worse.
At least, until my stomach growled out in protest again.
Why did I stare at him, anyway?
I shook my head so violently that the room tilted with dizziness.
I leaned against the closet door for a moment to gather myself, and then I reached for the tray of food.
My stomach growled out again as I slid it toward me, my back hitting the back corner of the closet before I stopped moving.
Then I picked up my fork and stabbed at whatever was steaming hot in the bowl.
I brought it to my face.
I sniffed it.
Huh. It smelled like chicken. Some corn. Is that alfredo sauce?
“It’s chicken veggie alfredo,” the man called out.
I flinched a bit at his voice.
“Just in case you wanted to know,” he said, his fingers never stopping their rhythmic typing.
I peeked around a bit. Could he see me? No, that wasn’t possible.
The sliver of light pouring into the closet from the cracked door was nowhere near me.
There was no way he could see me. Unless there was a camera?
I gasped softly as I whipped my head up, searching for any sign of a functioning camera.
I didn’t see any pinprick lights, though.
I focused back on the food. I finally got brave enough to bring the bite of food to my lips, and I took a small bite.
I placed the fork down. I swallowed as I fumbled for the can of soda and cracked it open.
I took a small sip right from the can. Coke, of all things.
The sweetness of the Coke and the saltiness from the alfredo sauce mingled down my throat, and I did my best to wait and see if I’d have any sort of reaction.
But the world tilted with dizziness again, and I knew I had to eat.
No matter what it might do to me.
Please don’t be poisoned, please don’t be poisoned, please don’t be poisoned.
I finally took a bite of the food. A true bite. A proper bite. And when the chicken burst in my mouth, I couldn’t contain myself. My instincts screamed at me to stop, but my stomach wouldn’t let me. How long was it since I ate?
I don’t know, the days seemed like a blur now.
Hell, the months seemed the same way.
I shoveled that food into my face like an animal.
Before I knew it, the food was gone, and I found myself licking at the small bowl that once held the chocolate pudding. They put this crunchy little something or other in it, and it was divine. I loved it.
I found myself wishing I was brave enough to ask for more.