Sonnet Ellison
The room scared me more than an empty basement would have.
This room had been prepared for me. The dresser held clothes in my exact size.
The bathroom cabinet contained the toothpaste I preferred and the sensitive-skin products I bought because everything else irritated my face.
The snacks were things I had purchased within the last week.
The books stacked on the nightstand were the ones on my To Be Read list.
He had studied me.
I knew there was a camera somewhere in that room. I had spent the first hour searching for it but had no luck. I had spent the next hour trying to escape. But the bars on the window prevented me from trying to open it.
The masked man had taken my phone and Apple Watch, and the room contained no clock. So, I had no idea of time. But I had watched the sun rise and set three times from behind the covered window. That was the only way I knew days had passed.
The masked man came with every meal, bottles of water, and sometimes juice and my favorite tea. Refusal to eat left me too weak to fight anymore.
The morning after I threw the Cava at him, he came back with breakfast and cleaned the dried rice, chicken, cucumbers, tomatoes, hummus, and sauce from the floor while I sat on the bed and refused to eat breakfast too.
He didn’t argue that time. He only cleaned, replaced the water bottle on the nightstand, and left another tray I ignored until the food went cold.
Hunger had started making me light-headed, but fear and pride was stronger than hunger. Eating felt too much like accepting the situation, and I refused to make captivity easier for the man responsible for it. So, I also refused to shower. In result, I was starting to stink.
I could feel myself slipping, like my mind was going back to a dark place I had spent years climbing out of.
The room, the locked door, the waiting, the feeling that somebody else controlled whether I ate, moved, slept, or saw another human being, all of it dragged me backward.
Suddenly, I was that little girl again, trapped in a home where adults controlled the doors and my feelings didn’t matter.
I worried about Dior. He had to be losing his mind. By now, I figured he had called and texted me too many times. Maybe he had gone to my apartment or my job. Thinking about him hurt worse than the hunger. He was the only family that had ever chosen me.
The door opened, and I lifted my head. The masked man stepped inside carrying another tray. Lunch, I guessed, which meant it had to be somewhere around noon. Time had become something I measured by food I refused to eat.
His gaze moved to the stack of books on the nightstand, as if he was disappointed that I still hadn’t touched them.
Then his gaze came to me.
I spoke before he could. My voice came out weak and rough. “I need to talk to my best friend. I need to talk to Dior.”
He stopped near the bed.
“Please,” I added, hating the desperation in my tone.
The masked man set the tray on the nightstand. “I already went to see Dior.”
My eyes widened. Fear hit so fast that I forgot how hungry I was. “What did you do to him?”
“I didn’t hurt him.”
My hands curled into the comforter, gripping them with fear that Dior was dead.
“I went to let him know you were okay,” he said.
“But I’m not okay.”
“You’re alive.”
A weak laugh left me. “For how long?”
“For as long as I can protect you.”
The word sounded so ridiculous coming from him that I almost laughed again.
“Protect me?” I stared at the black mask covering his face. “I know you’re here to kill me.”
His head tilted slightly. “How do you know that?”
I said nothing.
He stepped closer. “What did you see that night at the lake?”
I frowned as if I didn’t understand the question. “What are you talking about?”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“I hate the beach,” I added. “Sand gets everywhere.”
Silence stretched between us. I could tell he was watching for the lie. Studying the way I blinked, breathed, swallowed. I knew Roman had sent him, so he knew exactly what I had seen.
But I wasn’t admitting anything.
If Roman had sent him, then the truth was the only thing keeping me valuable and the only thing that could get me killed.
So I stared at him like I was confused, like I hadn’t watched a man murder his own son, like I might still find a way to walk out of that room alive.
He stared at me for another long moment, then looked at the tray he had placed on the nightstand. “Eat.” His eyes returned to my face. “You’re looking too weak.”
He turned toward the door, and panic rushed through me before I could stop it.
“Why are you dragging this out so long?”
He paused with his hand near the knob.
My voice shook when I asked, “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”
The room went quiet. For one second, I thought he might answer.
Instead, he opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “Eat, Glasses.”
My eyes narrowed at the nickname as he shut it behind him.
The lock clicked. That small sound broke something in me. I stared at the door, waiting for him to come back, waiting for the lock to turn, waiting for any proof that I still had choices. But none came.
A sob climbed out of my chest. Then another and another until I folded forward, clutching the comforter in both hands.
I cried for the birthdays I had spent alone, the mother who hadn’t kept me, the father whose name I’d never known, and the family I had spent my entire life pretending I didn’t need.
I cried for the life I had built by myself and the future I had barely begun to believe I deserved.
I cried because I was twenty-three years old, and I might die before anyone ever truly loved me enough.