24. Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-four
Larken
A blast of cold water sprays me and I wake up with a scream.
“Good morning, princess.” He laughs and sprays me again. “It's time for you to wake up. Can't have you sleeping the day away, now, can I?”
My teeth chatter immediately and violently. I was already so cold because of the constant stream of frigid air blowing on me, and now I'm soaking wet. My body begins to shiver and I scream through my teeth again.
“Now, don't go fussing,” he says, and turns off the spray of water. “Nothing wakes me up in the morning like a good shower, and I was only extending the courtesy to you. Sit up, sweetheart. It's time I introduced myself, don't you think?”
A metallic screech assaults my ears and aching head as he pulls over a chair. He sits down in it and leans forward, bracing himself on his elbows. This is my first good look at him in the light. He doesn't look like a monster. In fact, if I didn't know any better I'd think he looked friendly. He has a large, deep scar covering one of his eyes, though, in the shape of an X.
“My name is Tabor,” he starts. “Your husband hired me to find you when the man he originally hired to babysit you for a few days ran off with you and his money. I was all set to make some easy money from that rich fuck, but then I got nosy. I started asking questions about the guy he hired, and oh man, am I glad I did. Turns out he hired one of my favorite people in the whole world to take his rich bitch wife and teach her a few lessons.”
He looks at me expectantly. I don't know what he wants me to say. When I don't respond, he clicks his tongue in disappointment and continues talking. “I used to work with Wyatt. That was a long time ago, though. Back when I still had a pretty face. We got put on the same job. It was supposed to be an easy one. All we had to do is convince another rich fuck – ” He leans down closer to whisper conspiratorially. “It's always a rich fuck, sweetheart.” Then he straightens to finish his story.
“All we needed to do was grab a couple of kids and their nanny from the park and wait until the check cleared. Nothing but a low effort catch and release. But the nanny became a problem that I had to deal with, and Wyatt chose then to become a knight in shining armor. I won't bore you with the details, but Wyatt and I had a little tiff that ended up in a battle of wills. He got the little girl back to her mommy and daddy, but the little boy didn't quite make it. Wyatt wanted to try to make an example of me, or something like that, and carved this,” he jabs a finger at the scar covering his eye, “into my face. That was bad enough, but then he really went for the jugular. He spread word far and wide that I was no good to work with. Ruined my good reputation. I wasn't able to pull in the money like I used to and that cost me my wife. I should have known all she cared about was the money. That's all you bitches care about. But I loved her and it broke my heart when she left.”
He pauses and watches me for a reaction or response. When I don't give him either, he keeps going. “So, naturally, when your fine husband told me that Wyatt had you, I just had to offer my services. Hell, I might even do this for free. I don't often get the opportunity to ruin Wyatt's day, but whenever the opportunity arrives I jump at it.”
I don't know what he wants or expects me to say. I'm beyond feeling anything other than cold exhaustion and pain. My head is splitting in this light and I'm getting colder by the second. I don't care what he says. It doesn't matter.
He waits for a few minutes, watching me shiver, but loses interest when I don't give him anything to interact with. “Well,” he says, standing back up. “I'll leave you to your thoughts. You try to stay warm out here, it's starting to get cold outside.”
He leaves the fan running and the light on. I've been trying to decide if I'm being kept in a basement, a shed, or a garage. The words out here eliminate the basement possibility. It could still be either a shed or a garage. Both have electricity and both have the possibility to be equipped with a water hose. I'm soaking wet and sitting in a puddle of cold water. What makes it so much worse is that I have to pee now. I was mostly fine before he sprayed me with water, but now I really have to go and there's nowhere for me to go. I don't know how long he's going to be gone or if he'll even let me out to go to the bathroom.
The reason I wasn't able to break out of the crate is because it's been reinforced with chains. They're looped around and over the walls of the crate. I look around at the shelves lining the walls for the hundredth time. There are mostly brown cardboard boxes and plastic gray tubs on the shelves. There is a basketball in the corner, and two more metal lawn chairs in another corner. Across the room, a white drop cloth covers a stack of something. The water hose, and a few buckets are on another wall. There is a huge rolling metal door taking up the majority of one wall and another regular door on the opposite wall. It's all useless. I can't reach any of it.
I rake and push all the water I can out of the crate and lay back onto my side. There's no getting away from the cold air, the bright light, the water, or that I'm never going to be free or happy ever again. I'm just going to lay here and hope that I freeze to death before Tabor can deliver me to Adrian.
I fall asleep again. I have nightmares of Anne pushing me down the stairs but the scene suddenly changes from me crumpled at the foot of them to Shaun's dead body, and then I see Tabor standing over him, laughing. Then Adrian appears and he's laughing too while he holds a lighter. Then I watch Shaun's body morph into my Dad's and I can't wake myself up.
I'm trapped in a world of horror until another spray of water hits me. “You sure do love your sleep,” Tabor says.
I sit up, not bothering to block the water as it sprays over my face and chest.
Tabor turns off the water after I'm thoroughly soaked and tosses the hose toward the wall. “It's dinner time for good little girls.”
Dinner. That means I've been here for a full day. “I need to go to the bathroom,” I tell him.
“Oh, so you can speak. I wasn't sure.”
“Please let me out. I really need to go.”
“Well, princess,” he sighs. “There's the problem. I'm not about to let you out and I forgot to put a bucket in there with you.” He stops talking and grins at me. “Silly me.”
Tears well again. I have to go so badly that it's gone past hurting, and the cold and water makes it so much worse. “Please. I won't try anything. I promise. Please.”
He smiles again. “Can't do it, princess. You're just going to have to either hold it, or let it loose while you're in there. I'm not taking a chance on you trying to run again.”
“I won't run. I promise.”
“Sorry, sweetheart. Not happening.” He goes to pick up something off of the shelf by the door he came in and walks back to the crate. He comes back with a bottle of thick, reddish brown colored liquid. The bottle has a strange lid, almost like a big metal straw sticking out of it bent at an odd angle. The longer I look at it, I realize what it is. It's like one of those water bottles that clips onto a hamster cage, only oversized.
He sees me staring and shakes the bottle. “A little unconventional, I agree. It was your husband's idea. He said tomato soup was your favorite.” He pulls something out of his pocket and fixes the bottle to the side of the crate with the metal spout hanging inside. “There. Dinner is served.”
Tabor bangs on the top of the crate and starts to walk away, but he stops. “Oh yeah. Just in case you have a little accident. You'll be able to clean up a little bit.” He gets the water hose and turns it on the mist setting and hangs it off of the closest shelf, angling it so that the mist falls on half of the crate. Even on the dry side little droplets are hitting me. “There you go, princess.” Then he leaves.
I look blankly at the bottle of soup. I'm not drinking it. It doesn't even matter that he's trying to feed me like an animal. I wouldn't drink anything he gave me anyway, but if Adrian suggested it, I'm not definitely not drinking it. I know there's something in it. Some of the same drugs Adrian was forcing on me before.
I will not be drugged again. I won't. I refuse to return to the faraway, confused, absent state that he kept me in for so long. I'll starve first.
I crouch against the farthest wall of the crate in an effort to keep as dry as possible. The air doesn't help. It blows a constant current of cold, damp air over me. I begin to shiver again and that's all I do for a long time. I just huddle against the bars and shiver with my teeth chattering so hard that my jaws hurt.
Hours. I stay like that for hours. But the pain in my bladder is too much. It's been hours. He said dinner and that means that I haven't gone to the bathroom in twenty-four hours. That can't be right. Granted, I haven't had anything to drink in as many hours, but still. A person can't go that long without going. Thoughts of urinary tract infections, kidney infections, and bladder retention start circulating in my mind and the more I think about it, the worse I have to go.
It's unavoidable. I can't wait any longer. It's entirely possible that I involuntarily went while I was unconscious, but I didn't feel or smell like I had an accident when I woke up so I don't know. It doesn't matter, anyway. Whether or not I had an accident all over myself then has no effect on the fact that I have to go now. Badly.
So I go. Everything is already wet, but I still pull the crotch of my panties to the side when I shuffle to the other side of the crate where the misty spray is heaviest. There's no proper or modest way to do this, I just do it, and I concentrate on how much I hate Adrian the whole time. It hurts to relieve myself every bit as much as it did to hold it, even after I'm finished. The best I can do to clean up is to tip the metal tray the few scant inches I'm able to and push all the collected liquid out onto the floor outside. I make it as clean as I can and scoot back to the dry side of the cage.
I hate Adrian. I thought I hated him before this moment, but the hate I feel right now is hot enough that I don't even feel the cold air freezing me. The hate turns to anger and I try again to break free from the crate, kicking and shoving and screaming, but all I accomplish is cutting my elbow and adding a few more bruises to my collection. Still I fight. I keep trying until I'm too exhausted to continue. And then I cry. My body curls in on itself and shudders with my sobs until that, too, exhausts me. Then my sobs turn to silent tears and eventually lead to a black sleep.
I wake up with another harsh, jarring bang on the crate. I keep falling asleep. It's similar to when Adrian was drugging me, except I haven't taken or been forced to take anything. This is all from trauma. There won't be any escape from it. The rest of my life is going to be trauma after trauma until I eventually die from it.
“Asleep again? And you didn't drink a drop of your soup. You'll have to eat, princess. I can't take a pile of bones back to your husband. He expects to see his wife whole and happy when she gets home.”
He turns off the water and the fan and I sag in relief. I haven't stopped shivering in hours.
“There now,” he says. “That's better, isn't it? Let's see now …” He removes the bottle of soup from the side of the crate and brings it up to eye level to swirl it around. “No, princess. This won't do. You're going to have to eat something, one way or another. We can give you another day. Aren't you hungry? I'm hungry.”
I halfway thought he'd take a drink from the bottle. I don't know why, but I did. He doesn't. He puts the bottle on a nearby shelf and leaves for a minute, returning with a plate piled full of food. Toasted sandwiches, stacked high with toppings and meats, potato chips, pickles, cookies, some kind of pasta salad, and some grapes. It smells so good. Up until now I've been too miserable and cold to notice how hungry I am. The overwhelming sensation of a too-empty stomach is suddenly all I can feel and I wrap my arms around my middle, pressing in to lessen the awful ache.
“Yeah,” he says as he sits down in the chair. “You're hungry.”
He holds the plate close to the crate so that I can see it closer and smell the food more clearly. My stomach clenches and growls so loud that he smiles. He picks up a piece of sandwich and holds it out to me, close enough for me to reach through the bars. I lift my hand to take it from between the bars and my fingertips barely brush against the crust before he pulls it away and shoves half of it into his mouth and laughs again.
He sits there, just a few feet in front of me, and eats every single bite of food on the plate, smiling while I watch. He burps when he stands up to put the empty plate on the shelf and takes up the bottle again. He shakes it up until it's bubbly and he attaches it back to the crate. “That's what you get. Your husband was adamant. It's still good. You drink this soup, little wifey. We need you to keep your strength.”
He slaps the top of the crate again and leaves without turning on either the water or the fan. I'd be more grateful if I wasn't still wet and shaking with cold. And I'm not drinking that damn soup.
I think my concept of time has permanently altered. It started when I kept losing myself because of the drugs and I'm pretty sure I just never recovered because I've felt the same ever since I woke up in this cage. I can't grab onto a thought long enough to get to the end of it. I keep trying over and over. I bring up Shaun's face, trying to commit every inch of it to memory. I think about Wyatt and remember how he smelled when we were sleeping. I think about my dad and what my room looked like before I left for college. I think about the time I helped dye Regan's hair and she ended up looking like a calico cat. I bring up memory after memory, but I lose them within moments of calling them to me.
Then I start counting. I count the corners in this room. Every corner of everything. The doors, the shelves, the boxes, even this grate. I don’t know when I lose count, but I know I made it to at least one hundred and fifty. Twice.
I start spelling the things I see, but there are only so many times I can spell box, so I give that up. Then I make a terrible mistake and start thinking about recipes. All of my favorites first, then all the ones that were complete disasters or just not good. By the time I start losing track of them, my stomach is cramping with hunger. I remind myself that it will pass and I won't feel it anymore after a while, but that doesn't make the current situation any more bearable.
I try counting again but I know it's pointless. My mind keeps wandering off into nothing and I lose track of the numbers. After a while, I give up and I just sit there staring at nothing and let my mind wander. I can't keep up with it anyway and I'm so tired. Giving up is so much easier right now. I know sleep will claim me soon enough and maybe that's the best thing for me. Maybe it would be easier to just drink the soup. Adrian did tell Tabor it was my favorite and who knows what he put in it.
The sound of harsh breathing wakes me up. I open my eyes to the same bright light, and the first thing I see is Tabor sitting in the chair, watching me, with his hand rubbing himself. No, not rubbing. He's got his fist wrapped around himself. He's jerking off. I turn away so I don't have to see it. I can't do anything else, and he'd just enjoy me screaming at him to stop.
“Turn back around,” he orders. “If you're going to be awake for it this time, you should give me something fun to look at.”
I don't respond. I'm not giving him anything.
I listen to the sound of him standing up and then the crate groans, the walls straining to hold up his weight when he leans against it. I fight the urge to look. He's going to do whatever he's going to do, whether I watch him do it or not.
“I could always drag you out of there and stick it in you,” he grunts. “Now that's an idea. Maybe that's what we'll do when I get bored of this.”
It was much easier to dissociate when I was alone. Now I'm hyper focused on the sound of his breathing and the sound of his movements. It is utterly disgusting. Against my better judgment, I open my mouth to ask him a question. “Did Adrian tell you to do this?”
“Nope,” he grunts. “This is our little secret.”
“What if I tell him? Will he still pay you?”
Tabor laughs. A deep belly laugh. It's disgusting, too. “Want me to call him? We can find out. I know what he'd do, though. He'd watch. He's the type. He'd sit in that chair over there and watch me turn you into a great big mess. In fact, I'm going to take a picture and send it to him right now, just so he knows how his pretty little wife is doing.”
The thought of him sending a picture of me in this cage to Adrian is somehow worse than the idea of him jerking off on me. The shutter sound of a phone camera echoes loudly off the walls of the room and I can't help looking. Sure enough, he's holding his phone out so I can see the picture he took of me. I look away as soon as I see it and force my mind into nothingness. I can't stop it. If he sends it to Adrian, I can't stop him.
“That one's just for me,” he says. “Never know when I'll need a picture like that. Turn back around and let me see that pretty face. I'm almost there, sweetheart.”
I keep my face turned away. I don't want to see it and I'd rather that he gets it in my hair than on my face. That seems less disgusting and humiliating.
He finishes and it doesn't land on my face or my hair. It barely makes it through the bars of the cage. He doesn't care that it didn't land on me, he just wants me to know that it could have and that he did this because he wanted to. I understand what he's doing now. He's going to do anything to make me miserable. Anything. I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of a response. I might be miserable, but he'll never hear about it if I can help it, and neither will Adrian.
I listen as he walks back over to turn on the fan and water hose. My body barely reacts to it this time. Hopefully this is it. I can't take much more, anyway. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll just shut down.