38. Melanie
CHAPTER 38
Melanie
The combination of thirst and a full bladder were almost unbearable. My mouth was so dry, my tongue felt thick and sticky. And if I didn’t pee soon, my bladder was going to pop like an overly full water balloon.
I had no real sense of time, but it seemed like Roswell had been gone for hours. And while my head was clearing as the drugs wore off, thank goodness, I still found myself zoning out occasionally. But as the minutes ticked by, and my discomfort grew, the sensation of being disconnected abated.
Did he want me to pee my pants? Because that’s where things were headed.
The chain holding me to the wall didn’t have much slack. And no way could I break the duct tape around my wrists. He’d wound and twisted it, securing me to the chain. After my first abduction, I’d practiced breaking zip tie and duct tape bonds. I’d gotten pretty good at it. But I hadn’t accounted for the lack of mobility from being chained to a stupid wall.
I was able to move around enough that I’d taken stock of the room. Not that there was much to see. Based on the window set high in the wall, and the musty smell, I was in a basement. The floor was finished—some kind of vinyl—but the walls looked like plain plywood. There was a small bathroom in the corner, but it didn’t appear to have a door.
The subtle creak of the stairs made my back clench and my stomach churn. I maneuvered myself onto my other side so I could see.
Roswell came down the stairs carrying a water bottle with a straw. I wanted it so badly I was willing to do… not anything. But a whole lot of things I wouldn’t under different circumstances. Beg being the foremost among them.
He crouched and tilted his head, gazing at me with those dull gray eyes. “You’ve been quiet, just like I told you.”
I decided more silence was likeliest to get me a drink of that water, so I just nodded.
“Good girl.” He held out the bottle and put the straw to my lips.
It took an enormous amount of self-control not to fight back in defiance. To spit on the bottle instead of drink from it and refuse to cooperate with anything he said. But that wasn’t going to get me out of there. I had to stay in character—be the damsel in distress. And my mouth didn’t have any spit.
Lifting my head, I winced at a stab of pain in my neck. I took a small sip from the straw, hoping it was water. It didn’t taste like anything else, so I took another.
“Is that better?” he asked, his voice eerily soft.
I nodded again and laid my head back down on the mattress.
He smiled, as if he were pleased with himself. Or me. It was hard to tell.
What I needed to do was turn this thing around somehow. Keep him feeling like he was in control but get him to give me something I wanted. The bathroom was a good enough place to start. It wasn’t merely a want, it was becoming a desperate need.
I raised my eyes to meet his. “Thank you. ”
“You’re welcome.”
“Roswell?”
He lifted his eyebrows.
“I feel shy about asking this, but…”
“It’s all right. What do you want to ask?”
I lowered my gaze, as if I were embarrassed. I was about to say, I need to use the bathroom, but at the last second, I decided to phrase it as a request. “May I please use the bathroom?”
“Of course. I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared up the stairs. I knew it wouldn’t be my opportunity for escape. I wanted him to think he could trust me—that he could give me more freedom.
But I also knew what he’d done to his other victims. He’d killed the last one.
Was that why I was there? Was he planning to kill me?
He came back down, quiet as ever, and knelt beside the mattress. Using a small pocketknife, he cut through the duct tape, freeing me from the chain, but kept my wrists and ankles bound.
“I’ll help you up.” He took my hands and hoisted me to my feet.
With my ankles tied, I couldn’t walk. He seemed to have already thought it through and picked me up like a baby, with one arm behind my back and the other behind my knees. I wasn’t overweight by any means, but I had some curves, and he carried me to the bathroom like it was effortless.
Definitely stronger than he looked.
He set me down in front of the doorway. “I took the door down. Maybe in our next place, if you’re a good girl, you can have a door.”
It was a half bath with a pedestal sink and toilet. Nothing I could use to hit him over the head. No surprise there. He’d obviously put a lot of thought into everything.
My bladder screamed at me, but I also had an idea. I did not want this guy pulling my pants down. But letting him would go a long way toward convincing him I wasn’t a flight risk.
“Roswell? I, um… I need your help.”
His face lit up with a smile.
Bingo. The damsel was exactly who he wanted me to be.
He came over and paused, his hands poised near my waist. By the shuddering breath he took, he was totally getting off on the prospect of touching me.
I took slow breaths through my nose. Don’t punch him in the face. Don’t punch him in the face.
Yet.
He pulled my pants down, and thankfully, he stepped back. Turning sideways, he looked toward the stairs, apparently to give me privacy.
Lowering myself onto the toilet was tricky, but I managed, and even with Roswell standing right there, I had no trouble releasing my bladder. The rest of the process was awkward, and it made my skin crawl to turn my back to him to wash my hands, but I was glad it no longer felt like my internal organs were going to burst.
Like a compliant child, I lifted my arms out of the way and let him pull up my pants, my nose wrinkling at the scent of cigarettes. How hard would I have to hit him to knock him out? A blow to the temple was probably my best bet, but would I have the chance? I’d only get one shot. If I tried and failed, I didn’t know what he’d do to me.
Still, I noted the presence of the knife in his pocket. And I assumed he still had a full syringe handy.
“Feel better?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
He reached out and held his hand next to my face but hesitated. Without breaking character, I leaned my cheek into his palm .
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m going to take such good care of you.”
I didn’t trust myself to look him in the eyes, so I kept my gaze on the floor. But I nodded.
He smiled at me, his face full of twisted affection. I didn’t know how far I could push him before he got angry or how long I had before he assaulted me in one way or another. One thing I did know—I couldn’t let him move me. I needed to get away before he took me somewhere else. Somewhere farther away and more difficult to find.
Which meant I needed to get out of these bonds. I couldn’t ask him to untie me yet, but maybe I could convince him to give me something else I wanted. Take some of my power back while still making him feel like he was in control.
“Roswell?” I asked in my damsel voice.
He lowered his hand. “Yes, Melanie?”
“I’m hungry.”
“I thought you might be soon.” He picked me up again and set me down on the mattress—seated, instead of lying down. “I’ll be right back.”
He didn’t chain me to the wall, but I could hear him lock the basement door at the top of the stairs. It wasn’t time to make my move, so I didn’t try to get up. I’d be right where he left me.
A minute or two later, he came back down with a bag of potato chips and a small plastic bowl in his hands. By his expression, I could tell he was pleased to find me sitting in the same spot. He sat next to me, opened the bag, and poured some into the bowl, then held it out to me.
I took the bowl and positioned it between my knees, but didn’t take a chip. I felt like my damsel in distress character needed a bit more credibility—a reason I was being so docile.
“You were right about him,” I said.
“About whom? ”
“The guy. The lawyer. It was awful.” I kept my eyes downcast. “He was terrible to me.”
Roswell let out an angry breath. “I knew it. I knew he would be.”
“You don’t want to hurt me, do you? The way he did?”
“No.” He put his hand on my back. “I don’t want to hurt you like he did. I told you, I want to take care of you.”
“Did you hurt those other women? Was that you?”
“I had to. They were part of the process. You don’t need to worry about them.” He paused for a moment, as if deciding how much to tell me. “It was their fault. I would have just let them go if they’d done what I said.”
“But you’re not going to let me go, are you?”
“Melanie, I did all of this for you. So I could have you. So we could be together.”
Well, that was the creepiest thing anyone had ever said to me in my entire life. A sick feeling spread through my stomach. I wasn’t sure what was worse, being abducted by someone who wanted to kill me, or someone who wanted to keep me.
Stay in character, Mel. Keep up the act.
“I was going to break up with the guy in Tilikum,” I lied. “I just hadn’t done it yet.”
“Good.” He rubbed slow circles across my back. “You were more ready for me than I thought.”
My heart started to race in anticipation of what I was about to do next. If he’d watched me all those years ago, he knew I wasn’t quiet and meek. All too quickly, he was going to realize it was all an act.
Plus, I felt like I needed to push him. Get under his skin. Mess with his head.
“These aren’t the chips I like,” I said.
“What?”
That had caught him off guard. Good.
“I don’t like these. ”
He hesitated, and my heart beat so hard, I was surprised he couldn’t hear it. I kept myself still, breathing through my nose so my body language didn’t give away my fear.
“Just eat them,” he said, finally.
I lifted my gaze to his and looked him dead in the eyes, my lower lip protruding in a slight pout. “I need something else.”
His brow furrowed in confusion. “Melanie—”
Grabbing the bowl with my bound hands, I threw it across the room. As it clattered against the far wall, I collapsed onto the mattress, twisting away from Roswell, and started to sob.
“I can’t eat those,” I said between shuddering breaths. “I can’t.”
“But…”
I kept crying, tucking my knees so I was in the fetal position and balling my fists against my eyes. “I’m so hungry.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, a hint of alarm in his tone. “You don’t need to cry. I’ll be right back.”
Instead of creeping up the stairs on silent feet, he hurried, his footfalls echoing in the mostly empty room.
As soon as the door shut behind him, I took a break from my pretend tantrum. Propping myself up on my forearms, I glanced around again. The bowl was still on the floor, surrounded by broken chips. A plastic bowl wasn’t going to be of any use to me, so I didn’t bother trying to retrieve it.
I could hear Roswell’s footsteps upstairs. I was surprised he’d given in so easily, although I wasn’t going to assume a little display of hysterics would get him to untie me. Still, it might be something I could use again.
A scent tickled my nose. What did I smell? It was almost like a faint whiff of campfire. He couldn’t be up there cooking, could he? And it wasn’t the scent of burning food on the stove or in the oven.
The smell didn’t last, disappearing as quickly as it had come, replaced by the basement mustiness. Maybe I’d imagined it.
As soon as Roswell opened the door, I lay down, curling into a ball. My eyes were still wet with tears, and I sniffed loudly, as if I’d been crying the entire time.
“Melanie?” He sat on the mattress. “Sit up.”
Because I was nothing if not a drama queen, I didn’t. Just curled up into a tighter ball and let out a whimper.
He touched my back again. “I brought food. Aren’t you hungry?”
I turned over, and he helped me into a sitting position. He had indeed brought food. In fact, he’d made a sandwich.
Why I found that so funny—considering I was still tied up and at the mercy of a murderer—I have no idea, but I almost laughed out loud. One little tantrum and he’d gone from offering me no-effort snack food to preparing a meal. A simple meal, to be sure, but it had worked.
I thought about asking him to free my hands so I could eat, but my instincts told me I should wait. The damsel would be sweet, compliant, and thankful. For now. I just needed a little more time, and I was pretty sure I could convince him to untie me.
The hint of campfire tickled my nose again, but I was too preoccupied with my makeshift plan—and staying in character—to pay attention to it.
As long as he didn’t try to move me too soon, I might have a chance to get away.