Charlie #2
For a split second, all the tension in my muscles releases at once, and I’m boneless. There’s a weird comfort to someone taking charge, to someone knowing what to do when I have nothing left.
But I know I can’t stay here. I have to go. It’s not safe. I have to get back to my apartment, triple-lock the door, and put all the furniture in front of it if I have to. I have to get away before things get worse—because they always do.
“I gotta go home,” I say, voice microscopic.
“Yes, you do,” he agrees, sounding like he’s granting my wish. There’s a ripple of hope through me until he adds, “And I’m taking you there.”
My head snaps up, and my eyes meet his for the first time. He’s smiling, but it’s not a mean smile; it’s not even particularly pleased. It’s more like inevitability. Like this has already been decided, and now it just needs to happen.
“W-what?” I stammer, but my jaw is already tensing, and I realize it’s hard to open my mouth more than a sliver.
“It’s time to go home, Charlie,” he says, and his arm pulls me in even tighter, not exactly hurting me but making it clear I’d have to really hurt myself to escape. The way he says my name makes my skin prickle. Like he owns it.
“No,” I say, louder, “No, I go my own home.”
He shakes his head, as if I’m a silly puppy. “You won’t be going back there.”
“Yes, I will!” My voice is high and shaky and the room is starting to tip sideways. “I go home now. Not with you.” I try to push away, but it’s like pressing against a steel beam.
His hand is so gentle, moving up and down my back, a sick contradiction to the clamp around my body.
“Shh, you’re okay. I’m going to take excellent care of you.” He says it like he means it, which is so much worse than if he were lying.
The words scrape out of me, “I don’t know you!” I push harder, but my arms are wet noodles. “I don’t go with strangers!”
He leans down, so close I can smell his aftershave and feel the warmth of his breath. “You’re not going with a stranger, sweetheart. You’re going home with your Daddy.”
The way he says “Daddy” makes it sound like a fact of nature, like gravity or death.
I want to tell him he’s wrong. I want to scream. But my chest is squeezing so tight that it takes everything I have not to just collapse in on myself.
“You can’t take me!” I whisper, but my voice breaks on the last syllable. “You’re not my Daddy!” I try to glare at him, but I can’t hold his gaze. I look down at my lap, and the shame hits me like a wave—I’m twenty-five goddamn years old, and I’m so scared I can’t even sit up straight.
His hand stops its petting for a second and instead cups the back of my head, thumb tracing a line from the base of my skull up into my hair. For a fraction of a second, I think he’s going to break my neck. But the touch is so delicate it almost makes me cry harder.
“Charlie,” he says, and now his voice is different—still soft, but with something hard and final underneath. “You have a choice right now.”
I swallow, but my throat is raw, and nothing moves. “I don’t want—”
He doesn’t wait for me to finish.
“You can come with me willingly,” he murmurs, “or you can make this more difficult.”
The words are simple, but my brain can’t process them. I’m so busy trying to stay upright and not throw up that I barely understand what he’s saying. None of this makes sense. This is a scene from a movie, not my life. People aren’t actually like this. This can’t be real.
“I wanna go home,” I say one last time, but it comes out as a whimper.
He just shakes his head, almost fondly. “You are going home.”
I sob, “No! My home!” but it’s already too late. His thumb catches a tear as it slides down my cheek, wipes it away like he has every right to touch my face.
“You’re going to your new home, sweetheart,” he says, and the tenderness in his voice is so at odds with the horror that it makes me dizzy.
I start to fight in earnest now. I try to twist, to kick, to scramble off his lap, but he’s so strong, and I’m so weak that I end up just flailing, legs useless and arms pinned.
The big part of my brain wants to bite, to scream, to go wild, but the little part is telling me it’s pointless, that he’ll just hurt me if I make it harder.
He doesn’t hurt me. He just holds me tighter and looks up, over my head, toward the glass wall that separates the playroom from the rest of the club.
“Constantine.”
The door opens, and a second man enters.
He’s even taller than my captor, lean and sharp-faced, with a look that says he’s already sized up every exit in the room.
He’s wearing a suit, like a bodyguard or an undertaker, and when his eyes land on me, there’s a flicker of something—maybe pity, maybe just calculation.
My blood runs electric.
“N-no,” I gasp, trying to shrink into my captor’s chest, but the new man just steps closer, his presence making the already-small room feel like a closet.
“P-please,” I whisper, looking from one to the other. “I don’t want to—please—”
My captor’s lips brush the shell of my ear, so close I can feel the words. “Charlie. Listen to me.”
I shake my head so hard my vision doubles. The tears are streaming now, a steady leak I can’t control.
“I don’t wanna go!” I sob, louder than before. “I don’t wanna! Please let me go!”
The new man, Constantine, says nothing. He just stands by the door, hands folded, eyes solemn.
“You need to decide,” the first man says, and his calmness is terrifying. “Will you come with me like a good boy, or will my friend need to make you take a little nap?”
My legs go completely numb. My vision pops and flickers at the edges. There’s a high ringing in my ears, and my body starts to shake violently.
He waits for my answer.
“I—I—I—no—” My tongue is thick, useless. “Please,” I beg, “please don’t, I’ll—I’ll be good, I’ll listen, I’ll—”
He nods, like he was expecting that all along. “That’s my good boy,” he says, and the words settle over my shoulders like a weighted blanket.
But it doesn’t help. It just makes everything worse.
Everything feels wrong.
Too loud.
Too close.
Too scary.
The big part of me is screaming to run.
The little part of me is crying because he called me a good boy.
And the fear—the fear makes everything smaller.
It makes my thoughts slower and makes me want to suck my thumb and hide from the world in the man’s nice coat, even though I’m scared of him.
“I don’t know,” I sob helplessly. “I don’t know what to do…”
I feel too little.
Too scared.
Too tired.
And somehow, still safest right here in his arms.
I flinch when the man’s friend takes a step closer to us.
His gaze seems to soften when I hiccup out another sob, and his voice is gentle as he says, “Hey, Charlie. This is really scary, huh?”
I nod so fast my head swims, then lean further into the warmth surrounding me.
“I’m sorry we’ve scared you, Charlie,” he murmurs. “Your Daddy really isn’t great at patience. But you know what?”
“W-what?” I ask, wiping my messy face with the sleeve of my hoodie.
The man doesn’t stay looming over me, but crouches down until he’s closer to my level. He’s still big and scary, but it helps that he’s not towering over me now.
“That better?” he asks softly.
I sniff and nod a little.
Behind me, the man holding me slides his hand up to the base of my skull, fingers pressing there gently.
“This spot hurts sometimes, doesn’t it?” he asks.
My breath stutters. “Yeah…”
His thumb moves lower, then back up again, working out the tension with slow circles while his other hand starts smoothing down my arm.
The crouching man—Constantine—gives the one holding me a look I don’t understand before turning back to me.
“Charlie,” he says gently, “your Daddy’s been looking for you for a very, very long time.”
My fingers tighten in the stranger’s coat again. “He has?”
Constantine nods. “For years,” he adds. “He wants a baby boy. One he can take care of, protect, spoil rotten.”
Spoil.
Protect.
Take care of.
The words echo in my chest like a promise.
“And when Nikolaus saw you,” Constantine says, “he got a little ahead of himself.”
Nikolaus’s fingers slide through my hair again, taking care not to tug on any knots he encounters.
“I did,” Nikolaus admits quietly behind me. “But just because I knew, from the moment I saw you, that you were mine.”
His hand returns to the base of my skull.
Press.
Circle.
Press.
Circle.
“You were exactly what I’ve been waiting for.”
“That’s not—” I whisper weakly. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough,” he answers. “And I will take great pleasure in learning the rest.”
Constantine watches my face carefully before questioning, “Is there anything you want but never thought you could have?”
I nod shakily.
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” Nikolaus whispers into my hair. “Whatever you need will be yours.”
“You’re tired, Charlie,” Constantine says as Nikolaus’s thumb drifts lightly down my neck. “And you shouldn’t have to do everything alone.” Nikolaus’s hand slides up again to cradle the back of my head. “He wants to take care of you.”
“You don’t have to be alone anymore,” Nikolaus adds, voice soft as falling snow.
My chest tightens so much it hurts because I want that more than anything, and the thought terrifies me almost as much as the fear that still thrums beneath my skin.
“I don’t know you,” I whisper again, my voice even weaker.
“You will,” he promises.