Seraphina #2
I saw the strike before he committed to it.
There was enough tension through his elbow and wrist to chart the entire movement before his hand ever reached me. Under ordinary circumstances I could have leaned away from it. Under ordinary circumstances.
Whatever had been inside the syringe was still swimming lazily through my muscles, turning every command my brain issued into a delayed suggestion.
I moved. Far too late. The back of his hand crashed across my face.
The sound echoed through the warehouse before the pain arrived. White shown behind my eyes not darkness but white.
A brilliant, blinding sheet of light burst across my vision as my head snapped sideways. My teeth slammed together so violently I bit through the inside of my cheek. Warm copper flooded my mouth almost immediately, thick and metallic, trickling over my tongue.
Inside I screamed.
Ow. That hurt. Quite a lot.
Outside, I slowly turned my head back towards him. Blood slipped from the corner of my mouth. I smiled anyway.
"...That's disappointing."
He frowned.
"I genuinely expected more."
His breathing changed. Faster. Rougher. Good.
"I've met children with better follow-through."
For one suspended heartbeat I wondered whether he'd laugh. Instead, his fingers buried themselves into the front of my cardigan. The fabric tightened painfully across my ribs before my feet left the ground altogether. The world lurched and suddenly I was upside down over his shoulder.
He carried me as though I weighed nothing. Behind us the women watched without speaking. One reached towards me instinctively before another pulled her hand back down.
The container doors slammed shut. Steel struck steel. Bolts slid home. Their faces disappeared. The men outside laughed. Not loudly.
Comfortably.
The sort of laughter people produce when they're convinced, they're watching something harmless.
I've always preferred being underestimated.
People become wonderfully careless around things they don't consider dangerous.
They leave doors unlocked. They forget conversations.
They stop paying attention. He dragged me into the warehouse opposite the container.
The smell hit first. Old machine oil. Wet timber.
Mould. Dust. Something sweet beneath it all. Decay.
The chair waited beneath a single hanging bulb. Solid oak. Heavy. Impossible to break without leverage. He shoved me down hard enough for the wood to jar my spine before reaching for a coil of thick hemp rope hanging from a nearby beam.
The rope was old. Well used. Fibres flattened smooth in places. New strands tied into old repairs. Not the first time the rope was used to bound someone. Certainly not the last.
He wrapped it around my wrists with mechanical efficiency. Once. Twice. Three times. Then he pulled. The coarse fibres bit immediately through the tender skin around my wrists. Too tight. Intentionally. The pressure built until every heartbeat forced another sharp wave of pain through my hands.
"My boyfriend..." I said softly, smiling up at him through the blood still clinging to my lower lip, "...is going to beat the absolute shit out of you for that."
He answered by pulling harder. The rope cut deeper. Heat exploded through both wrists. Pins and needles flooded my fingers before sensation began disappearing altogether.
Inside I was screaming in pain, but on the outside I smiled wider.
Something flickered across his face. Not fear but confusion.
People become deeply unsettled when pain produces the wrong expression.
He stared another second before grunting to himself, turning away and disappearing through the heavy iron doorway.
The lock engaged behind him. One bolt. Then another. Then silence.
I rested my head against the back of the chair and closed my eyes for only a moment.
Elias...Please come home. Please notice the back door. Please notice the flour still scattered across the counter. Please notice Gerald’s fallen pieces. Please.
A drop of water struck concrete somewhere deep inside the warehouse. Another. Another. Each one is perfectly spaced. Like a metronome. Measuring time for something neither of us could see.
Slowly I lifted my head again looking at you.
You've stayed…I wasn't sure you would have I thought maybe you would've closed the book already.
The warehouse was still silent. My eyes wandered lazily towards the darkness beyond the doorway. Another slow drip echoed somewhere overhead. Footsteps came measured and unhurried.
One. Then another.
A shadow stretched slowly across the concrete until it reached my bare feet. It stopped. I looked up. Recognition struck me harder than the slap ever had.
"...You?"
For the first time since waking inside the container… I genuinely hadn't expected this. A slow smile unfolded across my face, not because I was safe but because everything had just become infinitely more complicated or well interesting.
"...Well."
I laughed quietly.
"This is a wonderful plot twist."
I whispered into the dark, my eyes locking onto theirs.
"This just became remarkably interesting."
I tilted my head, my dark eyes shifting from the figure right back onto yours, the distance between us narrowing down to a single line of text before the slate goes clean.
What is it I said to you in the beginning? Monsters aren't always what they seem.
My smile widened, sharp and hollow and perfectly calm.
They look like people you've already decided to trust…