Chapter 12
Elise
Bradon did as he said and returned with a cold bag of ice for my face and two pills.
I took them, not caring at the minute if they were what he said they were or not.
The pain in my side stung every time I breathed in, the throbbing in my cheek and eye was matching my heartbeat, and thankfully, the bleeding in my nose finally stopped.
I feared what I looked like, and I worried my injuries would make escaping harder. I didn’t know if I could run if needed, and being truly trapped here scared me to my core.
The pain meds kicked in and I fell asleep with the ice pack rested over my nose and eyes.
I woke up sometime later in the day and struggled to press myself up from the bed.
The basement was silent as I attempted to get out of bed, only to feel the burning in my side.
I pressed my hand to my ribs and winced as the pain took my breath away.
It took a moment for the discomfort to subside and only then did I get up and start shuffling to the door to the bedroom.
My right eye wasn’t as swollen as my left, and I could see for the most part as I stepped into the basement. Looking around, I saw that I was alone, and tears flooded my eyes, causing them to sting as I shuffled back to the bedroom and closed the door.
Depression and the reality that I might not survive this began to press down on me, and I let the tears flow, allowing the self-pity to overtake me. I sat on the bed, crying against my raised knees for a few minutes, before I heard Chuck’s voice in my head.
‘You aren’t allowed to wallow for more than a minute. Then you need to find a way past the pain and free yourself.’
His words of advice always seemed to ring in my ears at the right moment, and I took his advice to heart.
Breathing deep, I moaned as I got out of the bed and walked back into the basement.
I needed water and with every step I climbed up to the kitchen door, I felt a little stronger in my soul, even if the pain was ricocheting through my body.
I couldn’t stand for long, so I sat on the top step and began to knock softly on the door, hoping Bradon was the one who heard me. But then the memories of him attacking me, punching and slapping me in front of a dozen cameras, while they must have recorded my beating, played out in my head.
He may not seem to like Kendra, but she was calling the shots, and he was the one to beat me.
So having him show up might not be a good thing.
I never knew when he would do her bidding and attack me again.
I was defenseless and while I know she enjoyed it, why did he do it when he was so nice afterward?
I kept knocking every few minutes for I didn’t know how long it was, when the door finally opened. I nearly fell into the kitchen since I was propped against the door, and I looked up with my good eye to see Bradon standing above me.
“What do you want?” he asked with a harshness in his voice.
“Water, please,” I returned, and he gave a curt nod before walking farther into the kitchen.
He returned with two ice-cold bottles of water and handed them to me before he asked, “Is there anything else?”
I pushed off the floor and tried to hide my pain as I retreated behind the threshold of the kitchen door. “No. Thank you.” I don’t know why, but I tacked on an additional word. “Sir.”
He gave me a small smile and offered me a hand to help me stand.
I reached up and felt his fingers intertwine with mine.
On reflex, I linked my fingers with his and let him help me to my feet.
Keeping the water in the other arm, I held onto him until I was steady before removing my hand from his and placing it on the banister.
Glancing over my shoulder, I said again, “Thank you,” before carefully walking down the stairs.
The door didn’t close behind me and when I got to the bottom, I turned up and looked back at him.
He stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his legs spread while he observed me in my injured state.
The look on his face was unreadable before he stepped back and closed the door, leaving me alone in the windowless room again.
I returned to the bedroom with the two bottles of water and sat down before opening one and taking a sip.
The coldness felt nice on my dry mouth and throat, but it burned a cut in my lip.
I took sips until the entire bottle was drained.
Feeling slightly better from the fluids, I placed the other bottle onto the bed and stood from the bed.
I needed to clean my cuts, so I opened the door and began to inspect the few boxes stacked against the far side of the room.
I’d glanced through them yesterday but hadn’t seen anything that could help me then, but my needs have changed.
I needed a rag to wipe away the blood and something to wrap around my busted ribs to relieve the discomfit I felt with each inhale.
The first box had old video tapes of a family called the Greene’s, and I wondered who they were and why their tapes were in the basement.
That wasn’t information that would help me, so I pushed the box off to the side and opened the next one.
I lucked out and found three old washcloths inside the box, mixed in with various old kitchen gadgets.
Hope filled me as I saw what looked like a small pocket corkscrew, and when I pulled the cap off the end, I discovered it was exactly what I hoped it was.
The small screw tucked inside the cap, but when apart, you pushed the cap through a hole in the top of the screw side, allowing you to remove the corks from bottles.
I had one in a picnic box at my apartment and for the first time, I didn’t feel defenseless.
I slipped the cap back on and pushed the small object into the pocket of my blue jeans.
It might not kill someone, but it would hurt if I could get it into a sensitive area of the body.
Without anything to do, I kept looking through the boxes, hoping to glean something that would help me when I finally escaped, because I was going to escape. And when I did, I was going to give Devlin one chance to explain that crazy bitch’s declarations before I took my boys and left.
If she was telling the truth, and he is her husband, then I owe him no loyalty and I will walk away. As much as it would kill a piece of my soul, I had more self-respect then to be used by anyone. Including Devlin Callahan.
One of the boxes had a stack of paperwork, but my eyes were too swollen for me to read them for long.
Shoving the papers back into the box, I pushed everything back against the wall and returned to the bedroom to clean myself up.
I didn’t use the whole bottle of water since it took a while to get anyone to answer the door.
Then I started to think. How long did I sit there, waiting for someone to hear my knocks before they came into the kitchen? Would I be able to get out of the basement and out of the house before I was detected, or would one of them stop me?
I was too tired from the beating to attempt it at that moment, and after I got what I hoped was most of the blood off my face and neck, I tossed the bloody rag into the far corner and laid onto the small bed.
I didn’t want to sleep, but I was exhausted from fighting for every breath I inhaled, and without wanting to, I slipped off into a fitful sleep.
It was freshmen year of college, and I was finally starting to get the hang of everything.
The first week, I was late to every class since I kept getting lost. The second week, I was studying so hard, I forgot to eat two nights in a row.
By the third week, I had started to make friends with a few of the girls on my dorm floor, and last week, a cute guy smiled at me as I worked on a paper in the library.
Determined to make the most of this opportunity, I set my alarm an hour early and made sure I was fed and prepared for class to start this week. As I entered my freshman econ class, I saw there were only three other people in the room, so I found a seat near the front of the room and sat down.
Sliding my backpack over the back of the seat, I pulled out my textbook and notebook so I could look over the notes from last week before class started. This class wasn’t important to what I wanted to major in, but every class counted toward my scholarship, so I made sure to know the material.
Not paying attention, I didn’t realize anyone had taken the seat next to me until I felt an elbow bump into my arm.
Looking over, I saw a cute guy sitting there, his blond hair sticking up on the top, as he pushed his glasses up his nose and turned the page to his book.
He must have felt me looking at him because he turned and I was met with a beautiful pair of green eyes.
“Sorry,” he mumbled and went back to his book.
“No problem,” I responded, looking over my notes again.
The professor came into the classroom a few minutes later, and a little over an hour from then, he dismissed us, giving us a mountain of homework before we met again on Thursday.
I stood with everyone else and began to gather my items to return to my backpack when I lifted my eyes to the guy beside me.
He smiled down at me as I stood and slipped my heavy backpack onto my shoulder. I returned the gesture and turned to walk away when he spoke. “I’m Michael.”
“Elise,” I returned and gave him a nod before turning and leaving the classroom with the rest of the students.
Michael bounced around the room most of the semester, and a few times, he sat next to me.
He was cute, in a nerdy kind of way, and he seemed sweet, but he wasn’t the boy for me, so I never gave him a second look.
The only person who filled my dreams was the dark man with the hypnotic blue eyes who saved me when I thought my life was at its lowest.
He promised he’d return for me, and I started to think it was a false promise.
I never gave up hope that he would return, but it had been two years, and I’d kept him my secret, just like he demanded.
At times, I questioned if he was real, then I’d remember the sheets covering my adoptive parents’ bodies, and I remembered the scream as he dealt with them and their treatment of me.
I wasn’t paying attention leaving class one day and my foot had slipped, causing me to start to fall down the marble steps of my building.
Someone grabbed hold of my backpack, pulling me from the ledge and saving me a lot of pain.
I turned to see Michael standing behind me, his green eyes wide as he asked, “Are you okay?”
“I am, thanks to you,” I returned, and then, on a whim, I asked, “Can I buy you a soda for saving my life?”
He pushed his glasses up his nose and looked around before his eyes met mine. “Sure,” he replied, even though he didn’t seem eager to join me.
It wasn’t a big moment in a person’s life—it was just a soda to say thanks for not letting me fall.
He kept looking around as we sat on the bench in the quad, sipping on our cans of soda.
I tried to engage him in conversation, but he gave short, almost non-answers, so I figured, like me, he had things he didn’t want to speak of.
When we finished, I stood and simply said, “Thank you again.”
He nodded and pushed his glasses up his nose before turning and walking down the sidewalk.
He was odd in a unique way, but who was I to judge?
His figure grew smaller until he got to the corner of the street and a car rolled up.
He stepped beside it, opened the back door, and got into the vehicle.
It turned away from me, and I shrugged, thinking that’s who he was looking for.
Michael never reappeared in class after that day, and by the time my freshman year was over, he was a distant memory of the asshole I’d dated the second half of my freshman year.
That bastard cheated on me, giving me my first real heartbreak, and the sweet boy who stopped me from getting hurt wasn’t even a thought after that.
I woke up to a light knocking on the bedroom door. Sitting up, I tried to cover my painful utterance before I said, “Come in.”
Bradon opened the door, and his expression appeared worried as he walked into the room. I slid up to the headboard, crossing my legs under me as he placed a tray with my food onto the foot of the bed.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, and I reached up, delicately touching my face.
It was swollen and I’m sure bruised, but I responded, “I’m fine.”
His lips pinched before he sighed deeply and said, “There are two more pain pills with your food.”
I looked to see two sandwiches, a bag of chips, and two bottles of water. I lifted my eyes to him and said, “Thank you.”
He stepped backward out of the room and he made a gesture with his hand before quickly dropping it. It was the motion someone would make to push their glasses up if they slipped down and when his eyes met mine, I saw a familiar green looking back at me.
“I’ll let you rest,” he simply said and turned to leave the basement.
“Bradon,” I rushed out, needing one more look to be sure if the memory was accurate or something my concussed brain was creating.
He turned and looked at me, asking, “Yes?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat as our eyes connected and the sweet boy from my freshman econ class stood in front of me, unsure and awkward. He’d changed in the last fifteen years, but I was sure it was the same person.
Why was he back now?
Who was he? Michael? Bradon? Or someone else completely.
“Thanks for the food,” I said and lowered my eyes, trying to hide my recognition of him.
“Rest. Tomorrow . . .” He shook his head and paused before adding, almost in a whisper, “Just don’t make her mad and you’ll survive this.”
Without another word, he turned and walked up the stairs, leaving me alone with two realizations.
The first was the man who beat me this morning was the same boy who saved me all those years ago.
And second, whatever I experienced today was going to pale in comparison to whatever fresh hell tomorrow was bringing.
I hate every bite of food, making sure to drink as much as I could before I felt sloshy inside. After using the bathroom, I laid down and pulled the think blanket over me as worry and a glimmer of hope filled me.
If he saved me once, would he save me again?
Was I strong enough to survive tomorrow?
What was Kendra’s plan for me and would I be able to live through her madness?