TWENTY
It was the sound that woke her up. The darkness tried to keep her under, tried to keep her blissfully in its cold embrace. But she fought her way to the surface, irritated that it wouldn't stop. The whoosh-whoosh-whooshing. It just wouldn't let up. She grasped toward consciousness, immediately regretting it. But there was no way to go back into that comforting nothingness. There was no way to escape.
The room was different. That was the first thing she thought as her eyes opened, struggling against the splitting headache that was at her temples. But it was different. Smaller. Darker. Colder.
Ellie looked down at her feet, realizing for the first time that she was standing in water. It wasn't much, just a few inches, barely covering the tops of her feet. There was the aching in her arms and shoulders, a numbness in her fingers. From being shackled above her head. That much, at least, she had been expecting.
She was alone. The door was closed. The cinderblock walls were not padded. Not that it would matter. She wasn't going to scream. Not for help. Not out of pain. Nothing. She couldn't give him that. She'd be damned if she gave him that sick sort of pleasure he would get from her begging. She might have been completely powerless, but she was still in control of her voice if nothing else.
Ellie took a deep breath, smelling must and old water, and she wondered how long she had been there? A few hours? Days?
The worst part was not knowing, being completely in the black about basic things. Like the time of day, the day of the year, how much of her life she was losing.
She flexed her feet in the cold water until the pins and needles vanished, standing up straighter to ease the stress on her arms, her wrists. They weren't bleeding yet. She couldn't have been there long.
Wherever she was.
Obviously, it was not in Nick's old house. It wasn't her familiar, old, personal little house of horrors.
The hysteria bubbled up unbidden, instinctual, and she fought against it. Freaking out wasn't going to fix it. Nothing was going to fix it. She needed to find ways to bear it.
Over the years, between the endless hours of trying to create new lives, the thought would pop up. The 'what-ifs'. What if he finally got her one day? What would she do? How could she escape? Or how could she not completely lose her mind while stuck in there?
She had read stories, stories from survivors of torture. If you aren't a person of faith, they suggested, it was time to find God. Pray. And when prayer wasn't enough, meditation could work. Buddhist monks could burn themselves to death without moving an inch. You had to think of things that keep you positive. Your spouse. Your parents. Your children.
Xander.
K.
They were the only two people in the world who meant anything.
They were the only ones who could help her through it.
She wondered about K. What he must have thought when the line went dead. Had he panicked? God, would he try to find her? Even as the thought was forming, she knew he would. Of course he would. But it wouldn't matter. Because he wouldn't find her. Not now that Nick had moved. Not if, maybe, she was stashed away in the middle of the woods somewhere. Who knew where she could be?
As if sensing her thoughts, the door opened, and the only person in the world who did, indeed, know where she was, stepped inside.
He looked older. The only times she had gotten a look at him in the recent past were full of panic, of dread, of trying to plan an escape. She had never stopped and taken a look at him. But his hair was starting to thin at his temples. The frown lines between his brows had etched deeper and there were new ones from the edge of his lips toward his chin, cutting deep, the skin almost looking like it was folding in on itself. There was even a little pouch of fat around his midsection that had never been there before.
How old was he? She found it weird that she never asked him that while they were dating. But he was older by at least ten years. She used to guess he was about thirty when they met. Way too old for her. So, that put him somewhere in his mid, or late if she was off in her estimation, thirties.
He had marks on his face from where she hit him. There was a long red mark across his cheek and nose. His eye was blackened slightly. She felt a surge of pleasure at the sight.
"Eleanor," he said, her name rolling around his mouth with too much familiarity, making her skin crawl. "I missed you," he said, moving toward the wall across from her and leaning against it.
She looked down at his feet, finding him wearing rubber boots. Actual rubber boots. In a bright, obnoxious red. It was so ridiculous that she almost wanted to laugh.
"How terrible for you," she found herself saying, knowing she should just stay silent. Knowing that talking was only going to get her beaten worse. But she couldn't help it. Years of bitterness and anger, kept buried deep, started coming to the surface.
Nick smiled, a small quirk to one side of his mouth. "Being away has made you feisty," he said then shrugged a shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll fix that." The threat was there, but mild, under a layer of some kind of sweetness. "How have you been, Eleanor? You grew your hair. I preferred it shorter."
"Get used to disappointment," she said, lifting her chin, knowing that was the one. The last straw.
But he chuckled. It was a low, rolling sound in his chest. "Have you ever ridden horses, El?" he asked, knowing full well she had not. "The only thing better than a horse that already blindly accepts your command, is a horse you have to break yourself." He pushed off the wall, walking closer, the water sloshing about her feet as he did so. He stopped about a foot away from her, reaching out to stroke her cheek.
She wanted to look away, to see anything other than him putting his hands on her. But she kept her chin lifted and sought out his eyes. Defiant. Unbending.
"It is going to be an absolute pleasure to break you," he said, leaning in and planting a kiss on her cheek.
She balled up her fists, wanting to hit him, wanting to hit him more than she had ever wanted to hit anyone ever before. But he moved back, looking at her for a long moment, before opening the door. He stepped out and she waited, holding her breath. Because it wasn't over. He wasn't going to just... not do anything.
Just as she thought maybe she was wrong, Nick was back with Bobby and a battered-looking Jason on his heels. They were all carrying ten gallon buckets in their hands. Jason smiled at her as he threw the first bucket onto the floor. Ellie watched as ice splashed into the water.
More and more buckets came until there was more ice than water. Until she felt the hopelessness of it fill her.
Then Nick was closing the door, watching her, smiling.
It didn't take long for the cold to set in. She took turns lifting one foot out of the ice and water, wiping it against her pant leg, holding it up until it thawed. Until the skin wasn't an awful, angry red. Then she sunk it back in and repeated the same process with the other foot.
It would melt. She comforted herself with that idea. Eventually, it would melt. It was cold in her cell, but not freezing. It would melt. And then it would just be like a cool bath. No big deal.
She needed to stay positive. She needed to be clear-minded and alert. She couldn't even think of sleep until the ice was fully melted. She didn't want to risk frostbite because she was sleepy. In her mind, she ran the streets of her old city. Seattle and D.C. Philly and Portland. New York. She cleared out the people, the noise on the streets and concentrated on the routes. Up and down. Over. Through.
She made a promise to herself that if or when she got out, she would go back. She would run those streets one last time. But not because she needed to. Not because it was her only way to ensure her survival. Just because. Because it was something that helped her through the cold, helped her forget the stabbing in her feet, helped her block out the chattering of her teeth.
She ran those streets for hours, watching ice cubes sink into the puddle, watching the water rise up toward her ankles. Time was a strange foreign concept with her overhead fluorescent light. The lack of windows. There were no clocks anywhere.
So she started to count the seconds.
One. Two. Three.
Three-thousand six-hundred.
Three-thousand six-hundred was an hour.
She got there four times before she felt her eyes getting heavy. Sleep meant she would lose track of minutes, of hours. But she needed the escape. She needed the strength. At least she would still have a roundabout idea of how much of her life was wasting away.
The door opening woke her up. She sucked in a deep breath, blinking the stubborn sleep out of her eyes and trying to ignore the screaming in her shoulder blades from her unconscious weight pulling against her shackles.
Nick walked in, red boots splashing, a cup of coffee in his hand. "Oh," he said, managing to look almost sheepish. "I hope you didn't want any," he said, gesturing with his cup.
She would gnaw off her own leg to get that kind of warmth. But she clenched her jaw, trying to stop the chattering and shook her head. "I hate coffee," she said, the words full of deeper meaning: I hate coffee because of you. I hate coffee because we used to share that. I hate coffee. But not nearly as much as I hate you.
"Oh, right," Nick said, nodding, unfazed. "It's all about the tea now. When you're finally done down here, I'll make sure Bobby picks some up for you."
So he planned to let her out? One day. One day when she seemed repentant, when she begged for mercy, when she told him she loved him again, that she was wrong for leaving, that she missed him. Then he would bring her back into his life. She would be an ornamental accessory, a body to slam into at night, a face to accept his fist as fitting and deserved punishment.
She wanted to think she was strong enough to withstand anything. That there was no chance of her breaking. But she knew better. She knew that, given the right kind of persuasion, you could make someone do just about anything. Turn on their families. Throw their lives away.
There was a chance that she could end up in that life again. She could be a seat filler at events. She would once again become a timid, submissive facsimile of her former self.
Nothing but a glorified punching bag.
But she would be fed. And kept warm.
It could happen. It could happen a lot easier than she would have liked to imagine before. She always thought she could take it: grit her teeth, try to slip away, live, recover, then go through the process again. Until one day he finally went too far and pushed her into a coma. Or killed her.
But the way out would be easier. Unpleasant in its own way. But easier.
"Did you know, El, that there are five kinds of pain used as punishment?" he paused. Torture. He meant torture. "There is blunt, sharp, loud, hot, and cold. Yesterday, we obviously tried cold. How did that go for you?"
"Like a vacation in the alps," Ellie said, her voice weaker than she would like. She was so tired and hungry. The last thing she had eaten was that power bar back at that hotel. That had felt like forever ago. Weeks. Months. But it was probably a day. Maybe a little more.
Nick gave her a tight-lipped smile. "It would go to follow that we would continue today with heat, but I am going to save that for another few days." When she was already good and dehydrated. So she could sweat into misery. Or maybe he was going to burn her. A part of her thought she might prefer burns to inescapable heat. "I think we should get the most unpleasant out of the way now. What do you say? Sharp?" he reached into his pocket, grabbing a knife and flicking it open. He stood there a moment, admiring the blade, testing the sharpness with his fingertip.
Ellie tensed. Sharp could be tolerated. Sharp could be quick and shallow. She didn't think he had any intentions of actually stabbing her. His fun would be over with too quickly then.
He paused, moving to put his coffee cup down by the door. "I really like your skin, Eleanor. It's so pale and soft looking. I'd really hate to mark you up all over. So why don't we agree to choose somewhere that no one will ever really see?" he asked, walking closer. He reached out, grabbing her leg and pulling it outward, running the dull edge of the knife along the sole of her foot.
So, it was the feet.
Ellie turned her head away, leaning heavily on her restraints, trying to focus on that pain. The body could only focus on so much pain at once. Whichever one hurt most, she'd be feeling. And she much rather feel pain she inflicted herself.
She felt him grab her toes, flexing her foot out.
She bit into her lip to keep her mouth shut, closed her eyes, and thought of Xander.
She thought about his dark eyes. She thought of his lips that always seemed to quirk up at strange times, finding humor in unusual topics. She thought of is arms and how safe she felt encircled in them.
The blade made the first cut into her skin, sharp, a twinge that made her leg jerk, then a burning as the blood started to drip out.
Xander and his soft hair.
Another cut.
Xander and his silly, cocky swagger.
Another cut. Deeper.
She pressed harder down on her wrists.
Xander and his scars. Scars that he wasn't ashamed of. Scars that he wore like a badge of honor.
Another cut. Another direction.
Xander and his toe-tingling kiss.
Nick pulled up her other foot.
Xander inside her. Xander on top of her. Xander beneath her.
Nick was frustrated. He was cursing and dragging the blade deeper.
She wasn't going to cry. She let all her weight fall onto one wrist, feeling her shoulder object painfully.
Xander. Xander. Xander. Xander. Xander. Xander
And then it was over. Nick slammed the door shut in his frustration and she shifted her weight more comfortably, turning her head and lifting up her feet to inspect. She survived. She got through sharp. Sharp was the worst.
She sunk her feet into the water, swishing around, cleaning out the cuts. The pool around her feet streaked with red and she kicked until she stopped bleeding, stepping up onto her tiptoes and counting.
Two-thousand three-hundred fifty three.
Two-thousand three-hundred fifty four...