EMMA

The production crew went into a frenzy of activity, most taking quick glances at me as they passed by the stage running here or there to do whatever it is they do. In the center of it all, Ethan stood silently, his arms crossed, his eyes shadowed, and the smile he'd worn after I was defeated by the violence I didn't know lived inside me was lost to him. His lips were back to their cruel line, his scrutinous eyes studying me from his safe perch amongst the swirling cloud of people flitting about, refusing to approach the stage.

A guard who had stood at the back of the room moved forward, his shoulders broad, his body dressed all in black, like a shadow within the suits and ties, crisp shirts and shiny shoes of the crew. I'd never really noticed until now that despite the obvious underground dealings of this godforsaken studio, each person treated it as a professional place - like something you would find beneath the glittering lights of Hollywood rather than Hell.

Ethan had set me up to become this thing kneeling over a body that was nothing more than meat, this demon covered in my attackers blood, naked and highlighted by the lights that still beamed down illuminating every mark on my skin, every drop of crimson death that dripped from my hair and face to the floor beneath me.

My eyes shifted over the chaos, my mind failing to comprehend the new atmosphere of a film crew that had at one time written me off but now feared me.

Where'd she get the knife?

How do we get her down?

Will the guard secure her so we can up the stage and remove the body?

Whispers, so many whispers, filtered in and out of my thoughts, whispers that no doubt reached Ethan's ears but failed to draw his concern or censure. He was too proud, even if he didn't appear to be, too smug that he knew what I would do even when I refused to believe it myself.

As the guard attempted to move past Ethan to approach the stage, Ethan shot out a hand, splaying it over the guard's chest in a silent command to stay back. What was he waiting for? Why did he stand there silently after achieving everything he'd hoped to gain from me?

It didn't matter. In the end, he'd made a mistake by neglecting to remember that handing a girl a weapon when you've trapped her in a hellish cage would require brute force to take it from her again.

The hilt of the knife was still tucked snug to my palm, the knuckles of my hands bleached white by how tightly I grasped it. I would kill the first person to approach, and I would force the guard to finally pull his gun and put me down like the rabid dog I'd become.

You never bring a knife to a gunfight and hope to win, but for me, winning wasn't walking away as the last woman standing, winning meant dying a quick death and escaping this place with at least some semblance of my dignity left.

Is that why Ethan had failed to move, failed to speak or even blink an eye? Was he intelligent enough to realize that I wouldn't easily relinquish the only ticket I had to freedom?

He must have known. He wouldn't stop staring me down.

A crewmember found the bravery to climb the stairs and step foot on stage, his eyes pinned to me, his expression worried. I bared my teeth, not caring that the only clothes I wore were the bruises left behind by my attackers hands and the crimson spray of his spilled blood. Pain continued to pulse through me with each beat of my heart and I had no doubt I was physically damaged, but rather than giving in to the burning thrum, I swallowed it, absorbed it, allowed it to keep me just at the precipice of the insanity I needed to escape this place.

It was insane to wish for death, insane to go against the natural instinct we all have to survive. Perhaps that meant I'd been insane all along, from the minute I stepped foot into that drab white entryway and was told to stand by a door.

I didn't recognize it, but Ethan had.

The son of a bitch had known what was standing before him when I'd chosen death and he'd used it to his advantage.

The crewmember stepped closer. I growled and struck out with the knife. He jumped back and almost fell off the stage as Ethan finally raised his voice on a command.

"Stay away from her. Everybody out! I'll take care of our little issue."

Little issue Ha. I may have been a little issue an hour ago, but I was bigger than that now. The crew happily scurried off, unsure how to deal with a woman who had so obviously slipped the leash into the type of violence that makes even serial killers blush. Knife still dripping with the stain of my victim, I eyed Ethan like a hawk, time slowing down again as he pulled something from the belt of the guard's uniform, whispered a few words and stood silently watching as the guard march off.

A door slammed. All noise and activity stopped. I was alone with Ethan Cole.

His hand slipped in his pocket and my eyes darted down to follow the movement. From the distance we were apart, I couldn't quite make out what he'd hidden from view. Bringing his hands together in a slow clap, he stepped forward as cautious and timid as I'd hoped he would be.

"Bravo, my beautiful girl. You played your role well."

My eyes widened, my breath held, my fingers clenching tighter to the handle of the knife. "You'll have to kill me this time. It was stupid to send the guard away."

Ethan laughed. Not the grand, boisterous sound I was used to hearing volley from his lungs, but something softer, more sinister. The kind of laugh that made you wonder what the other person knew that you didn't.

Holding his hands up in feigned placation, he approached the stage but didn't climb the stairs. My shoulders tensed anyway, my body shifting and my mind finally grasping that I was still crouched over a dead body like I would start eating it as soon as the other predator in the room went away.

I wasn't a predator. Not like him. Yet, there I was, protecting my kill, baring my teeth at a man who inched ever so closer, thinking I wouldn't notice the subtle movement. Disgusted by what was done to me, by what I'd done, I shuffled away from the body, ignoring the pain that coursed through me with the movement. I needed a doctor, stitches most likely, some type of medical intervention, but I remembered what Melanie told me about the pain that came with the repair as well as the damage.

Oh, God...was Melanie still alive?

"Let me help you, Emma. He hurt you badly before you reacted. I saw it in your face. I knew he damaged you. I was worried you'd let him kill you."

My back pressed against the wall, the cool plaster like ice on my heated skin. "You didn't look too worried. You just stood there...watching."

His hands slipped into his pockets after he stepped on stage. Stopping his approach, he stared down at me without any discernible emotion written into his blank expression. "Watching is what I do. Would you condemn a tree for sprouting leaves, or a dog for burying a bone? You can't blame me for watching when it's in my nature to do so. Just like I can't condemn you for holding that knife out at me. The fire burns too hot inside your body, especially when you feel the need to protect."

"I am NOT A KILLER!"

The words tore from my throat with the violent volume of a battle cry, shredding the flesh, shaking my body, bouncing off the ceiling and walls like the hail of bullets in war.  Any person would have reacted to that horrifying screech of sound with shock, censure, rage or some other reaction that gave away their emotional response. Any person...but Ethan. He merely smiled, pushed out with his shoe to softly tap the body now lying at his feet.

His eyes dragged a clear line from the body back to me. "I beg to differ. You not only killed, Emma. You slaughtered. I should know. I watched it. I'll edit the film that recorded it. You can watch it yourself when it's finished."

Rage sliced through me, cutting a clear line up my spine, fracturing out across my ribs and filling me until it consumed my heart. "I won't watch that disgusting film."

He visibly flinched. "Disgusting?" Expression twisting with disbelief, the corners of his mouth tilted up. "How can you call that disgusting? It was brilliant. A true record of human emotion, of desperation, of a scorned woman's fury. You don't get that in scripted movies. It's impossible to pull that from trained actors. Nothing hits closer to home than the actual event as it happens. No, Emma. It's not disgusting. It's art. It's the preservation of memory, the unveiling of honesty about human nature. Don't you understand that?"

Fingers tightening over the hilt of the blade, I screamed, "It's a snuff film! A dirty, despicable, humiliating recording of a disturbing crime!"

He stilled, his eyes moving as they searched my expression. Head shaking just enough to be barely perceptible, his full lips pulled into a tight line. "No, Emma. It's no more disturbing than a documentary on war, on animals in nature, on the blooming of a rose in a garden. It's truth. That's what you fail to see."

The rage inside me simmered and sparked, seeping out of my skin in patches of crimson heat. "What purpose does that serve? So sick, perverted assholes like you can watch it and get off?"

The negligible shrug of his shoulder was the gas poured over my flames, the oxygen fanned through the roaring fire of hatred and rage that I couldn't contain.

For as hot as I felt, he was cold, uncaring, completely numb to the effect his actions and words had on me.

"I didn't get off. My dick may have twitched a little to finish the film, but I promise you, that wasn't enough to excite me in that way. As for others..." Waving his hand through the air as if he were brushing off a minor inconvenience, he grinned, "That's simply economics. Do you understand how much money you just made me? How many more films can be produced because of your performance? I simply direct the film. How people react to it is on them. Art is subjective."

The body has an interesting way of taking over. Before this film - before I'd undergone the violation of rape and the insanity of taking another life - my body had refused my mind's commands. It revolted, gave me the finger when I'd ordered it to move forward, to climb the stairs, to stand on stage like a pathetic starlet presenting myself for scrutiny.

Now, however, my body was revolting again, except this time, it was launching into action when I'd given no such order. My legs were pushing me up, my feet carrying me forward, my mouth opening and my lungs and vocal chords working in tandem to force out a guttural scream. My fingers were tightening down on the hilt of the knife, my bicep flexing as my arm swung out. I was made a killer again. Not by pain. Not by humiliation and the threat of defeat. No. I was reacting to the flippant words of a man who had no regard for what his art did to me.

Time smiled again to hit fast forward. In one second, I was crouched against the wall. In another, I was flying toward my captor ready and willing to shred his heart as thoroughly as I'd shredded another. It was too bad that time didn't work the same both ways. Where I was feral and unfocused, Ethan was calm and collected. Where I thought I had the advantage, Ethan had refused to show his hand.

White hot, the blistering pain that assaulted me was like a thousand daggers being driven beneath my skin, the scorch of fire across my weary bones, the agony of electricity coursing across my muscles until I fell convulsing to the floor, my teeth cutting into my tongue, my hand releasing the knife that had become a conductor of Ethan's attack.

The pain stopped, but not the paralysis it gave me. My vision lost its focus, time slowed and a blurry image hovered over me. A hand, I realized, a small black box held to the palm. It shook in front of my eyes like a victorious dancer, mocking me with the truth that it had been stronger.

The sound of knees popping, a larger figure now leaning into my view. And as a hand brushed over my hair to direct it out of my face, I struggled to breathe past the confusion, fought to remain conscious as two grey eyes watched me lose that ill fated battle. A deep voice now, smooth, yet with the echo of a cavernous hole.

"Sleep, Emma. In time, you'll grow to understand."

Darkness. Rest. An escape from the here and now. I obeyed the voice when there was no other option, falling because I no longer had control.