EMMA

Ethan left me in the room, only a few seconds passing while I was alone before the older lady returned to finish my makeup with several streaks of bright red lipstick that was wrong for my skin tone.

A guard entered a few minutes later, briskly shooing me from the seat to lead me down another winding hall toward another nondescript door. I'd grown to hate these doors, and I knew that if I had an hour alone with an ax, I'd chop them all down. Then again, I think most of them were steel and not wood, so the physical effort would be wasted, but not the satisfaction of beating against them until they were dented and twisted.

Opening the door, the guard turned sideways to let me walk through. He remained at my back the entire time I stepped forward, slowly and gingerly, as I took in the surroundings. It wasn't until this particular moment that the weight of what would happen sat squarely on my shoulders, reality whispering in my ear that, onstage, I would be assaulted. A man would try to rape me and kill me, and if I didn't choose to become a killer myself, he would succeed.

Would Ethan even care? Or would he just call cut, have the film taken to editing and call for a new stage to be set for the next helpless victim?

My senses were on high alert. So much so that I could smell the hairspray in my hair, and pick up the notes of pasty lipstick and thick skin foundation. Every step of my feet was a drum counting down my execution, and my pounding pulse became thunder in my ears. I stopped at some point, roughly halfway between the door and the stage, the guard reminding me to keep moving forward by tapping me in the back with his gun.

When I was within feet of the stage, a door opened to my side, Ethan stepping forward with an expression that was the epitome of professionalism and intense focus. He was no longer the man who'd complimented me for being average, no longer the man who'd halfway joked with me when I'm been called into his office. He was now himself, the Director, the monster behind the boisterous laugh. The artist who had no moral fiber or concerns other than ensuring he caught the right emotions on film.

His stride was long and sure, fluid and graceful as he came to stand beside me. One look at the guard sent the man and his gun away, relegating him to the back of the room while Ethan took his fun in baiting me.

His voice low, he spoke with no concern for my emotional state. This was business, plain and simple, whether I agreed with that assessment or not. "I know you were taken from Boston. What I don't know is how."

People milled around us silently as they set the finishing touches on stage, as they assembled their cameras and put them in the precise locations necessary for capturing every horrifying detail of the film Ethan was making. Not one person looked in my direction while I stood and spoke with a madman about my abduction.

"Well, you see, I was having a normal day on the farm when a tornado hit. My small brown dog and I were swept up and brought here to the land of Oz."

Ethan's lips twitched. "Excellent film. Would that make me the Wizard?"

"Yes, except instead of being greeted with song and dance, I was greeted by rape and slaughter."

"Times have changed. They were far more conservative in the 1930s."

Rolling my eyes, I fought not to cry. "When do I get my ruby slippers?"

He didn't react to the question, his keen eye studying the details of the set, analyzing it and planning how to get the most critical shot. "How did they take you?"

Resigned to my fate, I answered, "I was walking down the street when they saw me and took me. Dragged me into an alleyway and shoved me into a van."

"Why were you on the street alone?"

Turning, I glanced at him, studied his profile that was all sharp lines and strong angles. He was very handsome, startling really when you looked closely at his features. He could have been an actor himself, the cameras would have loved him. "I was out on a date with a man who believed buying me dinner gave him the right to do whatever he wanted to me. As if a thirty dollar meal was enough of a payment to make me spread my legs."

Ethan absently shook his head, his eyes still focused on the set. "Some men have no imagination. They'll use the same tricks over and over again not realizing their methods are out of style. So he kicked you out of his car onto the sidewalk?"

"No. I kicked myself out, refusing to spend another second with him."

"You were angry," he said, more a statement than a question.

"Of course, I was angry."

"Good. Remember that anger. Some man thought your body was only worth the price of a two hour dinner and a thirty dollar meal. There's a lot to be angry for with that. So, you left his car. Stormed down the sidewalk. Were you walking home?"

Swallowing hard, I ignored the tears welling in my eyes as I looked up at the bedroom being staged. The bed was large and luxurious with silk sheets, a thick, white down comforter, four posters that stood tall at each corner, carved intricately until they formed spires above the bed.

"No. I thought I would be able to flag down a cab, but I didn't realize cabs don't normally cruise through that area of town. It was at least ten blocks from the businesses in one direction and even farther from the neighborhood brownstones in the other."

Raising his hand in the air, Ethan snapped his fingers. "Put the table catty corner to the right, not straight along the wall, I want the reflection of the mirror visible, but not so much that it's reflecting the cameras."

The crew hurried to follow his instructions, replacing a makeup vanity from where it had previously been positioned in order to appease Ethan's demands.

Leaning close to me, Ethan whispered as his cologne wafted up to tickle my nose. The scent was divine, masculine and earthy with just the right amount of musk to be desirable. "You were alone and helpless in a bad part of town. Seems like the beginning of some ridiculous movie that follows all the common tropes used in film. The procurement team grab you, drag you down a dark alley, and shove you in a van-"

"Procurement team?" I repeat, turning to him and wishing I hadn't. Our mouths were much too close, far too intimate. "They were kidnappers."

"Semantics," he answered, brushing off the ugly truth. "They stuff you in a van. What happened next?"

"They blindfolded me and gagged me. Tied my legs at the ankles and my arms at the wrists. One man was driving while the other stayed in the back with me. I was lying on top of a nasty, crusty carpet that made me sick. They started arguing in a language I didn't understand. Then-"

My voice trailed off, the memory of what was done to me horrifying. A lump formed in my throat as I watched the crew lay out rugs over the stage floor beside the bed.

"Then?" Ethan's question dragged me back to the conversation. Twisting just enough to look at him, my breath caught when our eyes met. His gaze always probed me, was always so intense that it caught me off guard and sliced me down the middle revealing all that I had inside.

Speaking around the hard lump in my throat, I answered, "Then I was raped."

His expression twisted with disgust. Not at the rape, but at my feeble description. "Give me more. How did he rape you? Were you on your back? Did he touch you first? Did he make you touch him? Did you come?"

"No, I didn't come! I was being raped!"

His eyes flicked between me and the stage, his shoulder shrugging negligently between us. "That means nothing. I've seen many women orgasm while being raped. Their faces can't hide the surprise, their expressions twisting with more disgust at themselves than the man assaulting them. It's the best moment in the film, really. The moment when their own bodies betray them. It's actually quite common. Unless-" He pinned me in his stare, ignoring the rage rolling behind my eyes. I knew for a fact he didn't fail to notice the anger. Ethan noticed everything. "Have you never orgasmed, Ms. Hart? Is that the problem?"

"That's none of your business!"

He grinned, turning his focus back to the set. "That answers my question. It's a shame. I hope you survive today. Dying before having the opportunity to experience an orgasm would be sad."

I didn't bother to dignify his statement with a response. Of course I'd orgasmed before. At least, I thought I did. Sex wasn't as heart stopping as Hollywood or romance novels would lead you to believe. It was nice, I guessed. Messy sometimes, but nice.

"What happened when you were raped?" Ethan asked again, refusing to drop the topic as we waited to film.

My thoughts raced back to that moment. To that van. To the crusty, disgusting carpet that burned against my cheeks. To the tears that spilled down making the crust of the carpet slimy against my skin. "The men kept arguing, but the one holding me in place flipped my skirt and took me from behind. The weight of his body crushed my face into the floor of the van. The smell was horrifying. The carpet filthy. He didn't care that he was hurting me. Didn't care that I was crying."

As I described the moment, fury ignited inside me, indignation a slow flame that suddenly exploded into rage. Heat chased across my bones, seeping from my skin until I felt I would melt right there next to the stage, setting the entire room on fire.

Ethan watched closely, his lips curling as he witnessed the anger building inside me. Once I was to a point where I thought the top of my head would pop off from the pressure of my blood, he leaned even closer until his mouth was brushing my ear. "Hold on to that feeling when you see your rapist again. I don't want to watch you die onstage today. I think you're better than that. The man who raped you is a seventeen year old kid. A little punk who didn't give a damn he was violating you. He told me he liked it. That you were tight and so wet by the time he was done taking what he wanted without giving a damn about how you felt. He's excited to do it again. He wants all of you this time. Your tits, your cunt, your ass, your mouth. All of it, Ms. Hart. And he won't feel bad about it. You're not the only woman he's taken like that. You're just another tempting pussy in a long line of others."

He paused, his excited breath a warm, pulsing caress down my neck. "He'll do it again after finishing with you. He'll hurt more women and he'll enjoy it, becoming more sadistic with each encounter. If you want to be a hero for yourself, or even for others like you were yesterday when you ruined my film in an attempt to save that woman's life, you'll use the weapon I give you to end that little punk's life. You'll bathe in his blood knowing how many people you'll save from the same horrible experience he put you through. Keep that in mind while you're up there. If you can't kill to protect yourself, do it to protect other women who aren't as strong as you."

I lost my battle against my tears. Slowly they broke free of my eyes to trickle down my cheeks, a hot, wet stream of sorrow and fear. "I'm not strong. I've never been a hero, nor have I wanted to be one. I'm just a normal girl."

His hand splayed over the small of my back, the contact shocking and unexpected. As the warmth of his hand seeped down into the silk of my negligee and into my skin, he whispered, "I've already told you not to rue being normal. And you're stronger than you think. Do you realize you're the only woman who ever chose to die when I presented the option? That's what made you stick out among the rest. That is the hallmark of strength. You would die before giving up your body to strangers."

It was difficult to speak with trembling lips. "That was before I knew that dying meant being raped and tortured anyway."

"Yet, you screamed and ruined my film regardless because you saw a dying woman. With no concern for your own life, you spoke up to save hers."

More tears fell as I admitted, "I was hoping to anger you enough that you ordered the guard to shoot me."

His laughter burst against my ear, the sound melodic. "I wanted to strangle you with my own bare hands, but I recognized the fire inside you. I want to capture that fire, Emma. Want to preserve it for the ages. Show it to me when you walk on stage today and for the love of film, quit crying."

My hands clenched into fists, the moment I would be forced to make a horrifying decision creeping ever so close. "Why does it matter if I'm crying?"

He was silent for a second. "Because you'll ruin your makeup and we don't have time to get it fixed. Ready or not, my beautiful girl, it's show time."