EMMA

The large lights surrounding the stage popped on with resounding flare, the bulbs bursting with white heat, the umbrellas both amplifying the light as well as softening it. Above the stage, more lights came to life, pastel in color to highlight each grimace, each wide eyed moment of terror, each tear.

Ethan stepped away from me leaving me standing in place as he marched around yelling his curt demands about where each crew member should take their place. My heart picked up its beat, blood racing through my veins punishing me with more pressure, more adrenaline, more heat.

I swayed where I stood blinded by large imposing lights that would chase away the shadows hiding me. They would reveal every imperfection, every line in my skin, every pore, every freckle, every mole.

A hand touched my arm, the hard cruel surface of metal pressing against my back to remind me that the guards would always be there when Ethan wasn't.

"You need to climb up the steps, sweetheart. Today you get to be a star." His tone was mocking and saccharine sweet, the singsong croon making it obvious he enjoyed leading me to my fate. I would have turned around and raked my fingernails down his face if I knew my shaking legs could hold me.

My mind raced with what had already happened to me and what was to come. The abduction, the rape, the films I'd been forced to witness, the freezing cages, Ethan's demands, hair and makeup - EVERYTHING. It flashed and flickered, swirled and spread, a fungus that was creeping until it threatened to swallow me whole. Shock must have prevented my terror, horror silencing me with a non-existent gag, and now that the moment was upon me that I would have to endure the agony of rape again or choose to kill, could I really force myself up those rickety wooden stairs, climb on that stage and wait patiently for a man to enter that had every intention of hurting me?

"No."

The softly spoken word came out before I understood that it wasn't just inside my head.

"What?" the guard spoke with laughter in his voice behind me.

"No," I refused louder, more certain, ready to deal with beating blows if necessary rather than climb those stupid fucking stairs up to that horrifying stage.

The tip of his gun poked into the center of my spine. Slowly drawing in a breath, the pressure of the gun against my back increased as my lungs expanded, easing again as I blew out the breath.

Leaning forward, the guard practically growled. "Don't think I won't put this bullet through your heart for not obeying me."

A bullet. One quick burst of pain, one small piece of metal forcing itself through my body, tearing through my skin, my muscles, my spine and heart. How long would it take for the blood to fill my chest cavity and compress my lungs? How many minutes could my brain go without oxygen before I fell unconscious, sinking deeper and deeper into oblivion and escaping this life? Would I know I was dying? Would I even have time to come to that understanding before my body collapsed? Would my spirit break free into the ether, walk away from this place and into the light?

I didn't know, but it sounded better than what I faced walking up those three wooden stairs onto a stage where Ethan would film his newest masterpiece. I didn't want to be a star. I didn't want to be a masterpiece. I wanted to be what I was before this nightmare - normal and ordinary.

"No," I repeated, tension running across my shoulders, my mind accepting death, but my body still bracing for it. Despite knowing you were okay with death, there was still an instinct to avoid it, to protect yourself, to run. It took iron will for me to remain in place with a gun to my back. It took a bit of insanity to not work with my captor but against him. It took the fire that Ethan had so easily seen in me to draw in another breath, close my eyes and wait for the guard to pull the trigger.

But instead of the soft click of the trigger and loud explosion of gun powder, I heard a smooth, deep voice ask a question with five irritated words.

"What is going on here?"

The pressure of the gun was yanked from my back, that small point where it had been pressed against me still tingling over my skin.

"She won't go upstairs," the guard answered, confusion and annoyance edging his words as he responded to Ethan. His tone was softer when faced by his boss, not as abusive as it had been when directed at me.

"Go stand at the back of the room. I'll deal with her."

My insanity bubbled over in a short burst of sound across my lips. I wouldn't call it a laugh. It was more bizarre than that. A sound of resignation, maybe. A touch of madness that clearly illustrated just how easily I'd lost my mind. Ethan believed I had more strength than others, but at this moment I would have sworn I broke more easily than the rest. They may have given up their bodies, but I'd handed over my mind, my heart and soul on a silver platter.

I felt him before I heard him again, the heat of his body pressed against my back. His pants brushing against the silk barely covering my bottom. The soft caress of his breath against my ear when he leaned forward to whisper.

"What do you think you're doing? We have a schedule to keep, Ms. Hart."

There was a razored urgency lining each clipped word, a time clock ticking down the seconds towards the slap of the clapboard. I was certain if I turned to look, I would find the woman standing at the ready, her lips pursed, her hand holding the top of the clapboard up, her body still and waiting for when she could slam it back down to announce that the crew should start filming. It was difficult to find it inside myself to care. He wouldn't force me up those steps, wouldn't break me in my refusal to obey. I was beyond that now, in a small padded cell in my head, laughing with garish delight at how easily my mind had snapped.

"I'm not doing this," I answered, “I can’t,” my words breathless and matter of fact.

Ethan's palm touched my wrist, slid up my forearm and over my bicep. The contact was tender and elusive, a promise of violence that didn't come with the sting of a beating. It was seductive in its warmth, compelling in how gentle it was.

His chest beat against my back on soft laughter, the sound emanating from his lips in stark opposition to the words of a monster. "I have ways of convincing you, Emma. Would you like to hear them?"

"Not really, but I'm sure you'll insist on telling me anyway."

"I thought we'd learned self preservation last night." His fingers tightened over my arm, the backs of them brushing against the side of my breast. My body shouldn't have reacted, but it did, my lungs pulling in a deeper breath to smell his cologne while my skin felt like it heated where he touched.

"I must have forgotten already. Stress will do that to you."

His cheek brushed against mine, not intentionally, I assumed, only because of how far he leaned into me, how closely our bodies were to each other. "You're playing with your life."

"Isn't that what you're doing? What's the matter, Ethan? Didn't your mom teach you to share your toys? Am I not allowed to play as well?"

His breath rushed down my neck, his voice a seductive croon that made me shiver. There was no doubt about it now, I'd fully and completely lost my mind and given up.

"Oh, you're allowed to play, little girl. Up on that stage where all can see just how lovely you are."

"I'm not doing it. You'll have to find another woman who is willing...or not willing. I'm not sure it makes a difference to you."

"It doesn't," he answered back, as if his response was a given. "Here's the offer I'm willing to make you, Emma. I think I have your number by now, a knowledge of what makes you tick. Either you'll walk up on that stage and act out the little fantasy I have for you, or I'll drag every woman I have in the back cages onto the stage and let you watch them beaten, tortured and raped, one by one. Do you know how long it would take to get through all of them? How many deaths do you think you could witness before you break? My guess is not many. Eventually you'll scream your little lungs out and beg me to stop. I'm sure I could send out my procurement team to find younger ones. Teeny tiny little innocent things that will die horribly because you refused to play along."

I shivered at the thought, my pulse racing beneath my skin. I was sure he could feel every jagged beat beneath his fingers where they clutched my arm.

"You wouldn't," I hissed out, horrified by the thought.

His laughter shook against my back. "I'm not a stupid man. And for as much as I've been studying and learning about you, I know you've been learning about me just as much. So, knowing what you know, why don't you tell me just how far I'd go to get what I want?"

While it was true I had been learning about him, I had the distinct feeling Ethan was like a sour onion with many layers that only made you cry harder the closer you got to his core. But for all of those layers, all the opportunities he missed in life to show he had some semblance of moral character, I found it hard to believe that he was so lost to his evil that he would get hard over the slaughter of children. I said as much, he stilled against me to hear it, his steady breath the only thing letting me know he was alive and listening.

"First, you should know that I don't get hard for just anything. Not children, and not bratty little actresses that refuse to do as they're told." Pressing his hips against my butt, he made his point clear. There wasn't even the hint of an erection poking me.

"Second, while I personally view slaughtering children as something so abhorrent it's beneath me, I'm willing to do whatever it takes for my art. That is what makes me hard, Emma, the completion of my films, and if I have to drag little orphans in with their wide eyes, chubby little cheeks and filthy little sticky hands to flay them open right in front of you, I'll do it just to watch you squirm. So, tell me, are you going to climb those stairs, or do I need to make good on my threat?"

"I hate you," I growled between clenched teeth.

"Good, use that to save your life on stage. I'd hate to see you die so easily. Now walk up those steps before I drag you up there myself."

Previously, in life, I never had many issues willing my body to do something. It's an inborn ability for every form of life, the nervous system stemming from a brain that travels down the body connecting to every organ, every appendage, practically every square inch of skin. There's no conscious thought involved in the brain deciding it wanted to move forward and accomplishing that feat by sending a signal down that long network of nerves to the leg, the ankle, the foot and toes. As soon as the signal arrives, the muscles move into action. The foot shuffles forward, the leg lifting it and setting it down again just in time for the other foot to follow. Left. Right. Left. Right. Simple as that.

Perhaps when first learning, it takes coordination and skill, but after twenty-two years, it's a simple function. Brain to leg, leg to foot, and the body is mobile.

Just not for me at that moment. My brain was telling my feet to move, but in an act of rebellion and fierce determination, my feet threw up their rebel flag and silently proclaimed that they were seceding from the union of my body, creating their own independent life separate from what my brain wanted, and would not be answering the calls to move.

However, despite my inability, I was dragged regardless, my toes scraping over the floor as Ethan clamped his hands over my shoulders and forced me forward. My feet had no choice at that point. I was going up the steps whether I wanted to or not.

Ethan's fingers were tight across my skin, bruising and punishing as we scaled the three small steps, the wood creaking beneath our combined weight. Once on stage, he released me only to have to reach out again to keep me from tipping forward. My entire body had joined the rebellion of my feet and now my legs and abdomen refused to hold up the rest of me.

On a hiss of sound against my ear, Ethan scolded me. "This is not how you prepare yourself to fight. Grow a fucking spine and stand up."

I wasn't sure why it mattered to him whether I lived or died. From what I'd seen yesterday, he was neutral in the matter, ready and willing to allow a woman to choose one horrible fate over the other. They could live and suffer their abuse day after day while he created his art, or they could choose the less fortunate way out and be tortured into an early grave. He had no soul, this man who was now holding me up because my body refused to respond to what my brain was telling it.

Understanding must have crept in to Ethan's thoughts that my body was currently fighting a war against itself. Rather than letting me sink to the floor in a mess of panic, mortification and pathetic weakness, he directed me over the bed, sat me down on the side and knelt down to look me in the face. Silence surrounded us, the production crew undoubtedly standing there slack jawed over the amount of attention and coddling Ethan was giving me. I didn't understand it myself, but there wasn't much I could do either way.

His gaze was piercing in its focus, the steel grey shimmering beneath the lights of the stage. Mine, in contrast, was hazy and blurred, every part of me now rebelling as I sat in stunned disbelief. Ethan shaking my shoulders didn't wake me up, but when his hand released me to slap across my cheek, the burning pain brought me back to the present, brought me to life and set me aflame. I narrowed my eyes on him and he smiled, ignoring the blistering red mark that was no doubt blooming over my cheek.

"Focus, Ms. Hart. In one minute a man who violated you in the most intimate of ways is about to walk across stage left to do it to you all over again. Except, this time, he'll take every part of you. This time, he'll wrap his hands around your throat and squeeze until you can't breathe. He'll watch your mouth open to drag in air. He'll smile down at you while capillaries burst in your eyes and over your skin. He'll laugh as your lips turn blue and your body convulses beneath him. And while you're dying, he'll most likely rape you again. You will leave this world in the most brutal of ways and once you're dead, he'll grow excited to do it to another woman on my stage. I've promoted him in this organization all because of you. It's your choice whether he enjoys that promotion or dies as a result of it. You. Nobody else. Just you."

"I'm not a killer," I managed to whisper, the truth engrained so deep in those words that my voice didn't shake while speaking them, their meaning slicing across my skin until I felt shredded and incompetent. I am not a killer - a truth repeating over and over until I wanted to spit it out again just to free myself of it.

"You are."

"I'm not," I repeated, my voice more forceful, tears bursting out from my eyes. Locking my gaze to his, I silently begged for him to stop this. I begged the universe to shift back to my normal life. I begged whatever nightmare this was to end so I could wake up in my bed, in my home, and seek counseling for my mind having conjured up this twisted scenario in the first place.

"You are now. You weren't an actress before I had you stolen away so I could turn you into one. And look at you. In wardrobe, with your hair styled and makeup all over your face. You're beautiful and sitting on a stage with all the lights and cameras waiting to highlight and record you. You can be anything I want you to be, which at this moment is a killer. Survive this, Emma. That's what I want you to do. Survive and you can be a hero to every other woman trapped in this place because your lack of fear killed the man who would have killed them. Keep that in mind when you see him. Wrap your fingers around the knife I have hidden beneath this mattress. And when the time comes, you sink it deep down inside him until you're shredding his heart."