The world slowly comes back into focus. I feel like I’m waking up from a deep, deep sleep with a really, really bad hangover. The room is dim and bare, and the floor beneath me feels like concrete. I don’t know where I am or what time it is, and everything swims around me when I try to move.

It takes me a second before I remember the man.

And my father’s body with the knife in his heart. All that blood.

I gasp and crawl backwards. There’s a blanket wrapped around me, but I shed it off like a dirty skin. I’m still in my normal clothes and nothing hurts except for my head and a general nausea. I finally hit a concrete wall and stay there, looking around the room, heart pounding.

I’m in a clean, cold room with a concrete floor. The ceiling is white drop tile with fluorescent lighting, half of which are turned off. Aside from the blanket, there’s nothing else in the room. On the far wall, there is a set of elevator doors and a small pad next to it.

Hurrying, I slowly stand. My vision swims but I ignore it. I know I have to move fast. He can be anywhere, absolutely anyway. I hobble closer, closer, and am within a few feet of the elevator doors when I hear a clink.

And I fall flat on my face.

It takes me a second to figure out what just happened. I stare at the manacle around my ankle and the thick iron chain connecting me to a steel rod in the concrete floor.

I’m a captive. I want to scream and cry but I’m too terrified to even move.

I stare at the chain and begin to claw at the manacle around my ankle. It’s thick metal with a solid clasp and a large keyhole. I have no clue where a person would even get something like this, but that doesn’t matter.

I keep seeing his face in my mind. Handsome, beautiful really, and deadly. I keep feeling his body against mine and his voice deep and warm in my ear.

And the pinch of the syringe as he plunged it into my neck.

My thoughts are interrupted by an incredibly comical ding. It takes me a second to realize that it’s the elevator. Panicking, I crawl back across the floor and huddle against the wall as the doors slide open soundlessly and he steps into the room.

It’s the killer. I’ll never forget that face. He changed into a pair of jeans and a loose white button-down shirt, but it’s definitely still him. He’s holding a tray in his hands with a glass and a bowl of something steaming on top of it. He smirks at me as I cower there, staring into his deep blue eyes.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

I stare at him but don’t answer.

“This will be easier if you talk,” he says.

“Amelia,” I say softly.

“Amelia,” he responds, smiling. “I’m Noah.”

“Please,” I say, sitting up onto my knees. “Please let me go.”

“Why would I do that, Amelia?”

“I won’t tell anyone what I saw. I promise. I don’t even care about my father.”

He laughs. “I believe that.”

“He was a bastard. Do you see this?” I point at my eye, my black and blue eye. “He did this because I decided to throw out his beer bottles.”

He stares at me but doesn’t say a word. I can’t read his gorgeous face, and for a second I find it hard to believe that he’s really a killer.

But I saw it. I saw what he did to my father.

“Please,” I say to him, begging for my life. I know I’m begging. There’s nothing dignified about begging for your life but I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been through so much shit already, been abused and put down my whole life. I don’t want to die in some psycho’s basement without ever living at all.

“I don’t want to die,” I say to him.

He smiles at me. My blood runs cold but an excited chill dips down my spine.

“I don’t kill innocent people,” he says.

“What?”

“I don’t kill innocents,” he says again. “But I’ll admit, this is a new situation for me.”

“I’m not a bad person,” I say. “I’m not. Please. Just let me go.”

“Your father was a bad person,” he says. “A very, very bad person. You don’t know the half of it.”

“Yes,” I say softly, staring at him, surprised at the anger I suddenly feel. “I do. I know all about Rick.”

He looks a little surprised as he silently watches me. I stare back, feeling defiant. What does this bastard know about me? I take a deep breath, calming myself.

I need to stop begging. I need to get over this fear. I’ve been afraid my whole life and it never got me anywhere. I need to breathe and think, or else I’ll end up just like my dad.

“I’m not letting you go,” he says finally. “But I won’t kill you, either.”

“What are you going to do, keep me here forever?”

He laughs. “Maybe,” he says. “I think you’d like that. What do you say? You can become my little pet.”

“You’re disgusting,” I say before even realizing it.

He laughs again, a charming and deep laugh. “You’re right there,” he says. He walks over to me and stops about five feet away. He crouches down and gently places the tray on the floor. “Eat,” he says then back away to the elevator doors.

I stare at him. “No.”

“Eat,” he says again. “If you want bathroom privileges.”

I look around. “I don’t see one nearby.”

“Look again,” he says, grinning, and points at the far wall.

I squint at it and watch as he walks over and presses a button. The wall suddenly rises up into the ceiling, revealing a full bathroom.

I gape, shocked.

“Your chain is too short right now, but if you’re good and you eat, I’ll give you more space.”

“Enough to reach the elevator?”

“Not quite. I can’t have you trying to ambush me every time I come down to check on you.”

I just stare at him, not bothering to reply. He smiles again at me and walks back over to the elevator, going along the far wall. I can tell that my chain is nearly long enough to get into the bathroom, but would need at least another twenty feet to make it to the elevator. I’m guessing the bathroom is only an extra five feet, ten at max.

He stops at the elevator and presses his thumb against the pad. The doors open again with a ding and he looks over his shoulder at me.

“Eat,” he says. “You’ll feel better soon.”

He disappears into the elevator.

I watch the closed doors for a few minutes before reluctantly crawling over to the tray. There’s a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a glass of water. There’s no spoon but I can easily pick up the bowl to my lips and drink it if I wanted.

I don’t want to give in to him. He seems like a cocky bastard, even if he is handsome. He’s younger than I thought at first, maybe in his late twenties, early thirties. I can’t tell for sure. He’s probably eight years older than me, give or take a few. For some reason, that fact makes me even angrier.

This bastard. He wants to lock me in his basement, chain me up. He wants me to eat. He’s holding the bathroom hostage against it. He’s playing games with me.

I hate him and I’m terrified of him. But there’s also another feeling deep inside of me, a feeling that I’m ashamed of.

I’m excited by him

He killed my father. He freed me from the prison I’ve lived in my entire life. True, I’m in a new prison, but at least I know I’ll never go back to that bastard Rick’s house. I’ll never be used and abused again. I’m not angry that he’s dead.

I’m angry that I got dragged into it. One last Fuck You from dear old dad. I can’t escape him, not fully, not even in his death.

But I will soon. I’ll start by taking some control back in my life.

I take the bowl of soup and throw it across the room. I smile as it shatters against the wall. I take the glass and do the same before sitting back down on the cold concrete floor.

It felt good to break something. But I know I have to eat and use the bathroom eventually. I’ll give in to that, but I won’t give up. I’ll break free of this prison and finally take my life back.