CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HOPE
Every day feels like the same except the day he decides to change it like the god he thinks he is. He comes in with Zac at his heels and chains me to the same table and engulfs me with the same pain, never letting me get the release my body needs.
Desires. Why I desire it I have no idea, I shouldn’t want any pleasure from the pain he is inflicting on me, but my body is a traitor.
I can’t understand it. How can my body like what he is doing to me? And then there is Zac. Zac isn’t even the one who is doing it, he is only helping but it doesn’t stop my heart from feeling things.
I hurt, ache for hours after. A plate of bread and a glass of water are brought in by Zac, his eyes look at me and I can see the look of disgust on his face, not disgust for me but for Mark for what I am being made to endure every day and I can only hope that maybe there is hope in him. Can he help me? I eat their meagre offering; a slice of bread is enough and it makes me wonder if my stomach is shrinking. How can a slice of bread be enough? It isn’t though because it keeps me in a constant state of weakness. My skin is starting to look dry and rough, my hair feels awful as I try to touch its short strands that feel like wire. I am no longer myself. I’ve never been a vain person, my mother never was either, but I cry for who I once was, I cry for the girl they are trying to make me loose. She is still there, I can feel her there, she is off in the distance just waiting for me to find her, calling my childhood name, reminding me of who I am and what I have back home waiting for me. I am Hope Bryant. I am a Bryant and my family are waiting for me, waiting to cuddle and love me. I want to be back in my mother’s arms, I want to feel her warmth as she engulfs me with her frame. I want to hear my brothers teasing of each other, of me. I have taken everything they had to offer me for granted and now that I no longer have it I feel the loss like a missing limb.
When I’m not confronted with what I am missing, what I want back more than anything, I start to notice that every time Zac comes in I can tell he is looking at me for the woman I once was. I should be with my family, I can tell by the way he looks at me that he knows I’m not supposed to be here. That no one deserves this type of treatment but was he strong enough to go with what his mind is trying to tell him. Is Mark and Marco’s hold of him just as strong as their hold of me? I don’t know Zac’s story. At the moment I should be more concerned with my own but as he stands by the door with my daily treatment, as he comes in with my food and water with a small smile I know there is more to him than I am being made to see. I want to open up to him, I can feel the need brewing inside me and then I remember where I am. Remember that I am in hell and look like death. I must look awful, I know I do just by the feel of my skin or my hair but as soon as I manage to feel like I am getting some sort of control of my emotions again they tie me back up and start it all over again. I can’t place how many days it’s been going on for, each day just seems to blend into the other, no beginning and no end in sight, just a never-ending circle of pain and misery until Zac comes in and looks at me.
Cycle after cycle of the same thing, the same shit until that one day. Mark pulls me up by my hair, my body still suffering from the effects of never being able to release and I can’t control any of my limbs. My brain can command but my body is unresponsive. Mark pulls me up by my hair with one hand and once I am on my shaky legs Zac comes over and cuffs my hands above my head. His back is towards Mark and as he cuffs me he just looks at me and mouths sorry. He mouths sorry and I want to cry. That one gesture tells me that although he is helping here he cares. He cares about me and he is sorry. Nothing has ever felt more welcome than that word in the moment. I watch as he walks back to his spot by the door, my tears still falling down my face when Mark steps in front of me. My toes can just barely touch the floor so when he pushes me away from him I sway with the thrust. I look out of the corner of my eye and I can see Mark walking around me like a jungle cat with a nasty-looking whip in his grasp. Fear blossoms through me, spreading like the wind I miss feeling through my hair. So many small things that any normal person wouldn’t give a second thought to but to me my heart misses them like my lungs would miss oxygen. I need those small insignificant things to survive and I am sure that one day I will get them back, I have to. I’m drawn back to the room as I see a flash of black swing close to my side and then leather hitting my skin. It takes a moment before my side feels like it’s being ripped open as another strike attacks me. I try to wriggle away from the next strike but nothing works. Mark rains attack after attack on my skin and all I can do is scream. My blood rushes through my veins while Mark continues to strike my body all over until he stops.
He may have stopped but the pain doesn’t, it rips through every part of me reminding me of all the horrors my body has been dealt already.
It hurts to breathe.
It hurts to move.
Everything hurts and there is no respite till the abuse starts all over again. He comes again and again changing the day’s events.
One day the whip, the next the table and each time Zac is there to help him and everything just seems to bleed into one. I can feel the burning rage of my heart as my hatred for Mark grows with every strike, every attack that happens to my body with each long day that goes by. My body wants to give up, I can feel my blood leaving a trail down my body, my hope and sanity leaving with it. How can I keep thinking there is hope when every day he is pushing me back into this reality. Forcing my brain to remember where I really am, what is to really happen to me. I want to shout for him to leave me alone, to let me go, but my lips are sealed with my own despair. I don’t want to let Mark win, I want to keep fighting but how can I do that when he has so many evil blocks in my path. My eyes want to shut myself away, close the outside world away from my heart but through it all there is Zac.
Zac. Anytime I dare to look over to him I can see the sun shine through him, trying to give me my hope back but he never helps, nothing does so why should I expect him to be any different?
He isn’t like them though so why won’t he help me?
Why is he letting Mark do this to me? I want to believe that it could happen that Zac or my family will help me.
Save me. But Mark keeps reminding me of where I really am. What I am being trained for but it doesn’t stop everything that is going through my head, my heart.
My heart.
My heart has no place in this place but that doesn’t mean I can stop it from feeling the things it does. Everything that is happening inside me is such an alien feeling to me, I have never felt so torn between two strong powers that want to take me over, consume me. I just want to give up. I am getting to that point where I want the slice of a cold knife against my skin ending the pain all around me but there is no help in sight.
They can’t hurt me if I am dead. I don’t want this anymore, I want my life back. I want to blank out everything that is happening around me so that I can just live in a state of nothing. Blank out all the pain. Blank out the visions in front of me but then there is always something else that wants me to fight.
Wants me to remain myself. Every time Zac speaks to me, every time he is near me he gives me a sense of being something special. I’m not in this cell being trained to be someone’s plaything, he gives calmness to my trepidation of being here. I should be scared and I am but when Zac is near he helps, I can’t understand, I can’t explain it. I can feel my heart blossoming when I have a chance to think about him. I thought what I felt with Mark was the real thing but that was nothing compared to this. The need to talk to my sisters-in-law and gush about him is overwhelming but I can’t do it, I can’t do anything. I am stuck in here with no hope and all I want is to be held in my mother’s arms as I tell her of the man with beautiful eyes that likes me and treats me like a woman. Every time he looks into my eyes that’s what I know he sees in me, a woman, not a slave, not a girl, but a beautiful woman. He is so different from the others. His touch is warm, he isn’t cold and he doesn’t reek of untold danger like Mark or Marco do. I don’t even have to open my eyes to know when Mark or his father come into this place, I just know. The air around me becomes thicker, colder, danger is coated on every surface of this cell but with Zac it is different. I just know that he isn’t as dangerous as the other two and whenever he is near I just know that he would never hurt me. I don’t know what it is about him but there is just something in him that tells me all I need to know. As blackness claims me once again I want to ask him so many questions, questions I know he will have the answers to and will tell me without any hidden meanings. He is different. If I were in any other situation I may even want to get to know him better. From what I can tell he has kind eyes, warmth radiates throughout his soul and I don’t know how but I can tell there is another reason for him being here. I can only hope there is, anyway.
“Stay strong.” He said in barely a whisper in my ear and the thought that maybe he is on my side throughout this whole nightmare makes my heart warm my chest in a low glow. I cling to my body, trying to fight to keep hold of the feeling of warmth that tries to spread out of me just thinking of him and how nice he has been to me. No one has ever been like that to me before, my life has always consisted of what I or my family could do for them. I give away a small laugh as the thoughts of the only man I loved and who I thought loved me ended up being just the same as everyone else. How could I have been so blind? I was so stupid but then again I am in this situation and I am feeling funny over my captor. A captor who although is different from Mark and his father is still a heartless criminal. I manage to fall asleep with visions of him dancing away in my head.