THREE
Ferryn
The trunk opened into darkness. The kind that implied the pitch black of night and the deliberate lack of inside lighting.
Deliberate.
Because they didn't want me to see where I was. Because they didn't want me to be able to look for an escape. Or remember paths for a later attempt at freedom.
But there was more than one sense.
Uncle Cyrus had been the one to focus on that in my training - taking something away from me, teaching me to compensate with other senses. He would blindfold me, then move around me, attacking silently from different angles until I learned the sensation of air displacing itself for a human inhabitant, until I learned that the little baby hairs weren't moving because of some breeze from an open window, but from someone moving in beside me, until I could learn to hear an arm raising in the air to strike me, and stop it. He would shove earplugs in my ears so I couldn't rely on them to hear him coming from behind to attack me.
If you can learn to concentrate without one or more of your senses, you can teach yourself never to be disoriented by the loss of one.
Suddenly, I wished I had taken him up on his offer for more of those classes instead of ditching him to hit up poetry slams or open mic nights.
Hands moved out, closing around my arm just above my elbow, the unyielding pressure making my bones feel small and brittle beneath - a malnourished skeleton in the grip of a vengeful giant.
Fingers curled into delicate flesh, pressing marks into the skin, ones I knew would be there to see hours later, ones that I could run a finger over and still feel an aching memory.
The tree limb known as an arm pulled me from my prison - vomit-filled and putrid, but somehow much more preferable to the outside unknown.
My head wobbled on my neck, weak as a rag doll between two feuding children, making the migraine already screaming through all hemispheres of my injured brain take on a new intensity, white sparks floating across my vision, bile sloshing around ominously in my stomach empty of all other contents.
My shoulder screamed, wrenched unnaturally backward toward the body directing the hand still pressing bruises into my forearm.
My breath hissed out of me, the only show of pain, the only sound I seemed capable of making with my poor, confused body so overtaken by differing pains to be able to express it.
All for the best, I decided when my lower back crashed into the bottom of the trunk as my body was pulled fully outward, my traitorous legs refusing to hold my weight, the muscles turning to dust as my feet touched the ground. Because men like these, evil men, ugly-souled men, they got off on the pain, on your power being given over to them.
As far as it was under my control to do so, I wouldn't give them that satisfaction.
Not even as a disembodied voice chuckled - low and wicked - at my weakness.
"Might have to carry her," the voice commented, making a chill break out over my skin. "Could get a real feel for her that way, know what I mean?"
As if he was being subtle.
And all my brain could really focus on, aside from revulsion that was like a poison eating away at my stomach lining, was I couldn't let him carry me. If he carried me, it would be too easy to get disoriented.
If I could walk, I could count steps, maybe touch things on my way, try to see what was around me even in this inky blackness.
I choked back the sick in my throat, fought the spinning in my head, forced my legs to extend, the muscles to stiffen, to do their job, and hold my weight like they had been doing since I was hardly even a year old.
Work, darnit, work.
The arm around my middle allowed just enough slack for me to test out my legs, clumsy as a newborn foal - or that giraffe baby the internet waited weeks for.
But my knees locked.
My muscles stretched and solidified.
My feet planted.
And this time, my legs didn't buckle, they held firm in a way I had never thought to question their ability to do so before.
Funny, the basic things you can take for granted.
A head not screaming in pain.
A stomach that didn't roll and slosh with each unstoppable thought.
Legs that knew their job.
And freedom.
God, freedom.
Sure, it came with limitations.
It always did.
Rules. Laws. Enforcers of them.
But freedom to break them, to deal with the consequences.
This.
This was a new world.
And I was a clueless babe in it.
If there were rules to follow, I didn't know them.
If there were consequences for breaking them, I was ignorant of what those might be.
I had no choice but to follow as the hand on my arm dragged me forward.
Count, I remembered five feet into my walk/drag.
I had to count my steps.
I had to listen.
I had to try to force my swollen, painful eyes to adjust to the darkness, to be able to see through it.
Fifteen steps.
A curve to my left.
Six steps, a shaded window, slivers of moonlight peeking through the sides.
Eight steps, a doorway, closed. Or so it seemed, because there were sounds coming from within in, a creaking, a hissing, a banging.
Don't think about it, I commanded my brain even as the realization of what was happening there crossed my mind.
My parents never blocked the late night TV shows. I knew sex when I heard it.
And I needed not to think about it, not to wonder if the participants were happy lovers, or girls like me... and men like the ones flanking my sides.
A turn to my right.
Twenty steps.
No windows.
No doors.
No sounds save for the scrape of my shoes, the clomp of the man to my right, and the step, drag sound of the man to my left, the one who suggested the other carry me. He was lame in some way. A limp, maybe. A prosthetic. Something. One of his feet or legs didn't work as it should.
I was yanked to a stop, the hand loosening enough that the blood flooded back to it - a pulsing sort of pain that momentarily eased the jackhammering in my skull.
A click.
A slide.
Another click.
Locks.
Those were locks.
I had a feeling I knew what was next, threw an arm out as I was pulled to help keep my balance as I was pulled forward, as my foot met the end of the floor, dropped, found a narrow stair that bent in the center from years of people who walked up and down there instead of the sides.
My hand met the wall, smooth Sheetrock for five steps before it gave way to something more rough and cold.
Cinderblocks.
A basement.
Seven more steps.
A stumble as my foot sought another step only to find solid floor.
There were sounds here, dull, but there.
Breathing.
The steady in and out of air in bodies.
Bodies, well, they had scents too.
Sweat and unwashed hair.
Blood.
Blood.
No.
I couldn't think about the blood, about how it got there, about who inflicted it.
I had to focus instead on what else bodies had.
Minds.
Mouths.
Things that could tell me more about where I was, why I was there, what the rest of the building maybe looked like.
The hand closed tighter again, this time - thanks to the reprieve - the pain was sharp and insistent, demanding attention, as my body was pulled forward across the floor.
Twelve steps.
Then a pause as I tried to slow-blink, as I tried to force my eyes to see.
There was a clang I couldn't make out as I started to finally see him.
My captor.
The outline of his massive frame, so massive that it reminded me of my Uncle Wolf, of his stubbornly unmovable body when I had tried to best him. Even just standing still, taking my abuse, I could never overtake him.
My gut told me that I could never overtake this one either, this silent, looming giant, but my will to survive told me to try.
There was another noise, something metallic and heavy, dragging across the floor.
The hand loosened.
Then released entirely.
There was hardly even a heartbeat of a hesitation as my body swiveled, muscles remembering the moves even before my brain could grasp with them with clumsy hands.
My feet planted, evenly holding my weight as my right side cocked back, as my fist curled, as every ounce of weight in my admittedly slight body surged forward.
Adrenaline made the movements feel slow as I could hear the swish of the air as my arm sliced through it, as my fist sought its target.
The crack and crunch was something I felt and heard simultaneously as my fist made contact, something soft and curved along with something firm and unyielding.
An ear and jaw.
Crack.
And crunch.
Then grunt, hiss, the man registering the pain even as I curled back again, now knowing the ear, knowing the nose was just a few inches inward.
It landed there, warm breath meeting my knuckles before they landed with an upward strike.
Had it been more true, were I able to see, was my position skilled enough, I could have done it. It was easy, really. Pushed his nose into his skull.
Nearly instant death.
But nothing lined up for me, my weakened hands from the whack from the metal bar, my too-sideways strike, making my own chest get in the way of my full force, my blind eyes unable to catch him perfectly under the nostrils.
It hurt, sure.
He reared back, growling, likely tasting his own blood as it leaked from his nose to his mouth.
I went back a step, raising my arms, using my raised fists to shield my face.
But when the pain did come, it was much lower, giant fingers curled and surging from a massive body into my exposed, weak midsection.
My air knocked out with a whoosh, with the pain of impact as my body folded forward, one of my hands dropping to hold my belly even as the other tried to strike out.
But met empty air.
My captor was no longer standing before me.
It wasn't until I felt the weight and the click that I realized he had ducked down low by my legs.
And shackled me.
That was the metal sound.
Chains pulled against the floor.
My leg kicked out on impulse, like it could dislodge it.
But there was no way.
This was something heavy, something that weighed as much as my full leg likely did, making it hard even for it to lift off the floor.
There was a creaking sound as my captor got back to his feet.
I remembered maybe at the last possible second to curl my fist and strike out, to show that I wasn't cowed by a shackle, that I still had fight left in me.
My knuckles met the firm, yet soft, flesh of an upper arm, having no impact at all except to incite the man who curled backward, and finally gave me what I had admittedly earned with my own violence, a strike to the jaw.
The pain started at impact then ricocheted outward until the entire side of my face was throbbing, until the pain was deep in my jaw and gums but also my nose, my eye socket, my temple.
I fell back against the wall for support as my hand rose, pressing into the pain as though there was any chance of easing it.
My eyes closed.
My breath hitched.
Hitched.
Like I was going to cry.
But no.
No crying.
I wouldn't give him that, no matter how much my body was begging for the release.
I took fast, strobe-like breaths, frantic and panic-laden.
I could feel his gaze on me, his eyes clearly better adept at night vision than my own, the impact of it slimy and penetrating.
But short.
Short because he turned and I heard the clomp of his boots across the floor. Then up the stairs.
There was a pause as he met the landing, then a light blared to life above me, making the migraine roar back to life, my body shrinking away from the brightness I could see even behind my closed lids as I fought back another wave of nausea.
I didn't have time for pain.
But my body didn't want to listen to reason, to my primal need for self-preservation.
My body folded, my back sliding down the wall until I was squatting at knee-level, my elbows braced on my thighs, hands cradling my head.
I can't say how long I stayed there.
Pain had a way of warping time, bending it in a way that made it impossible to tell one pain-soaked moment from the next.
But when the screaming inside my brain eased to a level that allowed me to think past it again, my thigh muscles were burning, my legs shaking with the effort to hold my weight in an unnatural position for it.
I let myself slide down the wall fully, my butt hitting the hard, cold ground, my legs kicking out, one slower than the other, dragging the weight of the chain with it.
That was the first thing I saw with the newfound harsh, fluorescent overhead light - the shackle, the giant metal ring encompassing my bare ankle, flecks of rust moving from it onto my skin. It would rub me raw, I knew, in just a few hours' time, making me sorely sorry that I had changed out of my school clothes and into this godforsaken outfit.
A silly, frivolous, immature thing, I realized as I sat there, wanting to have a sweet sixteen, wanting it enough to disobey my parents, to take risks, to allow myself to be captured.
I was victim-blaming myself, but, really, I should have known better. I should have realized that my father - of all people - was not the sort to overreact. If he felt I needed to be at school with armed guards, then at Hailstorm with an army of them, then that was exactly what was needed.
I had been selfish and stupid to assume otherwise, to take it personally, to immaturely think that he was just trying to metaphorically rain on my parade.
And here I was, paying for that ignorance.
In a basement.
How cliche.
I mean, of course it was a basement. Of course it was a cliche. Those existed for a reason. Because what better place to keep women chained up but in a basement, ten feet under ground, behind thick, impossible-to-escape concrete, with no one to see them or hear them scream?
I let out a shaky breath, pushing thoughts like those away, knowing they would do nothing but fuel the panic that was lying in wait, a tiger ready to pounce.
My gaze slowly lifted, ignoring my bare legs, the short hem of my skirt, the easy access it provided for hands - and other body parts - that wanted to do a different kind of damage to me.
No.
I couldn't think about that either.
The floor beneath my body was smooth in texture, marred with splatters. My gut twisted with the idea of blood, but they weren't the reds of fresh blood or even the brownish stains of dried. They were greens and tans and cobalt blues - paint.
Almost directly across from me was the staircase, long and narrow as it had felt descending in the dark, a railing holding on by one struggling screw, half hanging out of the wooden beam it was connected to.
The door at the top was wooden but maybe deceptive, maybe one of the security doors like Daddy had on all the outside entrances to our home, with metal bars inside.
Finished with that, with the impossibility of reaching them thanks to a chain that implied I maybe had ten feet of freedom. Not enough to get to the bottom, let alone ascend. My eyes drifted to the right, finding the source of the breathing I had heard before.
A woman.
Not like me.
Older.
Older by at least a decade and a half. Thirty, maybe, with the slight creases beside her green eyes to attest to the years I had yet to experience. Her brown hair was long and stringy, a mess of grease and knots around her wide shoulders, ends falling to toy with her round breasts, unconfined by a bra, nipples peaking out of the thin off-white material of her shirt, objecting to the cold of being below ground. Her face was angular, a cat's face, with eyes not nearly as keen. Unnaturally subdued actually. Drugged, maybe. It would explain the blank look to her face, the way her body slumped back against the wall, legs cocked out at a painful angle. Pain she wouldn't feel if there was something coursing through her veins to prevent it.
Her body was unmarked, though, not like mine, not bleeding and bruised and aching.
Her head lolled to the side, unobstructed by working muscles, making my belly feel wobbly all over again, cringing at the idea of that being my fate, an animated corpse, a body to torment while the mind went elsewhere.
I looked away, uncomfortable, the way a dying creature makes you feel wrong for watching it wither away, like it deserves the dignity of at least not being seen crossing over.
I didn't expect anyone else.
When my gaze went to the other end of the room, I expected emptiness, or useless things - old milk crates or boxes, musty forgotten belongings.
But me and the dead-girl-sitting were not alone.
This girl was younger though.
My age.
Faces like hers were deceptive, though, all soft and fleshy, one that said she would be carded well into her forties. Maybe she was sixteen, maybe nineteen.
But either way, pretty.
So pretty that, even in this ugly situation, I could still feel a twinge of jealousy at her shoulder-length blonde hair that was natural if her brows and lashes were anything to go by. Her lips were oversized, pouting almost, naturally so, by design, not choice, and the kind of pink that made you think lipstick, but judging by her greasy roots, I figured that was just their natural hue.
The eyes, framed with thick dark blonde lashes were a startling shade of blue.
And they were looking at me, watching me as I inspected her, as I looked over her like a judge to a dog seeking their AKC title.
Blank.
But not drugged, not unseeing, just not emoting.
Unreadable.
Her eyes didn't roam over me, didn't compare my straight-up-and-down body to her perfectly curved one, didn't notice my clean hair as I noticed her dirty, didn't take in the injuries to my body as I did hers.
The edge of her lip was scabbed over, a gash an inch long, a split that had to have been caused by a cruel hand. There was a band of blue around her throat, purple at the edges, rounded like fingers.
Choked.
Someone had choked her.
There were spots on her white top, too, dried blood drops around the deep U of her neckline, the material saggy and weak like it had been stretched to that shape, as though it had been forced wide to allow...
No.
I swallowed hard as I watched her watching me.
"Do you know where we are?" I heard my voice ask, quiet compared to my usual tone, but it rang out shrill and startling in the silent space, making the girl on the other side gurgle on her spit as this one jerked her head back slightly at the sound. "How long have you been here?" I added as she said nothing, just kept looking at me. "Are you chained too?" I tried, unable to see her legs as they were under her, cocked to the side.
The drugged girl had chains.
Though she didn't need them.
Her mind was its own prison.
Her body was useless even if the idea of escape did surface.
"Shackle?" I repeated, jiggling my leg to make mine dance and jangle, wondering if maybe she didn't speak English.
Whether she understood the words or the movement, I didn't know, but her body shifted, her butt meeting the floor, her legs sliding out to her side, one chained to the wall just like mine.
"Did you try to run?" I asked, wondering if that was why we were chained. Had my fight - or hers - ensured our helplessness?
She gave no answer to that, just let her head fall back against the wall, as though her neck were too weak to hold it any longer.
"How long have you been here?" I tried again, unable to accept that I was in a room with two bodies, and neither of them could help me, could give me a better view of our prison, could show me where the weak spots were, so I could exploit them.
There was nothing still for another several long minutes, just the tick of my heart, the rush of my blood, the throb in my jaw and temples.
Then, "What's the date?"
Her voice sounded weak and scratchy, awkward with disuse.
I guess it should be, with no one to talk to but a drugged woman who - even if she did hear you - did not understand.
"August third," I heard myself answer. Adding silently My birthday. Though, I was somehow acutely aware that even if I survived this, if I got free, August third would never again be the anniversary of my birth; it would always be the day I was taken.
"Four months," she declared after a long moment, making my heart drop down into the acidic pits of my stomach.
Her voice hitched then, making me snap out of the selfish turn of my thoughts, ideas of what four months would feel like to me, thoughts that were an actuality for her.
Maybe it would have been better for her not to know, not to realize how long she had been suffering, how many things she had been missing in her old life, how her family had been worrying, how her friends had been missing her.
My gaze snapped to her face, finding her eyes closed tight as she took another breath, this one forced and deliberate, slow, steadying.
Her eyes opened again when the tension left her shoulders, when she seemed to get control over her emotions once more, leaving that awful blank look in her eyes again.
"Do you have a name?" I asked, rolling my eyes at myself. Of course she had a name. Everyone had a name.
"Chris," she told me, there being an inflection at the end, like a question, like she wasn't even sure anymore.
"I'm Ferryn," I told her even though she hadn't asked, somehow needing her to know. Maybe a part of me wanted her to have that, in case something happened to me, in case she got free after, she could tell someone. My life - or death - wouldn't be a mystery. My family could stop looking.
"Do you know where we are?" I asked again, now that she seemed willing to speak.
"No. I was in a trunk," she admitted.
"Me too," I agreed. "And the house was dark when I was brought in."
"The light won't help you figure it out," she assured me.
From knowledge.
Because as long as she had been here, she still had the fight left in her to look for answers, to look for outs.
"Is it just the two? The giant and the guy with a limp?"
"No."
The answer was clipped, and final, letting me know that I would not get more from her.
In fact, she turned away, and let her blank stare study the wall across from her.
I tried again a few moments later, badgering her with all the questions crowding for space in my mind, fighting for attention, for impossible answers.
Impossible because Chris wasn't here anymore.
I mean, she was, but she wasn't.
She had slipped away.
Inside her mind.
Or out of it.
I wasn't sure.
But I imagined the escape made sense. It helped the hours pass. It let her release the physical hold on the world. Maybe she was back home. Maybe she was giving her mom a hug, kissing her little sister. Maybe she was making out with a boy behind the movie theater, or dancing her heart out in ballet class.
Wherever she was, I hoped it was better than here.
With the cold, hard floors we were meant to sit and sleep on. With the moisture that seeped in through the dirt and cement, chilling us to the bone. With the small toilet in the center of the room where we were expected to go with the others able to see and hear.
Dignity.
That was something I was going to have to force myself to let go of.
There would be none to find here as I tried to sort out a path to freedom.
I would have to eat to stay strong and focused. If I ate, I'd have to use the bathroom. And if I was stuck here for months like Chris, well, there were other undignified bodily things to consider.
My belly twisted at that thought, and it took me a good twenty minutes - I'm guessing of course, but figured it felt something like twenty minutes, though it could have been five or three weeks for all I knew - that there was no cause for shame, no reason to feel embarrassed over my body and how it worked. If they wanted to strip us of everything - including basic human necessities - well, then they could become aware of how our insides came outside every four weeks, and all the raw and ugly that meant.
Raw and ugly, after all, was what they seemed to like best.
What was more raw or ugly than girls chained in basements, unknowing their fate, forced to accept it whatever it was?
Except, well, maybe they hadn't counted on me.
Maybe they counted on drugged-out girls made malleable, or girls who escaped their minds and bodies like Chris.
They didn't factor in girls like me, born into worlds of uncertainty and violence, raised up to stand against it, to fight it, to overcome it.
And make no mistake, that was what I was going to do.
Stand against it.
Fight it.
Overcome it.
Come hell or, as my father might say, motherfucking high water.