I had never believed in God. Religion just wasn’t something I cared to invest any energy in. But right now, you sure as fuck better believe I would pray to anyone who was listening. Struggling against my ties again, I tried to see if I could make them budge even a little.

“Fuck!” I screamed, though I knew no one would listen or care. There was no escape. I was defenseless and in the hands of a deranged woman and her crazy son.

I needed my survival skills to kick in. I had watched movies and had read books. The women who survived situations like this were strong and resourceful. They didn’t cry and babble like a baby. They remained focused and always outsmarted the captor. But as tears ran down my face, and every single breath heaved from my chest, I knew that was all fiction. Fucking fiction!

No.

I needed to be strong. Strong.

Taking a deep breath, I decided to think about everything Vivian had said. There was another man helping them named Richard. He was on order to watch over Maria and Luis and hurt them if I did anything wrong, so I had to be extra careful. Two other lives were at stake beside my own. Vivian was smart—a complete whack job—but smart. She had been staking me out for months. She had to have known I had no one in my life besides Maria and Luis. My only weakness was those two innocent people who wouldn’t hurt a fly. They didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve this! Vivian had to know how sweet Maria was if she had truly been planning this for months. But where did Pope fall in this plan? Why was he new to the stake out? How had I missed him this entire time? Had he truly been in jail up until now? Could they have masterminded this plan while he was behind bars so that he would have a woman at his mercy when he was free?

My body trembled out of fear but also from the cold. Being completely naked in the bitterly cold cellar chilled me to the bone. My teeth began to chatter, and there was nothing I could do to warm my body. But I needed to focus. Focus.

Remembering Vivian’s words, I continued to put together that I was in a home out in the middle of nowhere. I had been drugged, stuffed in a moving crate, transported by U-Haul to a plane, and then flown to this vacation home. So now what? She said she wanted to train me. I wondered if she was planning to keep me tied to a chair the entire time. Would this cellar be my permanent prison? Looking around again, I didn’t see any windows or a way to escape. And even if I did, if this house was truly out in the middle of the woods only reachable by plane, where would I go? Vivian and Pope had clearly planned everything out perfectly. They even had an accomplice. This was not a rushed job done on impulse. This was executed exactly as they had planned. I was their victim, and it was clear this mother and son duo had preyed on me for a very long time.

“Demi?”

I looked toward the stairs, preparing for the worst. It was Vivian, but she sounded different.

“Demi? Are you down there?” The voice had no accent. It was the same voice I had grown to care for over the past several months. It was the voice that belonged to the little old lady I had considered a friend.

“Viv?” I squeaked, not knowing what to say or what to think. I was scared I was imagining the nicer version of Vivian in a desperate need for hope.

The woman descended the stairs and rushed toward me. Her eyes were wide, and her entire body trembled. Her lips quivered so much that her speech came out stuttered. “Are you all right? Oh lord. Oh lord.” There wasn’t the slightest hint of southern accent in her panicked voice. This woman was completely different to the one who just cut all my clothing off of me and revealed her maniacal plan as if it were something completely normal.

“Help me! Untie me!” I wiggled against the restraints, hoping to God that Viv would finally come to her senses. I didn’t have time to figure out what the hell was going on. I just needed to get her to free me before her mind flipped back to the southern belle from hell.

She looked at my naked body in horror as if she hadn’t seen it before. “Oh no, no, no, no. This can’t be happening.” She closed her eyes and covered her ears with her shaky hands. “No, no, no, no!”

The sound of an engine in the distance outside caught both of our attention. Pope was landing the plane. I could hear it faintly outside the walls of my dark cell. I was frantic. I had to get free before Pope came down here. “Please! Viv, untie me. He’s here. Please!”

She looked up at the ceiling as if she could somehow see a plane descending from the sky with her son in the cockpit. “Pope is going to be so mad! He’s going to be so angry!” Her body shook so hard that I wondered if she would fall over. “Oh, I have no idea what he’s going to do. He’s going to be furious. So very, very furious.”

“The scissors!” I tilted my head to where they rested on the top of a box. “Grab the scissors, and cut me free. Hurry! We don’t have long.”

Viv started hitting her skull repeatedly as she screamed, “Please stop! Please stop!” She continued to pummel her head with her tiny fists. The insanity before me only fueled my desperation more. “Please stop! Stop! Stop!”

“Viv! Hurry!” I shook my body against my restraints as much as I could to try to get her attention. “You need to calm down. Look at me, Viv. Look at me! Untie me now.”

She finally stopped punching herself and froze for several seconds before lifting her head and staring at me squarely. And right before my eyes, she changed.

Her posture changed. Her shoulders squared. Her chin lifted. Her warm brown eyes darkened.

When she opened her mouth to speak, bile coated the back of my throat. “Calm down, child. You don’t want to damage your perfectly creamy skin. Men don’t like a flawed woman.”

The sickly-sweet southern drawl had returned.

Vivian had returned.

“What the fuck is going on? Who are you?” I screamed at her. “Why are you doing this? Why are you acting like two different people?”

Vomit threatened to explode from my body. I had never seen or heard such a thing. It was as if a demon had entered Viv’s frail little frame. The demon was Vivian.

“Who are you? What is this?” I screamed again. I screamed at the top of my lungs. I didn’t care if Pope heard me. I didn’t care who heard me. I had no control over my blood-curdling scream. I was terrified. I was sitting helplessly before the devil himself. I screamed again and again as the shrill sound of my howl rattled against my brain.

“Shut your mouth, girl!” Vivian snapped, rushing to cover my mouth with her hand that no longer trembled as it had minutes before. “He’ll hear you!”

I continued to scream, her hand doing very little to conceal the sounds of my horror. Over and over, I screamed in desperation, in fear, and in realization that there was no escape from this insanity. This complete madness.

She pulled her hand away from my mouth and slapped me hard against my cheek. “I said be quiet!”

I stopped screaming, stunned from the blow. The momentary pause was just enough for me to hear the heavy boots of a man running toward the door that led to my hell. Pope was coming. He was coming. He heard my screams, and now hell would have to be paid.

Vivian looked over her shoulder as she heard the click of the cellar door opening. “You fool,” she spat in a hushed voice. “You fool!”

“Momma! Momma! Are you okay?” The man sounded terrified, as if it were his mother screaming rather than me.

“Yes, Pope. I’m fine. I’m coming up there. Don’t come down. I’m fine.” Again, the accent was gone.

She rushed to the edge of the stairs to try to prevent him from walking all the way down, but it was too late. Taking the final step, his head turned and our eyes made contact. I was staring into the eyes of the ultimate demon. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I simply sat there and awaited my death. Death was dressed in a black shirt, black pants, and black boots. Death was all black as he should be.

He was the first to break our stare. His gaze went from my eyes to my breasts—my nipples hard from the cold air—and then to my exposed sex spread wide before him. His look was not carnal in nature or lust-filled. Instead, it was one of surprise and even disgust. He then looked at his mother who stood there wringing her hands together in worry.

“Momma…” The way he said her name reminded me of the sound of when a bullet leaves a gun.

“Oh, Pope. Let me explain. I don’t know what happened.” The southern accent was still gone, and the slight trembles to Viv’s body had returned. If I wasn’t sitting there watching it myself, I would have never believed it. The woman was morphing in front of me from one person to the next. Everything changed. Her voice, her attitude, and in many ways, her appearance as well.

“Fuck!” he thundered as he kicked a moving box that sat toward his right with a force that sent the box sailing through the air. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” The deep baritone of his booming voice reverberated off the concrete walls and floor. “What the hell did you do? What did you do?” He ran his hand through his hair and then punched another box repeatedly as he roared like a beast.

I watched as Viv stood there in absolute panic. She glanced at me and then at him as he attacked the box with his fists with a vengeance. He finally stopped and spotted the scissors still resting on top of another box. Storming over to where they sat, he picked them up and came straight for me.

I flinched and prepared for the worst. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Viv didn’t move to protect me as I had hoped she would. I don’t know why I expected her to, but I did. I knew Vivian wouldn’t, but I really thought Viv would.

Pope kneeled down before me—his face inches from my bare pussy—and brought the scissors to the binds wrapped around my right leg and proceeded to cut the rope. I watched him in disbelief, unsure of what his actions meant. He wasn’t hurting me, and, in fact, was being gentle in the way he handled my leg as he held me steady to cut through the thick material of the rope. When one limb was free, he moved to the other ankle. Having my leg free, I thought about kicking him in the teeth, but reason won out. I knew I would lose that battle and only anger him more. I closed my legs, though, so as not to show the inside of my pussy any longer. He glanced up and noticed that I had done so. It was then that I felt humiliation for the first time. Fear was a much more powerful feeling than humiliation, so not once had I felt the heat of embarrassment reach my face… not until that very moment. Pope Montgomery had seen every inch of my body. No doubt with my legs spread as wide as they were, he had seen the lips of my pussy stretched open and even my clit. I had been on full display for him. But even being as close as he was to me, he never once touched me in a sexual manner nor even looked at me in that way. The confusion over this only intensified my fear. I had no idea what was going on, or what to expect.

When Pope freed my other ankle, he silently got up and worked on the bonds around my wrists. I stared at Viv who shifted her weight from one foot to the other, clearly worried about what Pope would do. Was she waiting for him to kill me? Would he have sex with me first? Was that the reason why he was freeing me?

The minute my hands were free, I covered my breasts and tried to conceal my body as much as I could. I remained in the chair even though part of me demanded I get up and run. But I also knew there was no place to run to, and, even if I tried, I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could outrun Pope. One look at the man would tell anyone that he was in prime physical shape.

He walked in front of me and lifted his shirt above his head.

Fuck! He was getting naked! To have sex!

Not saying a word, he removed his shirt and put it over my head, then tugged it down, helping the fabric cover my body. His eyes made contact with mine, and I saw something different. The rage and fury I had seen earlier were gone. I couldn’t exactly figure out what I saw, but it was different. He stood up, placed his hands on his hips, and simply stared at my balled up self. His muscled chest before me reminded me of a gladiator in some blockbuster movie. Every curve seemed to be enhanced by the rippled contours of his physique. I expected to see tattoos—most likely because he was in prison and I had always assumed inmates had tattoos—but there were none that I could see.

Pulling my knees as closely to my chest as possible, I asked in a weak voice, “What are you going to do to me?”

He looked at his mother. “How could you do this? How?”

Her mouth opened and then closed.

“After everything,” he said with sadness lacing his voice. “After everything. How?”

“Pope, I tried. I tried!”

He shook his head, turned to look at me, and slowly extended his hand. “I’m Pope Montgomery. I promise you I will not hurt you in any way. You’re safe.”

I stared at his hand in disbelief and then back into his eyes. Safe? How the fuck was I safe?

When I didn’t reach out to take his hand, he pulled it away just as slowly as he had offered it. “What’s your name?”

I refused to answer. What the fuck was going on? Why was he acting like he didn’t know who I was? Like he had no idea I was even down in his cellar tied up? He looked over his shoulder at his mother for the answer.

“Her name’s Demi, remember? She’s the girl from the diner.”

It was then that he seemed to recognize me.

“What’s going on? Who are you people?” I couldn’t take it any longer. I had no idea what was happening. This multiple personality thing by the both of them was as disconcerting as it was disgusting. “Are you both trying to fuck with my head before you rape and kill me?”

“We aren’t going to rape or kill you,” Pope said calmly.

“Then what? What is it you want? Why did you kidnap me? To be your wife?”

Pope appeared as if my words stung. The perplexed look on his face only added to the insanity of my out of control nightmare. Why was he acting confused?

“My wife? What are you talking about?”

“Your wife!” I shouted as hysteria took over. “Your mother told me she was going to train me to be your wife! What kind of sick people are you?”

Pope walked over to his mother and grabbed her by her upper arms. “Momma, you tell me right now what is going on. Why did you do this?”

Viv shook her head. “I tried to stop her. I tried so hard! But she’s stronger than me. She has all the control when she wants it. I couldn’t stop it.”

Pope released his grip, and his head sunk to his chest as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. My body shook beneath the warmth of his cotton shirt that thankfully was large enough to cover most of my body as I waited for either one of them to explain what was happening. I was in the most fucked up episode of The Twilight Zone.

“I’m sorry, son. I am. It was out of my control.”

He finally looked up with glassy eyes, didn’t respond or acknowledge his mother, and then walked over to me. “Let’s get you out of here.” Without asking, he bent down, scooped me into his arms, and headed toward the stairs.

The brave part of me—the fighter—wanted to hit him and claw at his eyes. If I was going to be killed, I needed to have evidence of his DNA all over me so he would hopefully get caught. But something prevented me from doing so. Maybe it was the fear, or the exhaustion, or the insane mind fuck I had just encountered. Whatever it was, I remained motionless and allowed this man, this kidnapper—this killer—to carry me up the stairs and out of my dark prison.