SEVEN - SOPHIA
He seems in pain while he sleeps. I watch him for a while, he mutters, saying things that have meaning only to him, partial words that make it hard to hate him.
I am hungry. Charles has brought me food but I dare not eat it. I have no way of knowing what he has done to it. I do not want to pass out again. I wonder if I'll ever leave this place alive. I want to see the sky again. I want to feel the grass under my feet. The concrete is cold and inhuman and it numbs my toes. I hate it. As the adrenaline that coursed through me ebbs away, anger takes its place, then a deep sorrow.
I sleep despite the ever present light, though only in snatches, awakening so many times, by the time Rock awakens, I have another headache.
As soon as his eyes open, they fix on me. I feel like I'm being examined, like he's looking deep inside me, like he already knows me, which is impossible.
There is something about him which is familiar but I know this is just my paranoia, as if I have caused my incarceration, because of something I did to him.
Victim blaming, I tell myself. Stop it. I do not deserve to be here. I deserve to be free.
With his eyes on me, I resume pacing, unable to keep still. I hate standing still and looking at him. When I do, thoughts come unbidden into my mind, thoughts I don't like. They whisper to me of the bulge I saw in his trousers yesterday, of the fact I've never known the touch of a man in that way. Will I die without ever knowing? Should I let him show me?
I shake my head as I walk, refusing to countenance such appalling thoughts. Now is not the time to think about that. I should think about how to escape from here.
I have a hint of a plan but it requires many steps to succeed and it could fail if a large amount of luck is with me. Given that I have been kidnapped and locked in with a brute of a man, luck is very much not on my side. I have seen the key to my freedom though, I saw it when Charles turned his back on me.
The man crosses to the bars and stares closer at me. I glance at him. Why do I find that look reassuring? It isn't. I'm not safe here, remember?
He turns away and pulls off his top. I manage to resist gasping at the sight of so many scars on his chest. He lowers his trousers and I look away. What is he doing?
I look again and he is doing press ups. The muscles on his arms flex. He is even bigger without most of his clothes on, how is that possible?
He grunts slightly as he flashes up and down. I find my pacing slows of its own accord and then I stop entirely.
He is sweating, his skin glistening as he begins sit ups. From where I am, I can see the bulge in his boxer shorts. I stare at it, my body reacting even as my mind is disgusted at the sight. I don't want that.
My insides feel differently, tingling and thinking of impaling myself on his length.
I need to distract myself. I go over to the door and start picking at the edges, seeing if there is any way of getting it open.
I don't hear him but he has stopped moving. "Don't do that," he says, his voice gruff, barking at me.
I jump at the sudden noise, looking back over my shoulder. "Why not?"
He points at the door. "Punishment if you're bad."
I ignore him, turning and hammering on the door. "Let me out of here!"
I hear the scrape of metal and glance around in time to see he has materialised on this side of the cell. Before I have time to work out what is happening, water pours from a pipe in the ceiling. It is freezing cold and I yell but it only hits me for a brief second.
Rock shoulder barges me aside. I slam into the wall but I am out of the iciness and able to breathe again.
I shiver as with a clunk the water shuts off. Rock is standing there, dripping wet, as am I.
I look from him to the cell. Two of the bars are raised. There is a hatch. He could get out any time.
The thought chills my blood. When I was asleep, he could have sneaked out and...
"If you could get out any time, why didn't you?" I ask, my teeth chattering in the cold. The water is pooling at my feet and I move sideways, trying to get away from it and him.
He looks at me, wiping the hair from his face. As his fingers smear dirt away, I see his skin. It makes me want to clean the rest of him, wash away the awfulness of this place, anything to make me feel human again.
"Nowhere to go," he says.
"You tried to reach me through the bars," I say, shuffling backwards again as he moves towards me. "Why?"
"Not allowed to use the hatch."
"You used it now, why?"
He looks at me with those burning eyes of his and I feel naked before his gaze. I cannot move as he halves the distance between us. He looks down at my body then up at me. "To protect you."
The words are gruff but there is a warmth to them. I am not expecting it.
"Who are you?" I ask.
"Rock," he replies at once.
"But who are you? Do you know me?"
The door beside him bangs open and I jump. Charles walks in, looking furious. "Back in your cell!" he shrieks at Rock who obeys at once, sliding away through the hatch like a scalded cat.
"I teach you," he said, looking at the bars of the hatch. "I teach you to respect me and you do this?"
He shoves the hatch closed, rattling it to make sure it cannot open again.
I am already crossing to the door, trying to move slowly while he is distracted. Where will you go?" he asks. "You do not even know where you are?"
I am almost out of the door but he moves surprisingly fast for someone his age. He gets a hand on my wrist. "You want to go?" he asks.
Rock shouts. "Don't!"
All of a sudden I want to stay where I am. This is some kind of trap. But Charles is dragging me out, kicking the door closed behind him, cutting off the noise of Rock howling like a wolf. There is silence in the dark, then Charles pushes open another door and light envelops me. Soon, I wish I was back with Rock, anywhere but where I am now.