Metal hinges groaned.
Four.
Those fucking heels struck the concrete.
Click.
Click.
Click.
They fell in a perfect rhythm, and I hated that I counted those, too.
Every god damned time.
Natalie never simply walked casually through the door. No, it was all a performance to her. Each footstep landed with the calculated precision only she had, and every pause was intentional.
“This is your punishment for being a bad dog and disobeying me. Maybe when you can count your ribs from lack of food, you will learn to be a good little bitch for me. Shame on you, Cry Baby.”
Her words echoed in my head over and over.
Four days? Was it four days?
It was hard to know how many days I had actually been stuck in the restraints.
She knew too much about me now. Even more than she had before, and now she sat beside me and mocked me.
The counting.
The symmetry.
The way unfinished patterns clawed beneath my skin until I couldn’t think about anything else.
Sometimes she’d tap the table seven times and stop, just to piss me off.
It did. Every single time she didn’t finish a sequence, I lost my mind.
Sometimes she’d knock twice…wait…then knock once more, but nothing concrete. Nothing…right.
It was wrong.
Like her.
Sometimes she’d hum the beginning of a tune and never finish it.
She wasn’t torturing my body, like her usual beatings. This taunting was far worse.
She was torturing my brain.
I heard the steel door swing open, and I couldn’t help but flinch at the sudden sound.
“Good morning, Cry Baby.”
I looked to the side with my eyes. All I could move.
Natalie stood in the doorway, wearing an ivory suit that probably cost more than the shit people at that bar were wearing.
Gold earrings caught the light when she tilted her head, studying me with the same detached interest someone might reserve for an experiment nearing completion.
