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“Does he pay you enough?” I asked.
Steven paused again. “It’s enough to support my wife, my daughter, and her kids.”
“You’re a grandfather,” I said.
“I have two grandchildren: a girl and a boy.”
“What are their names?”
“Betsy and little Steve.”
I smiled. “Your daughter named her son after you.”
“Yes,” Steven nodded. “It was before the accident.”
“What accident?”
“She was involved in a car crash,” Steven told me. “It left her paralyzed from the waist down. She lost most of the function in her arms too, and she can’t speak very well. My wife and I… we take care of her and her kids. Betsy is five and Stevie is three.”
I felt my heart go out to him, and suddenly I couldn’t hate him anymore, nor could I judge him anymore for doing what he was doing. He was just another victim. Walter had chosen him because Steven couldn’t afford to say no. He was a desperate man with a family to feed, and so his loyalty would always be absolute because he counted on the money he got from Walter every month. He would protect Walter because he had to, not because he wanted to.
I nodded. “Thanks for talking to me,” I said.
Steven nodded and walked out of the room. I lay there, with my hands aching and my heart on fire, and wondered what I was going to do. My resolve felt weak. The fight had gone out of me somewhat. Every hour I spent in this room felt like a defeat, and I wondered if I was just going to waste away within these four walls.
An hour after I had eaten, I heard footsteps again, and I figured Steven was back to collect my empty tray and ask if I wanted to use the bathroom. But when the door opened, it wasn’t Steven who walked into the room. It was the man who had haunted my nightmares for the last several months. He looked just as I remembered him: tall, powerful, and extremely dangerous.
He was wearing a sinister smile, and I felt my fear come rushing back to encapsulate my body. He walked into the room alone and slammed the door. It was just the two of us, and instinct told me to scream, but I clamped my mouth shut. Screaming was pointless… no one could hear me. At least no one who could help me would be able to hear me.
“Well, well,” Walter said, and the sound of his voice made my skin crawl. “Mila… we meet again.”
“Walter,” I said, trying to make my tone ice. I didn’t want him to sense or see fear. I wondered if he could smell it on me.
“Th
at was never my name.”
“It’s the name I know you by,” I replied. “You’ll always be Walter to me.”
“How romantic.”
“Is that how it sounded to you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “Strange.”
He looked at curiously, as though he was surprised by how I was reacting to him. I knew instantly that he had expected a quaking, quivering woman who was scared shitless and ready to beg for her life. Instead, he had me chained to a bed, staring at him defiantly, and refusing to turn from his gaze. I wasn’t nearly as confident as I looked or sounded, but my pride was the one thing still left to me, and I was going to cling to it until my last breath.
“You’re different,” he said, as he walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed.
I moved my feet so that there were still a few inches separating us. I didn’t want him to touch me, and for the moment, he didn’t make an attempt to.
“Am I?”
“You’re not as… docile as I remember.”
“Docile?” I repeated. “That’s a word people use to describe animals.”
“I don’t see much of a distinction here,” Walter shrugged. “We’re all just animals at the end of the day, aren’t we?”
“Some more than others,” I bit back.
