AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Shannon sighed. “One bed, you’re my wife or girlfriend. Two beds, and you’re an unknown variable. Two beds invites questions of who you are to me that makes someone remember me beyond the few minutes it took to check in. It’s never good to create questions in people’s minds. If you want to be a ghost, you have to learn that now.”
I hadn’t said I never wanted to re-integrate into the normal world. Just not right now. I still hoped I would regain my memory and then at least have some sense of solid ground underneath me before having to deal with nosy curiosity.
I tried to remind myself that this guy actually had friends, that he explored abandoned theme parks for fun. What had he called himself? An urban explorer? That sounded like some hipster nonsense. I couldn’t even imagine how that Shannon meshed with this one.
Once inside, I used the bathroom then came back out to the main area. The place was a bit run down, but clean. Well, clean enough. I didn’t have a black light to shine on the walls, and I probably didn’t want one. Sometimes a place just looking clean was enough.
Shannon put the chain on the door and scooted a chair underneath it like he thought we were going to be under siege any minute. Yet none of his movement was frantic. It was all calm and calculated, and once again, I thought he was going to kill me.
“Lie down on the bed.”
“W-what?” Or rape me.
“We’re going to sleep.”
I wasn’t convinced by his explanation, but he’d kind of blocked me in here. And I’d gone along with most of the steps along the way. Suddenly something flashed into my head. It was like a memory, but I wasn’t sure if it was anything attached to my life personally or just some random bit of general knowledge my brain had held onto.Don’t let them take you to a second location. Fight like hell to avoid it.
I kept telling myself this was my fault somehow. I never should have asked him not to involve the cops. But if Shannon was really bad, he could have done whatever he’d wanted anyway. As if he would have called for real help if he were evil. Who was I kidding? This guy had clearly done evil things. Me not being a target of it... yet... didn’t change that basic truth.
“Elodie, I’m tired. I want to get on the road early tomorrow. My house is much nicer than this. You’ll have your own room there.”
Room or basement? Or garden shed?
He started to look impatient. I didn’t want to escalate things, so I lay down. For better or worse, this was where I was now, and there was no real way out of it that didn’t escalate into violence. I had a very strong feeling that if I fought him too hard, that thing in his brain would click on again and he’d decide I was too much trouble.
Shannon undid the nylon holding my borrowed pants in place and ripped it out of the belt loops. Before I could process what he was doing, he had my hands over my head and tied to the headboard. He could have used the rope in his bag, but I got the feeling he wanted to move into and own my space.
The headboard was older and solidly well-made with slats to run rope through. Maybe Shannon was just super lucky. Or maybe he’d done this before. Though I was sure, even without such a convenient way to tie me down, he would have easily figured something else out with whatever the room had offered him instead.
“Please, don’t do this.” I was crying and blubbering, and right on the cusp of a panic attack. And despite my best efforts not to become too much trouble for him to keep dealing with, I struggled, however vainly. But it was nothing to him and didn’t slow him down more than a few seconds in his goal.
Once I was secured, Shannon shut off the lights, kicked off his boots, and lay down on the other side of the bed, turning his back to me.
“Go to sleep. Things won’t seem as bad in the morning.”
Shannon was a man who obviously knew how to create trauma but didn’t know the first thing about undoing it. Nearly everything he’d said or done from the moment we’d met had triggered one fear or another. He’d kept me on a razor’s edge of anxiety, but somehow I didn’t think it had been intentional.
Even so, it was well past the point when Shannon’s breath deepened in sleep before I could find my own fitful peace for the night.
* * *
The next morning,I had that experience where you wake up in a new place and forget how you got there. Except for me, this was a bit more upsetting, seeing as the last time it happened, no memories came back to fill in the spaces.
I felt my hands tied, panicked, and screamed.
Shannon rolled over faster than I thought a human could move. His hand clamped over my mouth so hard I was sure there would be a red hand mark when he removed it.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hissed.
I whimpered behind his hand.
“If you scream again, so help me...”
I shook my head frantically. What good would that do me? It wasn’t as if I’d planned to scream in the first place.
He pulled his hand away slowly.
“I forgot where I was, and my arms are asleep, and I freaked out. I-I’m sorry.”
