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Delivery? I wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t offer anything else. I doubt I would get an answer if I asked.
“Consider this an act of true mercy,” she murmurs as Elijah approaches, hands outstretched. Reaching for me, ready to grab me. “As I said, I have wrestled with this. And there was a point, I’m sorry to say, when the notion of leaving you here until the delivery seemed the best reaction considering the severity of your transgression.”
I can barely keep track of the nonsense she’s spewing. I’m too busy getting manhandled by Elijah, who doesn’t say a word or even look at me while pulling me from the would-be bed. He might as well be a robot, following orders without thinking about it. How can anybody be this cruel? It’s like I’m not even a person.
“You’re hurting me,” I finally have to whimper when his fingers bite into my arm as he leads me out of the cell and into the fresh air. “Don’t squeeze so hard!”
It’s not the pain that makes me feel frantic, panicky, like there’s something ready to explode out of my chest. It’s that cold, uncaring attitude. I need him to react somehow instead of just staring straight ahead, hardly blinking.
My body acts before I can think, and the next thing I know, I’m kicking him in the shin.
He still doesn’t say a word. All he does is growl and bare his teeth like an animal before bending and throwing me over his shoulder.
“Are you serious?” Evidently, yes, since he marches with Henry following behind us, snorting like this is all a big joke.
Instead of taking me back to the bunkhouse, we end up in a small brick cottage not far from Rebecca’s house. I’ve heard people talk about these smaller, individual houses. The homes the elders and their families live in. They’re given more liberties and luxuries than the average group members.
I wish I could look around and see if there’s any way to escape, but Elijah wastes no time marching me up the stairs and into a room at the end of the hall.
“Tie her to the bed,” Henry orders once we’re in there, making my heart lurch. This is getting worse by the second, and by the time Elijah drops me on a twin bed, I’m fighting breathless sobs.
“Don’t do this,” I whisper while Elijah uses rope to tie my wrists to the metal bed frame. I try like hell to look him in the eye, to reach whatever humanity is in him. But no matter how I crane my neck or twist my head around, he won’t look at me. He’s too busy tying tight knots. At least he’s not nasty or vicious about it, but he doesn’t leave any room for me to slide my hands out of the ropes, either.
I hear his father laughing softly as Elijah leaves the room and closes the door without either of them giving me a clue about what happens next. How long am I going to be here? And oh, my god, what are they going to do to me? How did Rebecca describe it? They’ll be taking care of me. There was something sinister in her voice when she said that.
They wouldn’t… no, they couldn’t. Rebecca would never let them rape me. But then again, how would she know? And would she care?
The knots are tight, but the rope is long enough that I’m able to move around a little. I push myself up into a sitting position and brush stray bits of hair away from my eyes and face. The room has obviously not been used in a long time—there’s not even a sheet on the bed, just a bare mattress and a pillow without a case. The curtains at the window are faded and thin, like they’ve been hanging there for a long time, but the window is closed. With all the mustiness, I could use a little fresh air in here, but I doubt they would trust me to leave a window open. I’m sure by now everybody knows what happened.
I wonder if they’re using me as a way to keep anybody else from trying an escape. Once again, I’m an example, only this time, it’s of what not to do.
It’s fully dark by the time the door opens, making me flinch. It’s only Elijah, though I’m not sure if he’s a friend or foe yet. He could have been a lot rougher with me, but then again, the fact that he’s doing any of this in the first place doesn’t give me much hope.
Once he turns on the bedside lamp, I see he’s carrying a tray. A plate with a sandwich on it, a bottle of water, and a banana. Right now, it looks like a feast. As upset as I am, the hunger is worse. And I want to keep my strength up, too. I can’t be weak and dizzy if I try to get out of this—which I have to. I can’t just sit here and wait for the next terrible thing to happen. The word delivery sends icy fear running down my spine. I don’t even want to know what it means.
“Please. Can you tell me what’s happening? What is she going to do to me? I’m not asking you to try to get me out. I just want to know.”
All he does is set the tray down like he never heard a word. I’m starting to wonder if he’s even able to speak. Maybe he’s hearing impaired, too. That would explain the way he’s acting.
Instead of leaving me alone, he goes to the window and sits on a wooden chair against the wall. His dark eyes linger on me, and his handsome face is still. He’s waiting for me to eat.
Fine. The sooner I’m finished, the sooner he’ll leave me alone and stop being creepy.
A plain ham sandwich never tasted so good. I devour the entire thing in five bites and wash it down with some water before eating the banana in record time. All the food did was make me feel hungrier, but it will have to do for now. Something tells me asking for more wouldn’t get me anywhere, and I’m not going to beg anybody for anything. I already look pathetic and helpless enough.
“Can I go to the bathroom? I could use the chance to wash up a little bit.” My fingers are scraped up from last night, that useless climb up the wall. I hold them up for him to see. “And it would be nice to not pee in a bucket like I’ve been doing all day.”
Even that doesn’t seem to shock him out of his blank-faced stoicism. All he does is get up, move the tray out of the way, and untie my wrists.
But, of course, he won’t let me go on my own. At least he stops outside the small bathroom down the hall from the bedroom and closes the door, separating us. What a relief. I was almost afraid for a second that he would want to watch.
The window is much too small for me to get through, so there goes that. I run the water in the sink and wash my hands and face while taking deep breaths to calm myself down. It doesn’t work.
What am I going to do? It doesn’t seem like anything I say gets through to Elijah. He might as well be a statue. All he’s doing is following the rules, which I guess I would do in his place. I mean, I’m an example of what happens when you break the rules. He wouldn’t want to be in my place.
I need to get through to him somehow. There’s got to be a way.
Right now, there’s nothing I can do but open the door and face what happens next.
