Page 4 of Signed For Him

My God, three weeks.

"Why haven't they found me?" I rasp out. I want to cry. I can feel my chest filling with emotion. If I've been gone for three weeks and they haven't found me, who's to say that they ever will? They have so many resources at their disposal and if they haven't found me yet, I dread the idea that they won't at all.

As I shift further up the bed, pulling the thin, crisp sheet along with me, Gray and Liam look at one another, a silent conversation passing between them. Gray's face looks even more grim now than it did moments ago.

"What happened? Oh god, please tell me they're ok," I demand, knowing for certain that I couldn't handle the idea of anything bad happening to any of those that I care for. I would rather they didn't find me at all than get hurt in the process of trying to get to me.

"This place is well covered. Hidden. It's unlikely that they will find you. The boss has spent years making sure that this place is impossible to find. They're fine. No one is hurt outside of you," Liam says as he moves to sit on the chair next to the bed on my left.

My mind doesn't seem to know how to comprehend what I'm being told. Nothing and nowhere is impossible to find. They will find me. I just have to wait. I just have to wait for a little while and they'll find me, I tell myself. The comfort I attempt to bring to my mind is pointless though. I know that the first twenty-four hours after a disappearance are the most important - the most likely time for a victim of kidnapping to be found and if after three weeks I haven't been found, it's unlikely that I will be.

Not impossible though. Not impossible. Even if I have to find a way to get out of here myself, I will. I just need to be patient. There is always a weakness, I just need to find it.

"I want to get up. I need to go to the bathroom. I want to shower." The truth is that I want a moment alone to cry my heart out and repair it before I have to face Liam again, but I'm not going to say that.

"I'll give you a hand, come here," Gray says as he helps me up from the bed and holds onto my arm as I walk on unsteady and jelly-like legs to a door on the opposite side of the room.

He walks me inside and shows me where everything is, telling me that he'll be just outside if I need him. There isn't a window or an accessible vent. No way out aside from the door that will lead back to Gray and Liam. I can't face leaving without Gray anyway, and I'm not sure my body has the resources to do much escaping right now as it is.

I turn on the shower and step inside, hating the new scars surrounding my body from the assault but lapping up the warm water on my skin like heaven and hell. My skin feels so sensitive to the pellets of water being thrown its way, but the warmth engulfs me. My mind races at the conundrum I find myself in, but I cut off the thoughts abruptly, knowing that if I start crying alone, I’ll probably never stop. I throw my head back under the cascade of liquid and wash myself quickly before stepping out and drying myself off.

"I've got some clothes here for you. Open the door a little and I'll hand them to you," Gray says. I do as he says and grab hold of the clothes.

Once dressed, I find the mirror above the sink and stare horrified at the face in front of me. Tears brim to the surface as I look on at the woman staring back at me. That's not me. It can't be. But it is. My hands lift and the woman in the mirror copies, tracing my fingers over the monstrous scar still healing over my face. I remember them cutting me. Hurting me. I thought I was going to die, but it isn't until this moment when I look in the mirror that I realise how truly broken I look. There are dark circles under my eyes, nearly healed bruises over the top of my body that are visible even with the clothes on.

I always thought that scars weren't a big issue but now that I have one running down my face, I want to break and cry and scream at the prospect of never looking the same again because having physical scars means that it isn't just my body that will never feel the same, but my mind too, and while stuck in this furnace of hell, I have no idea how I'm supposed to recoup. I have no idea who to trust or how much.

Three

Charlie

My backside throbs and burns as he pulls the whip back again, my body convulsing over the table, shivers running through me as I await the continued physical assault that lashes through my senses.

My fingernails dig into the side of the table, the pain tremendous as splinters from the wood embed themselves into my skin, but it's serving as the only distraction I can find. I hear the sound of the whip flying through the air towards my backside once more with a guttural roar filling the room as the cold material smacks against my uncovered skin, causing another twitch of my body, another sob. I do everything I can to hold it in as my head shakes of its own accord, the tears spilling onto my cheeks and the table below me as I try to stop myself from wailing out in pain.

"What number is that?" Liam rasps out, his breaths as harsh as mine are as he pants and takes a moment's respite.

"Twelve." My voice is barely above a whisper as he rounds the table and crouches down to meet my eyes, lifting my head by my hair in his hand as he does.

"How many? I couldn't hear you," he asks again, his voice steady as I watch his chest through my blurry vision, my eyes filled with tears.

"Twelve," I mutter quietly, acid and bile filling my mouth as I speak.

I don't want to be here. I want to go home. It's the only thought that occupies my mind - the only thought that I allow to keep me company. The thought of Crow pulls me through the depressive daze I find myself nearly submitting to daily.

Liam places my head back down on the table, my cheek on the cold wood beneath it. He strokes my hair as he takes a deep breath, "Do you need more or is that enough?"

"That's enough." I give in.

There's no point fighting it. I've been fighting it since I first entered this apartment. Fighting him, fighting the inevitable that I knew would end up happening if I wasn't found soon enough. I just hoped I would be found before I lost the strength I needed to keep fighting. But it's too late. I can't keep going - not mentally nor physically.

"I'm not doing this because I want to hurt you, I'm doing this because I don't want you hurt," he emphasises as he rounds the table, reaching the back of me as his hands begin roaming along the back of my bare thighs.

He made me strip, so that I was in nothing but my bra before he punished me. It wasn't unusual but that didn't mean that it was any less cruel. It is humiliating being covered in scars. I hate it, but to have to bare them to someone unwillingly makes it so much worse.

The punishment doesn't usually go on this long, but I think he sensed how close I was to breaking, how little fight I had left in me. He knew that he just had to go that little bit further before I surrendered.

His hands are wet, likely covered in my blood and sweat as they draw closer and closer to my entrance. The feeling of anyone, let alone him, being that close to the intimate parts of me makes me want to be sick, but I know that will cause me more pain so I hold back the urge and wait, unmoving as he does as he pleases with the body that is barely mine anymore.

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