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I’m struggling to hold on to hope, but with every day, it’s fading. I was able to survive my time with Joshua because underneath it all, I knew I had at least some control over my fate. And I knew Joshua wanted me. He wanted to own me, yes, to possess me completely, but I knew he didn’t want me dead. Micah wants me dead.
And from the nasty gleam in his eyes, I can see he’s got something especially harsh in store for me today. There’s something made of cloth bunched up in his hand. What is it hiding? Something bad. It can only be something bad.
“Today’s going to be a little different,” Micah says to me as he unchains me. I stand up slowly, painfully. I feel tight and swollen and hot all over, despite Astrid coming in every day to change my bandages, clean my wounds, and give me medication. Every part of my body is battered. The cut marks on my chest, the brand on my buttocks, the whip marks on my back… will he start in on my face today? There’s not much unmarked flesh left.
I stare at the floor, waiting for him to do whatever he’s going to do.
He grabs my chin and turns my head to make me look at him. His mouth is twisted into a smirk. His eyes are cruel, eager to drink in my suffering. “What, no smart remarks?”
“They’d be wasted,” I reply coolly. I won’t reward him with tears or screams unless he forces them out of me. When I’m in between torture sessions, I retreat into my shell, wearing an indifferent mask. There’s no drawn-out sobbing or hysteria, not like Heather, who punctuates long bouts of silence with fits of crying.
“Careful.” His smirk tightens, his lips drawing back into a grimace. “Piss me off and I’ll go have fun with your friend instead. And it will be your fault.”
I stare right into his ice blue eyes. “Micah, or Charlemagne, or whatever dress-up game you’re playing today, nothing I say or do is going to make any difference. You’ll do whatever your inadequate, perverted little brain dreams up, no matter what. And either Joshua will find us in time to save us, or he won’t.”
“You’re so brave,” he croons sarcastically. “I see why Joshua loves you.”
“He doesn’t love me,” I snap. “I told you that already. I was just another possession. Another project.” Do I believe that, or am I just saying it in the faint hope that he’ll stop torturing me? I’m not sure what I think about Joshua, or about anything anymore. My only thoughts now are how to survive the next few minutes, the next few hours.
He smiles with triumph. “Oh, I saw the way he looked at you, drinking you in like the finest wine. That was love, Tamara.”
Is that true? I want it to be true, and not just because it means he won’t abandon me here. If I have to die here, I want to die knowing I was loved. That someone will miss me fiercely. I want to have mattered.
Micah holds out the cloth in his hand. I see it’s a dress.
“Hold out your arms. I’ll help you get dressed.” I do, wincing as he roughly pulls my arms through the sleeves of a wraparound dress, then pulls it around me, tying it at the waist. The place where he carved his initials into my chest is partially exposed, the “S” peeking out in a hideous red squiggle.
This is the first time I’ve had clothes on since I’ve been here. I can’t fathom why he’s dressing me. What does this mean?
I glance over at Heather, who hasn’t spoken to me in the last twenty-four hours. She doesn’t look up from her bed.
He wraps his fingers around my arm. “Come with me,” he says. And he takes me, not to the side of the room where he tortures me, but out of the room. We pause for that retina scanner on the way out, and when we step into the hallway, he slams the barred door shut behind us with a resounding clang.
I curse my physical weakness. I can barely move now without crying. While I know where to strike him to take him out, I lack the strength to do it. I had these big dreams of using my secret sparring knowledge to disable him, and they’ve come to nothing.
The hallway is bare of decoration; no pictures on the white plaster walls, no carpet on the laminate floor. Micah hauls me limping past several doors, around a corner, down another long, plain hallway, and into a big, sparsely furnished living room. Astrid is sitting on a black leather couch with a girl who looks to be nine or ten, and two young teenaged girls. They look like their mother, lean and pretty with dirty-blond hair. They’re all wearing jeans, blouses, sneakers, and wary, frightened expressions.
He introduces them. Her daughters are named Darlie, Julianne and Robin. Darlie looks like she’s about nine or ten, and Julianne and Robin are teenagers.
My heart aches for them. They’re so young. They don’t deserve this hell. Even if they survive this, they’ll never be the same.
“Oh, don’t look so sad,” Micah says with cruel cheerfulness. “I promised them when I first took them that I wouldn’t hurt them as long as they cooperated with me and followed my orders to the letter.” He puts particular emphasis on those last three words, and I feel a faint shiver of alarm. Astrid doesn’t seem to notice. “That’s the deal we have, isn’t,Astrid?”
I see her eyes flicker with annoyance. His insistence on using her first name when she asked him not to is just another of his stupid bullying power moves. What a petty little tyrant. Even more reason to loathe him.
“Yes,” she says quietly, not looking at him. “You have reminded me of that many times.”
He glances at me. “Why don’t you sit here and socialize for a while? Lunch is on the table.” He points at a coffee table sitting in front of a sofa, and I see there is a platter of sandwiches and a pitcher of what looks like iced tea, with glasses. “I’ll be back whenever I fucking feel like it.”
Darlie flinches at his language, and Astrid’s lips thin as she presses them together. For some reason, the fact that he’s using that kind of language in front of a child ignites a flare of rage deep inside me, even though it’s the least of his transgressions.
Of course, there’s nothing I can do about it, or anything that he’s doing to us. A dull, leaden lump of despair settles in my stomach.
There’s another of those retina scanner panels next to the door. He uses it to exit the room.
I walk very slowly over to the couch, my breath hitching with every step, and Astrid helps me to sit down. I groan as I settle back against the cushions. Her daughters look at me with dismayed expressions, their gazes flicking to my scarred chest. I’m suddenly conscious of the barbell piercings; are they visible through the fabric? Shame burns through me, and I cross one arm over my chest, awkwardly trying to hide myself.
“Did he hurt you?” Darlie asks, tears brimming in her eyes.
