Page 21 of Captive Heart

"He told me I was being punished for Daddy's crimes, but he didn't tell me what those were. I don't think he meant actual crimes, just whatever it was that he had a problem with. After that first whipping, I was bloody and almost unconscious. He shoved me in a tiny cage for hours. A whole day and a whole night, I think. It was a basement, so it was hard to tell, and I wasn't completely with it for a while. But there was a little bit of light that came through the boards covering a tiny, narrow window, like cellars sometimes have, and it was light and then dark and then light again through that little bit of a crack. He didn't let me out at all. Not to feed me or let me use the bathroom or even to see if I was still alive. The cage was so small that the wire dug into all the places that already hurt and I couldn't move around at all to change positions. For a while, I thought he was going to leave me there to starve to death and die…sometimes I wished he had."

A chill went through Micah at the matter-of-fact way she said it with no inflection at all in her words. Like it didn't really matter, either way, and he had to mentally block out the images of Sara and her bruised and lifeless body as memories came flooding back to him with Melody's inadvertent rousing of his own demons.

"There's some time I don't really remember at all. Just hazy images of…of…" She faltered for the first time, her face turning as white as the snow that had started falling outside. "…of really horrible, evil things he did to me, that he made me do." Her voice was almost too quiet for him to hear, not even a whisper, just a wisp of breath that didn't want the dreadful episodes she had endured to be heard, in case it made them real again.

"He forced me and beat me and did things that no human should do to another, and when I passed out, he just waited until I was awake before he did them all over again. Maybe sometimes he didn't even wait for that, but at least then, I didn't know about it… but he liked me to know. He liked to hear me scream."

She was quiet again, and Micah started to think she was finished. When he heard what she had to say next, he wished that she were.

"And that was my life. Day after day, month after month, year after year. I was never allowed clothes, not regular clothes, anyway. I never saw anyone else…" she trailed off and swallowed hard, and when she spoke again, her voice was a choked whisper. "…except when he sometimes had…friends…over, and they would join in the torment."

Micah closed his eyes against the implication of what she was not saying and felt his stomach heave.

"I was never allowed out of the house unless he chained me, out in the dark as a punishment, usually when the weather was bad, otherwise, what would be the point?" She laughed humourlessly, and it was an empty, chilling sound.

"Or sometimes when it was far too hot for any sane person to be out in the scorching sun without liquids or protection.”

Micah felt his nails cut into the flesh of his palms and realised that he had internalised his rage to the point of injury, but it still cost him a concerted effort to relax the impotent fists his hands had balled into.

"He never realised, but it was the hot days that allowed me a chance to find out where I was and what was around me, despite the eight-foot fences. There were no other houses right next door, but I knew they were close, because sometimes I could hear people or animals in the distance. There were fields to the rear, out past a thick, prickly hedge along the back boundary. I escaped by squeezing through it where it thinned."

As he looked at her thin forearms and shins where they poked out of the blanket, he realised that had been the cause of the deep scratches and the nasty looking punctures she was peppered with.

"The weather was foul, freezing cold with sleet interspersed with hail. I thought for sure I was going to die, finally. He left me out there for so long, watching from the window as I shivered, and my feet and fingers turned so numb that the pain was almost unbearable. I knew, if I didn't find a way out, that this punishment would be my last, but at least he hadn't chained me that night, because the weather was so bad, he didn't want to go out in it, himself."

"My God, he turned you out naked?" Micah muttered, horrified.

Melody looked up at him solemnly through the veil of extraordinarily long eyelashes, and although she didn't answer, Micah knew he was right. He swallowed harshly, bile rising up to burn his throat, but he laced his fingers with her own, holding tight, even though he was unsure who was taking comfort from whom.

"I was making a plan in my head when he decided to turn off the outside lights. It was supposed to be another part of my punishment, but it was actually my salvation, my opportunity to escape."

The tiniest of smiles brushed Melody's lips. "I took the tarpaulin from the woodpile to wrap around me and squeezed through the hedge, where it was thinnest, until I got out into the field. Then I ran and ran. I heard him shout, but I kept on going. I found a cottage across the field, but I didn't dare stop, in case they knew him."

Her voice drifted to a faltering stop, and Micah was surprised, after all this time and all the strength she'd shown, that there was a soft, unexpected sob.

As he peered at her, he noticed the lone tear that quietly trickled down her cheek. He couldn't stop himself, this time, from leaning over and gently wiping it away with his thumb.

"What happened at the cottage, Melody?" he asked, wondering how there could be something there that upset her more than the rest of her deeply disturbing story.

Heat reddened her face and Micah realised she was embarrassed. She ducked her head and refused to look at him, her lips pressed into a tight moue of discontent that only endeared her to him.

"There were some boots on the porch," she whispered so quietly, he had to bend his head closer to hear. "And when I decided to take them, I noticed a lovely, warm scarf as well, so I stole that, too. I’d never stolen anything in my life until that day!"

Her voice broke on another sob, and finally, Micah relented his hard stance and pulled her to him in a gentle embrace, his heart breaking for the young woman in his arms.

It was unbelievable that after all she'd been put through, after enduring being held captive, escaping the abuse and fleeing the near-death situation of being turned naked out into the frigid night, she was genuinely more upset about the fact that she'd had to appropriate some wellies and a scarf in order to keep from freezing to death.

She was a complete sweetheart, and right then and there, Micah vowed to be the best master he could possibly be, until the time came when she was able to stand on her own two feet.

"Don't worry," he promised earnestly. "I'll take care of it."

He meant every word.

14

By the end of the day, Micah had sufficiently treated Melody's frostbite, and the pain in her feet had reached epic proportions. She was trying to put a brave face on it, but Micah could see her pain and the quiet tears she tried to hide.

It was a Monday night, one of the few days the club was closed, so Micah was able to keep a close eye on her and devote more of his time than he would usually have been able to.

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