Page 49 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

Lou still doesn’t move. I don’t want to get angry again because every time I do, I ruin the progress I’ve made with her, yet I can’t suppress my impatience.

If she does pass out, we have a problem.

During the course of the late morning, she lies down under the RV and I hear her mumbling numbers to herself. She may not even be aware she’s talking to herself. I watch her for a while. She seems to be scratching something in the dried earth with her stick. It seems strange to me. She seems strange to me.

One time she looks at me from under the RV. Reproachful and discouraged. And a little pleading. At least that’s how it seems to me, but how things seem is often not how things actually are. Besides, everything appears different to me today. Even my flashback seems different than usual, in retrospect. And I feel different. More real. More in my body. Not like I’m simply wandering through this life like a ghost.

The powder-blue sky thickens and changes color to a brilliant steel blue. As the sun climbs to its zenith, it gets sizzling hot and the air stands still as if a glass bell has been put over the area.

I pace up and down restlessly, kicking stones back and forth while doing the math on how much Lou has eaten and drunk over the past few days. She’s still under the RV and I feel my anger rising again because she refuses to use her head.

“If you’re trying to provoke me,” I call out to her at some point, “it’s working.”

“I’m waiting for someone to rescue me,” she calls back.

“Not going to happen.”

“We’ll see about that,” she insists defiantly.

“Yeah, we will.”

Okay… Lou has perseverance. That’s what I’m learning about her today. Despite last night, in which a thunderstorm must have raged without me being aware of it, during which I most likely freaked out, she serves me pushback. On the other hand, maybe she’s merely desperate enough to cling to even the tiniest straw.

I disappear between the spruces because I need to pee and wonder if Lou might have to, too. At any rate, when she has to go to the bathroom, she will give up her resistance, I’m certain of that.

For the rest of the afternoon, I find myself a shady spot and sit down with my back against the trunk of a pine tree. With my eyes closed, I listen to the sounds of the forest: the gentle buzzing of the bees, the chirping of the birds, the rustling and crackling of the chipmunks in the undergrowth.

Finally, as the light begins to fade and the shadows lengthen, Lou crawls out from under the RV frozen stiff. She doesn’t look at my face, but at my stomach. Without saying a word, she throws the key in my direction—much too high. I manage to catch it before it flies over my head and lands out of reach. Clumsily, I unlock the handcuffs and walk over to Lou.

When I see her, I don’t know whether to shake her or hug her. She presses against the side, trembling, yanking at her bonds as if she wants to break free and flee.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I blurt out far too harshly. I’m starting to feel like a parrot. I crouch next to her and undo the handcuffs. Our bodies touch, but she sits still. In order not to scare her, I stand up extra slowly.

“Come on. You need to drink something.” I grab her arm to help her up and she gasps in pain.

I let go immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“I can do it myself!” she snaps. With one hand on the RV, she heaves herself up and clenches her teeth.

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“No!” Lou crosses her arms defensively over her chest.

She couldn’t be more obvious! Sternly, I grab her wrist. “I don’t believe you. Let me see!”

“I banged my arm,” she says too hastily. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Banged your arm, hm.” I look her in the eye until she looks away and rolls up the sleeve of her blouse. “Oh, shit!” What I see terrifies me. There are two bruises on her upper arm as big and purple black as overripe eggplant. Basically, the whole arm is a single bruise, just in different stages. Her elbows are surrounded by a yellow wreath that must have come from the day of the kidnapping, with green, blue, and green-blue spots everywhere in between.

“Both arms?” I demand through clenched teeth, wondering how that matters.

She nods, but doesn’t meet my eyes.

Anger wells up inside me, this time at myself. “It won’t happen again!” I blurt out. “Never. You have my word, no matter what happens!”

She slips out of my grasp. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Trembling, she rolls down her sleeve before looking hard at my face. “But even then…” She shakes her head wildly. “Do you seriously think these bruises are worse than anything else you’re doing to me? Trust me, you could beat the crap out of me, rape me, whatever, I wouldn’t care as long as you dropped me off by the side of the road afterward.”

I wince like she head-butted me in the stomach. Everything in me turns. I would like to grab her and press her against the RV, yelling that she’s completely insane to even think such a thing. I clench my hands to release my anger. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” I reply with an iron-cold calm. “You’ve lost your mind. Go on, get inside.” I nod to the side door and this time she obeys immediately.

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