Page 48 of Come Inside

It was probably time to get up and do some work, but I deserved a vacation.

Turning the lamp off, I pulled the covers back over my head and quickly fell back asleep.

Chapter 33

Yara

It couldn’t have been too much later that I heard a raspy, “Wake up, my precious angel.”

Weight pressed down onto my chest, constricting my breathing; I spluttered in terror, unable to suck in air. Warm, wet, but sturdy shackles held me to the bed, trapping me in place. And through it all, the crippling darkness, thedread, of the unknown. Of what was to come next.

The feeling was one I was intimately familiar with–it crawled across my skin, burrowing deep into my gut.

Thiswasn’treal. I was having a night terror, ithadto be.

Years of terrible nightmares had taught me one thing, how to wake myself up.

Except no matter how much I tried to pull myself out of this one, I was still snared, unable to move.

Thiswasn’ta nightmare, the realization caused me to finally blink my eyes open, my mouth opened to scream. Light flooded the room, I could see in my peripheral vision the window was broken, but my focus was drawn to the man that was imprisoning me.

“There’s my angel. You kept away from me for so long, but I told you I would always find you. You are tied to me for life.” Daniel’s voice was vines that encircled me into the trauma of my past.

I was living in the present and in my memories synchronously.

Of when I had woken up to him just like this, except those times I hadn’t remained calm. He enjoyed when I fought, loved to hear me scream, tried his best to make me cry.

“Get off of me.” I glared up at him, his muddy eyes were glazed over, and for a moment, I wasn’t even sure if he heard me.

“Yara, Yara, Yara. You aren’t pretty enough to talk back, remember? Nobody likes ruined angels, but I took you in. A precious angel, scarred and flawed. I took pity on you. And then you ran from me.” His monotone voice was more terrifying than if he was screaming into my face. “And now look at you. A filthy whore. Covered in not one but two men? I can smell them on you! You’re covered in their marks. But they’re both gone now, I watched them leave you. There’s nobody here in this house except us.” His eyes remained unfocused, I wasn’t even sure if he was here in this moment, or if he was caught in the past. “How dare you?” He bit the words out, spit flying from his mouth landing on my face.

“I’m not yours. I am my own person.” The words swirled into the tense room. I was doing my best to not lose my cool, to not let his voice alone unravel the years of progress I had made.

I held onto Mateo and Kazi, how they made me feel. I would make it out of this. They may not be here now, but they would return.

I knew I only had one chance. To scream. To fight. To escape this.

My heart pounded into my ears, I fisted the sheets below me.

He was using all of his body weight to push me into the mattress, his clammy moist hands encircling my wrists, his knees pinning my legs down.

The only part of my body that had any range of motion was my head.

What am I going to do?

He shifted, readjusting me and pulling my wrists above my head, one of his hands encapsulating them both. In his free hand, he now held a phone.

My missing phone.

A slideshow was playing. Pictures of me from that last month, through windows, from behind, across restaurants.

He had been vigilant.

He was talkingatme still, but I ignored it, formulating a plan.

I wasn’t the same teenage girl he put into a box so small that she had to reduce herself to fit.

Was I scared?Terrified.

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