Page 78 of The Spotlight Effect

I remembered one summer my parents brought me here and I slept in this room with Dex while Lia had the guest room. “I know you aren’t sleeping,” Griffin said as he sat me down on the bed.

“Why did you bring me in here?” I asked him.

“We’re gonna send a little message to your daddy,” Griffin said and pulled out his gun. Now I’m gonna tie you up, and if you struggle, that will be one more whip for after, and if it gets bad, I will shoot you,” Griffin threatened me. I was still; I let him tie me to the bedposts. Griffin pulled out a camera and began to set itup. “Now, to make this more fun,” Griffin said as he came over to the bed. Fear grew inside me, and he reached for my clothes and tore them. “Perfect,” he said. “You look just like your mother.”

Griffin went back to the camera and pressed a timer. Griffin came back over to me and duct-taped my mouth before the camera light turned red, meaning it was recording. “Hello brother, I have something here that you prize, and you have something I prize. It hurt knowing you would marry the woman I love and didn’t even think about my feelings, and so now I’m here you get back,” Griffin stated before grabbing a leather flogger, but this didn’t look like the sexually used kind. No, this one was meant to hurt.

Griffin walked over to me and began his strikes. Hit after hit, tears ran down my face as I cried, and marks formed on my body. The tears eventually soaked the tape, so it came off, and my screams could be heard. After thirty strikes, I was red, swelled, and had a few blood gashes. Griffin stopped the video and hooked his camera up to the computer to upload. “Now to clean you up.,” Griffin said.

“Don’t touch me,” I cried out.

“I won’t hurt you…anymore. For now. But I do need to clean you up,” Griffin said.

“No! Don’t touch me,” I yelled at him.

“Fine, then bleed,” Griffin started and jumped on top of me. “Don’t forget while you’re here, I can do anything to you.” He grinned as he gripped my breast hard.

“Please stop touching me,” I begged.

Griffin left me and went to his computer. Griffin worked on the video, but I could only be awake for a bit because I passed out. When I woke up, I was back in the bedroom where I first woke up, but this time tied to the bed, laying down, and Dexter was gone, but Lia was tied to the chair now. “Where’s Dex?” I groaned.

“Griffin took him,” Lia responded.

We didn’t see Dexter for an hour after that.

About two hours later, he brought us food and chained us with chains so we could walk around the room but not get away. Not that I did much walking; I was in severe pain.

“We need a plan,” I stated.

“No kidding but how do we get out?” Dexter asks.

“We know this place. All we need are the keys to these chains and to the door,” I said.

“Is the window unlocked?” Lia asked.

“Let’s check,” Dexter said and so they did. It was locked.

“Why haven't our parents found us?” Lia asked.

“Smartie pants took anything that could track us away,” Dexter said.

“He’s smart but we can be smarter,” I said.

“How?” Lia asked.

“We don’t need to get away tonight; what if we do it during the day? He wouldn’t think we’d do that,” I told them.

That night, we spent time coming up with a plan.

The next day, he took Lia first, and she came back with lashes as well, and Dexter fixed her up. The different thing about this is he didn’t bring food all day. But that wouldn’t matter because we were getting away today.

The plan starts off with me causing trouble while he shoots one of the videos and then Dex causing a scene in the room, giving Lia time to unlock a door, but we needed a good excuse, so we said Lia’s period started and needed products and a shower.

It was about four p.m. when we decided to move into action. Lia unlocked one of the doors earlier and Griffin hasn’t noticed since it’s the basement exit door. Griffin was away from the house, and we unlocked our chains and headed down, but we didn’t account for him forgetting his wallet and having to come back. When Griffin left, we waited thirty minutes and then madeour way down to the basement. Dexter locked the door to get back in, but that’s when we heard the car pull up.

“We won’t make it,” Lia said.

“Yes, we will. Let’s just go and make a run,” Dexter said.

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