Page 20 of Pushed

Is this really where you should be putting all your effort? Trying to keep the dark?

I was fighting a battle I couldn't win. Machi wasn't giving up, and from the sound in his voice, he was enjoying our little scuffle. What good was a protest if the enemy only saw it as a game?

Let him have it, this isn't your fight. . . Living is.

“Fine,” I groaned, the single word long and drawn out. Freeing the tension in my muscles, I let my body fall limp. “Do it then, but I'm not. I don't want to see you, I don't want to see where I am, I don't want to see anything.”

The tips of his fingers curled under the thin edge of the blindfold, peeling it away. “You can't live in darkness. I need you to learn, I need you to watch and listen and pay close attention,” he said with heavy breaths still labored from our struggle.

I kept my eyes closed, refusing to look at him. “No, you get nothing.”

Machi climbed off my waist and sat beside me. “I told you that this was going to keep you alive. If you don't do what I tell you to, then I can't make you any promises.”

“Oh, now we're throwing out promises?” Stuffing my head into the mattress, I kept my face buried. “Like I'd believe your promises anyway, your word means shit to me.”

“Look at me.” Machi tugged on my shoulders, rolling me towards him. But I kept my eyes sealed shut. “Look. At. Me.” His voice grew strained, like he was pleading rather than giving me an order.

“Why?”

“You need to see in order to understand. I can't help you if you won't help yourself.” His fingers brushed the hair off my face, tender and light. “The more you defy me, the harder it's going to be on you. I don't want to punish you, that's not why you're here.”

How can you ever get out if you don't see?

I had to ask myself the question. What choices could I make if I didn't have my eyes? It wasn't the right decision to stay in the blackness, it only prevented what I wanted.An escape.

“Then why am I here?” Slowly, I cracked my lids, blinking rapidly as the light crept in. “I just want to go home.” Holding in my tears, I rubbed my eyes. “Please, take me home.”

“I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you've seen too much, my guys have seen too much. I can't just send you on your way, not the way you want me to.”

Resting my hands on my forehead, I looked up at the ceiling. It was more yellow than white, with thick crown molding that appeared to have been gorgeous when it was young.

But that beauty was gone, it was forgotten and left to rot. Pieces of the molding were hanging off, secured in place by rusty nails. Huge chunks of bare wood were visible between old strokes of paint, while spiderwebs and dust took the place of shine and mystique.

Water stains marked the ceiling like a disease, sprawling out like mold on a damp piece of bread. The bed I was on had the feel of a prison bunk, the shaky metal frame was corroded and flaking. A plain green sheet covered the mattress and a folded up gray blanket rested on the end.

There was one large window, boarded up and sealed shut, keeping any sign of the outside world away. The paper that dressed the walls was pealing off in all directions, flopping over as the glue was no longer strong enough to hold it in place.

It was dark, dirty and disgusting, making my skin crawl as I sat idling, gushing with the need to be free of everything that had to do with a place like that.

The room was meant for a movie, a gore flick, a scene where a masked killer had trapped unsuspecting victims.

Looking up, I stared at my killer. He was completely opposite of what you'd expect. He was clean cut, put together in such a way that he dripped dreamy sex god; not kidnapper, life taker.

“What's going to happen to me?”

Machi reached for my hands, pulling them away from my face and examining the swollen, raw skin around my wrists. “Shit, you really did a number on yourself, these need to be cleaned.”

The touch of his fingers was surprisingly gentle, they swept lightly over the open skin as his face softened in concern. The way he caressed my wrists sent my body up in flames for all the wrong reasons.

My stomach swarmed like a cloud of locusts as my skin buzzed from head to toe, storming my heart like the hard crash of a lightening bolt.

I tried to hate it, I tried to ignore it, but his touch was unexpectedly kind. It was hard to believe that the same hands I had seen squeeze the air out of another were still capable of that much tenderness.

No. He's a killer, he's a monster.

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