Page 6 of Better Run
“Eat.” He hands me a sandwich and sucks some peanut butter off his finger. I watch his mouth close around the finger, lips pulling on it. I shake my head in anger. He’s pretty but so cold. Evil.
He smirks.
I devour the sandwich as he makes another. I eat that one as well.
A jarring ringing fills the silence and I jump. He pulls a blocky-looking phone out of his pocket. He glares at it, then at me.
“Remember the rules.” He steps to the front door and answers it just before stepping outside and slamming the door. A small chime of an alarm goes off when the door is opened.
I stand, dumbfounded. I look around the cabin. I hear his low voice just outside the door. My first instinct is to run. I want to break out the back windows and go. I start that way, then pause.
This is a test, I know it is. He could have chained me back up and then taken the call. He’s trying to see if I’ll obey.
I don’t want to. I want to scream and punch and run. I clench my fists, my body shaking with the fight to redirect my adrenaline. It pisses me off, but he has the upper hand right now. It won’t do me any good to show my cards when he’s expecting me to.
I bite my tongue and look around the living room for anything that could help me. I look up. There’s an open loft with a wooden railing. I check the windows in the living room. They’re also nailed closed.
I move back to the kitchen and slowly open a cabinet. It doesn’t squeak. Inside, I find paper plates and bowls. I open cabinet after cabinet and drawer after drawer. Trying to get anything - a toothpick, a fork, a bill with his name on it. They’re virtually empty. Like he removed everything knowing I’d go through them.
His deep voice continues outside. It sounds like he’s arguing with someone.
I open the fridge. There are three cartons of eggs, milk, cheese, a bunch of chicken thighs, and barbecue sauce…enough to feed a few people for at least a week. In the freezer are a bunch of frozen meals, neatly arranged. Dread sinks in my stomach when I see a familiar stack of my sage chicken meals. How does he know? He has been stalking me. Fear runs currents around my bones. But don’t I have to have some sign that he’s been stalking me for that to apply? Some declaration of love? He seems repulsed by me. Confusion fills me. But I guess the meals mean he probably plans on keeping me alive for at least a little. I counted seven of them.
My stomach hurts.
I move to the bathroom. I could break the mirror if I needed to. That’s the only useful thing in there. There’s a door across from the bathroom, and I open it. From what I can see wooden steps go down in a half staircase into what must be a basement.
A hard hand grabs where my shoulder meets my neck. I squeak.
“Trying to run little kitten?”
“No.” I hate myself for showing him a little fear. How in the world was he so damn quiet? I turn around to face him. He waits, maybe expecting me to give a smart-ass response. But I bite my tongue and picture punching him right in his pretty face.
It makes me smile.
He seems disappointed and shoves me back to my room with a bored look. He locks me up again and leaves me once more.
***
For the next few hours, I try to formulate a plan. The man doesn’t ask me for anything so maybe he’s been paid to give me to someone else. I won’t give him that opportunity. I drink as much water as I can, use the restroom when he lets me, and eat the sandwich dinner he provides. I ask for another, and he gives it to me.
I try and sedate him into complacency. Which is pretty fucking hard to do when he doesn’t ask for anything. It’s like we’re stuck in a stalemate. The tension is thick in the air. Once he caught me rolling my eyes at him, his smirk was deadly.
I’m not sure what rules he isn’t telling me, but I know they’re there and it feels inevitable I’ll break one. Well, I know I’ll break one when I kill him. And it’ll feel fucking amazing. I’ve stayed angry. I don’t let myself feel anything else.
Slowly, he gives me more freedom. After the first day, he lets me use the bathroom alone and gives me a stick of deodorant and a stack of my clothes, which I presume he got from my room. Which is awfully invasive of him.
The next day he lets me fix my own sandwiches while he makes eggs. I spend most of my time trying to get the wire out of my bra to pick the lock with. It’s sewn in so tight. I steal a plastic knife and saw at the material. It takes awhile but the wire pops out. Only it’s too thick to pick the handcuffs with, which leaves me with a ruined bra and no alternatives.
I try not to think about Kyle and Carissa. They’ll know I’m gone. What are they thinking happened to me? How long until they go through my social media and find him? How long until they find me? The thought makes me sad.
On the third day, he doesn’t chain me to my bed.
In the afternoon, we both sit in the living room. I hit him with my usual barrage of questions in the morning, going from angry to frantic, back to angry. We’ve been silent for hours. Finally, I break my silence, “Who were you talking to outside the other day? On the phone?”
He’s working on some small engine that he brought in from outside. He looks up at me, like he forgot I was there.
“A friend.”
