Page 1 of Dark Knight

1

Evie

A scream clawed its way up my throat, stopping just before it exploded out of my mouth. Even sleeping, my subconscious was keeping me safe, stopping me from calling out and getting myself in trouble.

It wasn't like this was the first time I'd had to be quiet or remain unseen, but this time there was a fear that I knew was deadly behind my silence. My life had never depended on it before, and I was pretty sure it did now.

I bolted upright in bed. My subconscious was trying to escape the situation I was in, but as soon as I really woke up, I knew it was no good. I was stuck here in this room that amounted to nothing better than a prison cell. The only person that knew where I was was the man who put me here.

He went by the name Sampson, at least that's what he told me. The man was a kidnapper, so it wasn't like he was above lying. He claimed that he was a family member of my roommate, Lyric.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm my racing heart. The faint scent of mildew filling my nose made me wish I hadn't.

The idea that Lyric knew somebody so vile seemed detached from the girl I knew. She had a troubled past, that much was obvious from the beginning. She had done things that she was ashamed of, and she made it clear that she had skills that most girls around her age wouldn't even know the first thing about. Still, there was a disconnect in my head between her and the man whose footsteps I now heard coming down the hall.

The steady thunk, thunk, thunk of his boots on the concrete echoed through my bones.

His pace was measured, not rushed, and it left no doubt about who was in control of the situation. It sure as hell wasn't me. I had been dreaming about the day he took me again.

I thought the nightmare that was my life ended when I escaped the cult that I grew up in. I thought I'd found freedom. Life was almost idyllic for a couple of years, but this new nightmare I found myself in was even worse than before.

The grating of metal on metal sounded as he opened the door to the room that he was keeping me in. I was sure that if I ever escaped, that sound would haunt me for the rest of my life.

"Blondie," he grunted as light poured in behind him, silhouetting his figure, one that was terrifying to me. I never really understood the phrase darkened a doorway until I saw him standing there the first time.

Sampson was a large, imposing man. Who, even though he was older, had relatively little body fat on him. But that didn't mean he looked like a bodybuilder. In fact, his musculature was almost lean, even given his size. His shaved head made me wonder if he was balding or not.

He walked a few paces in, and I scuttled back on my bed, pressing myself into the corner. The cinder blocks of the wall were cold against my skin as the metal of the handcuffs around my ankles bit into my joints. There was only so far I could move. He'd designed it that way.

The bucket he was carrying thudded on the floor as he set it down, water sloshing over the sides and splashing against the concrete floor. He pulled a towel, a sponge, and some little hotel style bottles of shampoo and soap from under his arm along with a toothbrush and toothpaste.

"Today is the day we're getting out of here. That means that you need to be clean. Can't have you smelling like a month's worth of filth when people are trying to buy you off of me." My stomach turned at his words.

He made it clear from the very beginning that this was just a paycheck to him–just a way for him to torment Lyric because I was her first real friend.

"You need to be as fresh as a daisy when I come back. I don't want to leave bruises right before I'm trying to sell a product, but I will if I have to. Plus, there are plenty of ways I can hurt you that won't leave a mark." He paused, and the silence made my mind race. "I'll give you two hours. Eat this too."

A granola bar or protein bar or something flopped on the floor as he tossed it in my direction. My stomach growled loudly at the thought of having something to put in it.

When he turned away and walked out, I finally let myself take a breath. There was something about that man that made me freeze like a rabbit in front of a wolf.

It was only once the door closed behind him, the lock sounding once more, and his footsteps fading as he left, that I devolved into sobs. I knew he was somehow related to my roommate, and I knew she would be aware I was missing, but how the hell would she find me? Or stop what was happening? Hell, would she even want to? It wasn’t like we’d known each other that long.

I had no idea, and if I was honest with myself, I doubted that she could. So I decided not to count on it. If I was going to get out of here and avoid the life that was awaiting me at Sampson's hands, it was on my shoulders to do just that. I would rather be clean when I made my escape attempt than not, so I was thankful for the water and soap, even if I knew I was just as likely to get hypothermia from the cold water as anything else.

I peeled the clothes I'd been in for the last few weeks off my body before unfolding the towel and setting it to the side. A drab slip of a dress fell out from between the folds of the material, and I assumed that's what I was supposed to put on afterward. No sense in getting clean and putting dirty clothes back on, especially ones that stink worse than a pigsty. I just wish the dress wasn’t white. I would have taken any other color–white reminded me too much of my previous life.

After brushing my teeth, I started soaping up. Shivers wracked my body, making me dread rinsing off. Finally, I washed my hair. I knew it was backward and that I should have washed my hair first in case any dirty water got on my skin again, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

I wanted my body to be clean before anything else. Maybe it was the way cleanliness was drilled into me as a child, but I hated being dirty. As I sat shivering in my birthday suit, I rubbed the thin, scratchy material of the towel against my skin in hopes of drying off. The towel wasn't really up to the job, though.

Once I was dry enough, I began to nibble on the protein bar. I knew I couldn't take it too fast, otherwise I would just make myself sick. It was torture, forcing myself to go slow. I tried to recall the way Sampson had brought me here–the route that he took through the building. What anything looked like before he shoved me into this dark room and locked the door behind me. The memories escaped me, though. All I could feel was the terror that had filled me once I realized that there wouldn’t be a way for me to escape anytime soon.

Now was my time, though. I had to try, even if it meant my own death. The only question was whether I tried to escape in this building that I only had the vaguest recollection of or if I waited until I got to wherever he was taking me to sell me. If he was taking me somewhere that might be a more public area or at least more people there, then somebody might be willing to help me, which was why I made the decision to go along with him for now.

I'd be a good girl. I'd follow orders. I'd let him get comfortable, even more comfortable than he already was. And then finally, when the opportunity presented itself, I'd make a run for it. And I didn't care who I had to hurt to get away. Not anymore, even if that meant hurting myself. I'd rather go down fighting than not try at all.

The trouble was with someone like Sampson, going down fighting meant going down permanently. But at this point, that was a risk I had to take. Sometimes death was the answer. Whether it was mine or his, I no longer cared.

---