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“Erin? Erin, are you with us?”
My eyes barely opened. When they did, everything around me was shrouded in a mist-like fog. It was dark at first, but light soon followed. With it came tiny, invisible needles piercing my corneas. It burned. I wished I could cry to put out the fire, but no tears came. My lips were too heavy to open. I doubted I’d have been able to speak even if they weren’t. Something was wrong, very, very wrong.
“Erin?”
That voice again. I blinked furiously. Whoever stood in front of me remained an elusive figure—continuing to torture my eyes in a vain attempt to see caused too much pain. I gave up. My chin fell to my chest.
“She’ll wake up, don’t worry. Yes, I know it’s been a while. I might have given her too much. I didn’t account for the weight she’s lost. Just be patient,” a voice I didn’t recognize said. Whoever it was, the person was talking about me, the situation he or she had put me in.
My eyes remained closed, unprepared for more fiery pain. I kept my head low, praying for sleep.
It never came.
Instead, awareness shook me by my shoulders, startling me back to consciousness. I squinted through half-lidded eyes. The situation slowly unfolded before me. I was in the middle of my kitchen, tied to a chair. I’d been in that position once before; I’d hoped I never would again.
The inside of my mouth was sandpaper, dry and coarse. Any attempt to swallow away my nerves was impossible. When I parted my lips to speak, I was left wanting. I jerked in my chair. The legs rocked against the floor. I was fighting a losing battle against the zip ties that bound me. All that I gained from my efforts was a pain in my head so excruciating I feared it would explode. My eyes snapped shut to relax and quiet the unbearable pulsing within my skull. I needed to breathe. I’d be fine so long as I breathed.
“Erin? Are you with us now?” A few deep but slow breaths reduced the pain to bearable. “You’ve kept us waiting for so long, we were starting to get worried. Doris, fetch a glass of water.”
Despite my situation, I laughed to myself. Joe’s treatment of Doris, as if she was a dog, was comical. Such a sad, pathetic woman.
Doris stood before me, a full glass of water in her hand. I hesitated. It had become apparent, though I didn’t know when or how, that I’d been drugged upstairs after Joe yanked me by my hair out of the crawl space. I assumed he used the other half of the sedative that I’d been injected with that first day. However he’d managed it, I was in no rush to be drugged again. But the thirst was too strong to ignore.
With bound hands, I relied on Doris to bring the glass to my lips. She offered only sips at first, then steadily let me down the entire glass. I begged for more. Joe refused me.
“You’ve had quite enough already,” he said. “Gluttons and over indulgers are not welcomed in the house of the Lord. Proverbs 25:16, Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, that you not have it in excess and vomit it.”
I hated him, despised everything about him. Water was a necessity, not a luxury, a fact he wasn’t ignorant to and yet refused me, using passages from the Bible to excuse him of his cruelty.
“You know, Erin, so much has happened in a relatively short time between you and me that I feel I can share personal things about myself with you, no?”
I nodded in response, praying our “personal” conversation didn’t carry into the master bedroom.
“While you were upstairs with Mark, Kristen and I got the chance to get to know each other better.”
My heart stopped. I didn’t want to hear the details he was about to share.
“She’s a good listener. At first, I feared she wasn’t taking our lessons seriously, but through our lessons together, I found she truly listened to what I had to teach her. It was refreshing. If you remember our lessons,” he gestured between his chest and mine, “I’m sure you’ll recall that they didn’t always go so smoothly.”
That was an understatement.
Being smacked across the face, sexually assaulted, and forced into a hole in the wall hadn’t let me forget that nothing between us had been easy.
Images of what I’d allowed him to do to me, first to ensure my survival, then to save Kris and Newbie, alarmed me. I hoped Kris hadn’t suffered from the same choices.
“She wasn’t quite as compliant as you had been, but she came around. My only problem is that she’s prone to using crass language and, at times, lacks motivation when it comes to womanly responsibilities. It’s possible to remedy, but I don’t think I can do it on my own.”
“What exactly do you expect me to do?” I asked, disregarding a possible repercussion for speaking...and the awakened ache in my head. “Why can’t Doris help you?” I scanned the kitchen for her petite frame. Somehow, she’d slipped out without me noticing. She was too good at that. It was unsettling.
In movies, I’d see actors crush a person’s neck with their legs. I wondered if I’d have the strength to do that. I was willing to try if he included me in teaching Kris any of his sadistic lessons.
“I thought maybe the three of us could talk. Try and figure out a way for us all to get along. Once we have done so, we can fill Doris in on our plans.”
It was disconcerting that he didn’t want Doris with us until the end.
“Don’t you think New—Mark,” I corrected, “should be included? It might be beneficial for him to listen and learn from our talks. Like you said before, teaching us as a whole is easier and more efficient than individually.”
After I’d uttered the words, my heart shrunk inside my chest. My selfishness had overpowered my logic. The sense of security and hope Newbie offered me caused me to lose sight of what was important—his safety. In asking for him, I’d inadvertently dragged him into a situation he had no involvement in. If Joe hurt him, it would be because of me. A fact I hoped never came to be.
“You know, I think that is a great idea. Let’s bring him in here, shall we?”
His quick compliance concerned me. He was a methodical man, his actions carefully considered and planned, which meant it had been his intention for Newbie to join us before my suggestion to involve him.
My pulse raced. I wished I could take it back, beg Joe to leave Newbie alone, convince him we didn’t need him.
“Doris?”
There was no going back.
She walked into the kitchen from the living room area. I wondered if she had Newbie with her, and if so, was she marring more of his body with knife marks? I supposed I’d have my answer soon enough.
“Yes, honey?” Her pitch was higher. A smile was on her face. It was bizarre to hear the change in her tone and her use of an endearing word. She’d never said anything similar to Joe before.
“Erin and I were talking, and she brought up a good point that Mark might gain insight from our conversation. I believe now would also be an opportune moment for Kristen to return.”
I released a thankful breath. Kris was still alive. Soon we’d be together again. I was aware, after the last time we’d been in the kitchen together, that she’d no longer be the girl from the crawl space. But whatever had happened to her would heal over time, so long as she stayed alive.
Doris walked out without a word, and while the kitchen was quiet, the living room was not. I heard grunts and protests coming from a man’s throat, then a ripping sound like duct tape on flesh, followed by a yelp.
Seconds later, Newbie sauntered into the room as if he wasn’t shirtless or covered in stab marks. His wounds had been cleaned, which made the sight before me slightly less sickening. When my eyes met his, I was greeted by a green that never failed to comfort me, whether I deserved to be or not. All that mattered was that he was there. I was there. No one could predict what was to come, but the same selfish part of me that had wanted him near me was thankful that we’d be together for whatever was next. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be watching the other person die.
Following close behind was Kris. Her body was smaller, thinner. Her eyes were sunken deep in their sockets. Her clothes were different. The white shirt and dark blue jeans were mine. It appeared Joe had allowed her to shower and change into a clean outfit. I prayed she hadn’t been forced down the same path as I’d been to receive both of those things. We were a similar shape and height, but my clothes hung off her as if she was a walking hanger. Her skin was deathly white, and her cheekbones were pronounced from rapid weight loss.
A sharp pain ripped through my heart. She hadn’t deserved Joe’s unjust torture. It wasn’t fair to her, or any of us, that Joe and Doris had carved their way into our lives.
I couldn’t have done anything to help her after being tossed back into the crawl space, but that did nothing to alleviate my guilt that her pain came from inside my house. Instead of spending the night tending to Newbie’s wounds then falling asleep, I should have screamed, become a distraction, something.
For as long as either of us lived, I promised to repent for my neglect.
I was choosing to embrace the fact that death was more likely than an escape for the three of us, and it would come anytime Joe desired. I hoped it would help prepare me for what might happen next.
Newbie and Kris were instructed to sit on chairs that flanked me—Newbie on my left, Kris on my right. Neither of them was restrained. It was my turn to be the example of the power Joe yielded.
I didn’t fight against my restraints or ask for him not to hurt me—I deserved his punishment. I’d done so many things wrong that surely there was no redemption for me. I was just as evil as the man that held my life in his hands. My sacrifices had saved no one. I had debased myself for that man, and both Newbie and Kris were still worse off. I bargained my soul for their freedom, and in the process, I condemned myself to an eternity in hell.
“So, Mark, Erin here has asked that you be a part of our conversation. I hope you don’t mind. I had figured this would be a private matter, better discussed between those involved, but I guess you are involved now, aren’t you?”
My eyes bounced between Joe and Newbie. It made no sense why Joe would comment on Newbie’s involvement now as if he hadn’t been since the day Joe and Doris forced our situation upon him. It seemed I was missing a key factor. Perhaps something had happened while I was unconscious or was occurring in that instant without my awareness.
Their awkward silence offered me a moment’s reprieve to inspect Kris. She sat like a proper woman from the nineteenth century. Her back was straight, her shoulders back, her hands flat on her lap, and her legs crossed at the ankles. She barely blinked as she focused on an unseen object in front of her. Her chest rose and fell in soft waves, like a baby at rest. It might have seemed peaceful if it weren’t so creepy.
Maybe that’s what came once Joe completed his lessons—your mind shut down completely. On more than one occasion, I had thought that Doris seemed almost catatonic. Maybe, in a way, she was. It was her body’s way of protecting her mental trauma. And now it was Kris’s as well.
I turned away. The overwhelming sense of failure on my part regarding Kris’s safety was too intense to witness any longer.
I took a quiet, cleansing breath before returning my focus to Newbie. He was looking at me—no, staring at me. His mouth formed into a familiar smile, but his eyes were that of a stranger’s. They were distant, emotionless, similar to Kris’s. Had he left me, too? Was his mind shutting down? The idea rattled my nerves. I couldn’t survive without his strength. And he couldn’t go before hearing me say our word.
He rested his hand on my knee. While it should have offered comfort, relief, security, it made me feel exposed, naked. This wasn’t the time or place for such a gesture, especially not in the presence of Joe. Only in the crawl space could I stand his touch.
A furtive glance to my right showed the master bedroom door was ajar. My stomach began to churn. In front of Joe, Newbie’s touch flooded my mind with too many awful memories. I snapped my head and focus back to Joe. There was no time to revisit the past, not when the present was terrifying enough.
As if sensing my unease, he lightly squeezed my knee. I flinched. He didn’t understand what it was like to combat negative memories while sitting across from the man who forever imprinted those experiences into my mind.
Newbie’s presence was supposed to be calming. Instead, it confirmed I was all alone. In front of Joe, no one could save me or soothe away my pain. He’d been included for no reason, and harm would come because of it.
God forgive me for my weakness.
“Kristen...Kristen, come back to me, sweetie. We need to talk.” Joe spoke to her like she was a child, and even though her personality was altered, she was now withdrawn. It was a shock that she’d need coaxing back to the present.
Newbie’s hand on my knee was as useless as it had been moments earlier. No one could offer me solace, not even Newbie, while I watched, in awe, as Kris’s metamorphism began.
Her eyes were heavy, fixed on Joe’s as he knelt before her. She cupped her hands together but otherwise made no change in her stance.
“Kristen,” Joe said, resting his large hands on hers. “Do you want to say hi to Mark and Erin? They’ve come to see you, angel.”
My skin crawled with his words. No one was there to visit anybody.
Her dead eyes and decaying demeanor turned away from Joe briefly to study Newbie’s face. She changed when she saw me. In her once bright blue eyes, I saw a glimmer of the girl I’d begun to know while trapped together upstairs. Though her eyes were duller than before, like a growing storm cloud, it seemed possible she could return from whatever hell he’d condemned her to.
Time passed, but she wouldn’t look away. It seemed as if an internal battle was being fought, forcing herself to recollect how she knew me, why I looked familiar. It saddened me that Joe had taken away her memories of me, replaced them with his nightmarish teachings. Kris and I had been there for each other. We had talked. I had played with her hair to calm her while she slept. For a brief moment in time, perhaps too brief, we’d comforted each other.
Now she was gone.
And I might be next.