BETHANY LAY ON the bed, curled up on her side, shaking from the cold. It wasn’t really that cold, she knew, but her skin had gone prickly a few hours ago and nothing she did seemed to stop the shivers.
Thing of it was, she’d been strong up to this point. She’d kept her head stretched just above the pool of fear and breathed as calmly as she could, careful to process as much information as she could.
Like father, like daughter. And she hated him for making her like him.
Then again, if she’d been more like Celine, she’d be a puddle of flesh now, overwhelmed by emotion.
Days had passed, she didn’t know how many, but she did know that each passing hour lessened the chances of her being found alive in this tomb. How long could the human body go without eating? She’d seen a show on it once, a movie about the guy who’d starved to death in Alaska after trying to find himself by disappearing. Had it been days or weeks? She couldn’t seem to remember. But he’d had water, right? She hadn’t had food or water for a long time; hadn’t felt the need to relieve herself for just about as long.
Even her tears had stopped flowing.
These were the least of her problems. The fact of the matter wasn’t what she was or wasn’t doing here in this concrete room. It was who had placed her here.
That was the issue. That was the problem.
That was what had been gnawing at her as the minutes crawled by and became hours without any change. And knowing a little about her captor, even without having seen him yet, she was sure that her being alone with the dread of knowing his identity was the whole point.
BoneMan was leaving her alone to break her down and it was working.
First her mind. But then her body. He was going to break her bones as he’d broken the bones of the other girls.
Why? Because he was who he was and she was who she was. And really, the more she thought about it, they weren’t nearly as different as she might have once thought.
She hated him for who he was and she hated herself for being the kind of person he wanted.
Thoughts of suicide had come and gone over the days, but whenever she came close to convincing herself that running full speed into the wall with her head lowered would solve all of this, she learned that she didn’t want to die yet. In fact, that was the whole point. If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t be so tormented, lying here thinking of the sick coward who’d taken her.
There was one thing that gave her hope. Only one that she could put her finger on, anyway. That was her anger.
She discovered while lying in complete silence that when her self-pity turned to anger her heart beat stronger, and when her heart beat stronger she wanted to live longer. It would make her stand and pace on occasion, clenching her hands into fists.
Her survival all came down to who BoneMan really was and who she really was, and how she could relate to the man.
When Bethany thought of him, of what she would like to do to him if he were sitting on the floor right now and she had a gun or a rock—they wouldn’t be able to recognize him after she got through with him.
But his sitting down and handing her a gun so that she could shoot bullets into his face was about as likely as her growing teeth that could bite through the wall and tunnel to freedom.
More likely was that BoneMan would eventually walk into the room and begin preparations to break her bones. Until then, Bethany was powerless. When he came to her, she would change who she was so that he would find her unsuitable.
Or she would try to help him change who he was so that he no longer had the need to use her in the way he intended.
She’d spend endless hours thinking about what a sixteen-year-old girl could do to make the match between her and her abductor a bad match. His needs weren’t sexual, she knew that from the news reports two years earlier. It was at least something to build on.
He wanted to be needed. Isn’t that what they all wanted? The pain of not being wanted drove him to this. She could at least understand that part of him.
Or maybe revenge was driving him. Maybe his mother had beat him or kept him in a closet and only fed him on weekends. She’d decided long ago that this must be at least partially correct. Something had happened to the man as a child to make him the kind of person he was.
Maybe his father had abandoned him. It had happened to her. She hadn’t stooped to this level, nor could she.
How far could someone go to be accepted and loved?
Or maybe he was trying to teach society a lesson. A crusader on the warpath, striking down girls to make a point that somehow made him feel like a hero. Justifying himself, and ultimately feeling needed as a result.
Or maybe he was just plain sick in the head and did this all for fun, like a child who lights the tails of cats on fire for fun.
It made her wonder what made people do evil things in the first place. Why did some bullies beat up on dogs? Why did fathers walk out on their daughters? Why did thieves shoot gas-station attendants in the head? Why did pimps prostitute girls younger than she was? Why did politicians hate those who got in their way?
In the end it was all about being needed. Being wanted.
Bethany moaned, rolled slowly over so that her left arm was under her body, and pushed herself up. Dizziness spun the room and she sat still for a moment until it passed, then lowered her feet to the floor.
Dirt from the mattress had smudged her blue plaid flannel pajama bottoms and turned her white T-shirt a light gray brown.
As odd as it might seem, perhaps her greatest desire now was for BoneMan to walk into the room and make his intentions clear. Until then, she was left with her own crumbling mind and she didn’t know how much longer she could take it.
She’d been telling herself that since the first time she’d woken up here. But something had begun to change these last few hours. The anger that had given her a small amount of hope had started to fade, replaced by a sense of being totally alone. Forgotten even. Abandoned.
The feeling was what destitute must feel like. What if not even BoneMan came for her?
What if no one really cared if she lived or died; only that BoneMan be stopped?
What if all of her hopes and dreams and aspirations ended in a slow, mocking death in this oversized tomb?
Or what if…
A scrape outside stopped her thoughts. Her heart thumped harder in her chest. Could have been a rodent, or the wind, or her imagination.
But then the sound came again. Soft footfalls on a concrete hall.
She stood and stared at the door. Then quickly sat back down. Maybe she should lie down. What would please him, to find her standing and alert, sitting and patient, or curled up on the bed, exhausted?
She instinctively wiped her face, thinking it was probably dirty. She should have made an attempt to at least look presentable.
Presentable? What was she thinking?
Bethany sat down, folded her hands in her lap, and waited for BoneMan to open the door.