Hope
There was no clock in here. There was no way to mark the time other than sun up versus sun down. I thought about stupid old-timey prison movies where the hero was stuck in some godforsaken cell scratching out the days with hash marks on a wall. I considered doing that, but all at once I refused. I wouldn’t be here long enough.
I think it was nearly morning now. I only knew that because the light that filtered in through the thick-as-a-wall plastic window was gray and cold-looking, and I could hear Daniel in the kitchen and vaguely smell bacon and eggs frying. It turned my stomach and made me hungry all at once. I wanted to eat—God, I wanted to eat—but that would mean Daniel would have to come back to this room, come back to me.
And then he knocked on the door.
The fact that he knocked made me livid and terrified at the same time. I couldn’t get out. He was the only one who could come in. And yet he knocked, like this was all perfectly normal, and I was some houseguest who could come and go as I pleased, who wanted to be here at all.
He knocked again.
“Yeah?”
He cleared his throat. “Breakfast is ready.”
I heard him start on the locks: one, two, three. I felt my eyes widen, felt the adrenaline crashing through my veins. The door opened and he stood there, looking every inch a man, nothing like the monster I’d built up in my mind.
“I’m not hungry,” I spat out, hating myself for the way I stepped back for each of his steps forward.
He didn’t break his stride or his smile. “You need to eat.”
I shook my head; that was all I could muster.
“Come on, Hope.”
He was on me, and I crumbled in the corner, tucked in the sliver of space between the desk and the wall. “Get away from me.”
Daniel sighed. “We’re going to be friends. You’ll see.” He smiled a little bigger, a little harder. “We’re going to be more than friends.”
“I’ll never be anything to you. You’ll never be anything to me but some kidnapping freak motherfucker.”
The smile dropped from Daniel’s lips. “That’s not a very nice thing to say. Especially after everything I’ve done for you.”
I wanted to explode, but the fight left me. “Just leave me alone.”
“No, you’re going to eat. We’re going to have a meal like two civilized people.”
He came for me, and I spat, my teeth gnashing out at the arm he offered. I tasted flesh, blood. I savored the sound of Daniel’s yelp—pained, surprised, outraged. He slapped me across the face, hard. I could feel my teeth rattle, but I kept them sunk into Daniel’s meaty flesh. I could feel his blood mixing with my saliva, the molten concoction dribbling over my chin.
He hit me again and again, and finally I let go, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the carpet and glaring at him, daring him to hit me again. I was a wild animal. I would tear him limb from limb with my teeth if I had to. I didn’t know how or when it happened, but I was crouching now, hands and bare feet digging into the carpet, ready to spring. He held my stare.
“Be a good girl, Hope.”
I pounced. Pummeled him. Head to chest. I bashed my forehead hard against his collarbone, scratched and clawed and bit at whatever I made contact with. My hands were around his throat. I was squeezing. He gurgled and groaned, and some sad, strangled wet breath came from his chest. He was pushing at me, hitting, kicking.
His knee made contact with my rib cage, and my mouth exploded open, a deep, loud oof coming out.
I squeezed tighter at his throat, pinching bits of skin between my fingertips and digging my nails in.
I knew I was being hit, kicked, but the pain didn’t register. I wouldn’t let it register. Daniel shoved me hard, and I had to loosen my grip. I heard the sound of flesh against bone, the crack of bone against bone, but the pain didn’t hit me for a full minute after. My head was spinning, my eyes wobbling in my own head, and Daniel was painted in swirls of black. I was falling backward, losing consciousness.
And then I saw it again.
The edge of the forgotten newspaper.
Everly Byer. Dead.
Daniel.
I gritted teeth that felt loose and paper-thin. I expected them to crack, but they didn’t, and every muscle in my body was bolstered by this fact. I went for Daniel again.
I felt his fingers on my flesh, pulling at my shirt.
The rage was overtaken by fear.
Don’t, don’t, don’t—
But he didn’t.
I felt the prongs against my skin first. Icy cold metal. In a millisecond, I was on fire. My skin felt too tight. My bones protruded. My teeth rattled, and the electricity blossomed from my rib cage, from the tiny points of those two cold prongs and up and down my spine. My head wobbled like a cheap toy at the end of my spine. My toes spread, my hands fisted, and I was sweating everywhere. I blinked it into my eyes, tasted it as it rolled over my lips, felt the rivulets between my breasts, down the center of my back, pouring from my underarms.
The current stopped, and I flopped to the ground, my body molten, my mouth hanging slack because I couldn’t work my muscles. My brain couldn’t fire off a single command. I caught my breath as Daniel hung over me, staring. He slowly moved a hand in front of my face, close enough for my eyes to focus on the hot-pink thing he had in his hands.
It looked like a ladies’ electric razor.
He smiled, another of those hideous, slick, twisted grins, and I watched his thumb move to the side of the little pink machine, watched as he depressed a black button.
Electricity.
The cracking, horrible sound: half-harnessed electricity, half memory of bones clacking against each other. My body involuntarily stiffened, my eyes glued to the volts of blue light pulsing between the two tiny tongs.
Daniel flicked the stun gun off. “It belonged to your friend Everly.”
I looked up, tried to focus.
“Why her? She was a phony, Hope. She was trying to take your place. I knew it would make you happy to have her gone. I did good, right?”