for the SAS, and here I am, shaking and scared.
I hate this deadly silence. Hate not knowing what’s going on or why. Why does anyone want me?
I can still fight. Being deaf has only taken my hearing from me.
But I have to be free to go on the offensive. While I search for something useful within reach, I keep glancing toward the door, only too well aware that someone could creep up on me. I’d never hear a key turn in the lock, nor the door opening. Or someone’s voice.
I tackle the chain, unable to undo the cuff around my wrist. The chain itself is too sturdy to break. Maybe I can pull the ring out of the wall? But while I’m strong, I don’t have sufficient weight or leverage to loosen it at all. If someone comes too close to me, the chain is a weapon all in itself. My mind goes through options of how it could be used. Options I begin to look forward to.
I don’t know who’s holding me, how many there are, and whether they also are trained. I don’t know whether they’re expecting me, or a weak helpless female. Is there something in my past that would make someone target me? I can’t think of anything, and my parents, while not poor, couldn’t put much of a ransom together. My activities with the club? Again, unlikely. We keep our heads down low for that very reason, so no one knows who we are or what we do. A random kidnapping? Why go to all that trouble? I know sex traffickers often target people who fit someone’s particular tastes, could that be what’s happened to me? I wouldn’t call myself pretty, or the shape that a typical female would have. I’m hard and muscular, not soft and curvy. Is it possible that’s what someone would like, someone who wants to break me?
Do they know who I am? Or more importantly, what? I’m less human being than weapon.
I grin to myself. I’ve got a chance if I’ve been kidnapped because I’m a particular type of woman, who matches someone’s desires. In that instance, they could be unaware of what skills I have.
On the other hand, if they do, they’ll be prepared. And I’ll be fucked, and not in a way I’d like.
Considering my options, I see that if I stand on the bed I could karate kick out the light, but I’m unwilling to give up on any remaining senses I have, and I’m not sure what advantage it would give me when I need to find out what I’m up against. I need to ask questions.
I can ask, but I won’t be able to hear any answers unless someone speaks very slowly and loudly into my left ear. Even then they’d have to enunciate clearly. Would they do that?
Damn, and fucking damn.
After scrabbling at the iron ring in the wall until my fingernails are broken and bleeding, I have to acknowledge the cement around it doesn’t loosen at all and concede for now, I’m at the mercy of whoever’s kidnapped me.
Settling into wait, I let myself slip into the mindset that I had during those long periods I spent on sentry duty, staying motionless for hours while remaining vigilant. Summoning up my inner soldier, patient but alert, my eyes, almost unblinking, stay focused on the door. I have no way of knowing how much time passes before I see the knob start to turn.
Game on.
I’ve decided to play it like a scared woman, hiding for now my abilities and skills. If they don’t know what I am, I’ll keep them in the dark. If I show I’m no threat, maybe they’ll unchain me from the wall.
The door opens and a man appears. His lips move and his mouth turns up in an approximation of a smile. I’ve seen more welcoming ones on a corpse.
His eyes narrow and his lips move again.
I remain impassive, as clearly, I can’t hear a word he says.
His face darkens, he comes closer. His lips move again and this time his body vibrates. In my left ear I hear an indistinguishable rumbling sound. His increasing anger shows he doesn’t know I’m deaf. That gives me hope he doesn’t know much else about me.
Forcing myself to back away and up the bed when all I want is to strangle him with this chain, I open my mouth. “I’m deaf.” I hear the words only as a dull echo in my mind.
He pauses,