room and the door banged once more. Most of them were yelling, swearing profusely about a ‘screw up.’ I was reminded of children on a playground running to a teacher to tattle.
Charlie was the only one who stayed behind.
Silence between us felt strangely comfortable. With just him in the room, I had the feeling I was less likely to be harmed than I was with the rest of them. I stole a brief glance and could see the rage had ebbed away while he smoked. He stared out the small window with such intensity that I thought maybe he was avoiding looking at me. It surprised me when he finally spoke.
“If I take that off, can you keep quiet?”
While I thought about the potential of screaming again and the possibility of rescue, a brief glint of annoyance in his eyes persuaded me that it wouldn’t be wise. As it was, the skin around my mouth was dried and chapped from the maltreatment. I carefully nodded my head twice.
He approached me cautiously, like I was a wounded animal. I flinched when he reached out to remove the tape from my mouth. For a second, I could feel the calluses from his fingertips against the sides of my cheek. I thought maybe his thumb lingered there a moment longer than necessary—I shuddered.
He ripped the tape away quickly enough so the skin didn’t tear from my already chapped lips. Still, I harbored an instant wish for the lip balm in my bag.
There was humor in his voice, but he lacked a smile. “Just like a Band-Aid.”
“Thanks.” My voice surprised me; I sounded just as cracked and dried as my lips felt. I coughed several times in an attempt to regain my voice. As I did so, he backed away abruptly, narrowing his eyes at me dangerously. I actually wondered if I had done something to offend him. But this bothered me too, and I was annoyed with myself that even in a situation like this I would retain so much awkwardness and still worry about what was expected of me.
“Thank you?” Charlie mumbled. His expression had gone back to indifference, and he looked out the window from his seat on the countertop. “That s’posed to be funny?”
I shrugged. The muscles in my shoulders and back were beginning to tense and stiffen up from the lack of movement. I found it incredibly uncomfortable. “There’s no excuse for poor manners.” Hopefully he would realize I wasn’t being sarcastic, just trying to be civilized. I once saw on a talk show that the more likely an abductor is to see you as a human being, the more likely they are to treat you as one—not to mention the fact that you could live through the experience. If all I had to do was show a little decency, then I would be Miss Manners.
We remained in the quiet for quite awhile, which bothered me much more than I expected. Normally, I thrived in the stillness of things, getting some of my best work done in silent afternoons at the library. But the lack of knowing what awaited me next and what was currently happening was making the gears in my brain go haywire. All the potential scenarios of what could happen to me were colliding with my worries and fears for the future. More importantly, however, what about Dad and Robbie? Would Dad remember to take his blood pressure medication? Was he eating? This wouldn’t distract Robbie during his retraining, right?
“What are you going to do with me?” I regretted the words the instant they came out. He had warned me to be quiet. Nevertheless, the buildup was unbearable, and the words just slurred out of me like dirty slush on a sidewalk, unwanted and unavoidable.
My gaze found the floor and stayed there. I tried to mentally prepare myself for the tape again, but it didn’t come. Instead, his voice was calm and steady. “I don’t know.” He threw the filter of his cigarette against the wall. I shivered even though the afternoon heat was already setting in.
Luckily, my imagination didn’t have any wind-up time before someone else walked into the house and interrupted my thoughts. He was someone new, and he carried himself with the attitude of an admiral, extremely stiff and stoic with an obvious air of authority. It seemed almost ironic that he was rather small—classic Napoleon complex. He was also extremely well dressed in what looked like a tailor-made suit. When he walked