When Darkness Ends (Moments in Boston #3) - Marni Mann Page 0,38
no windows in the basement, I couldn’t differentiate time, but I’d eaten twice since he had taken them off.
My stomach constantly grumbled, the pangs almost unbearable.
I’d never been much of a foodie, but now, it was all I thought about.
A greasy burger with cheese melting down the side.
Spaghetti with loads of meat in the sauce.
Pepperoni in double rows on a pizza.
Anything thick and heavy to fill me.
The first time he’d entered with food, he’d had a paper bowl of oatmeal, filled only halfway. There was no taste—he hadn’t cooked it enough—and most of it had gelled into hard clumps.
I didn’t care.
Instead of using the plastic spoon he had brought, I held the bowl to my mouth and swallowed. It felt like cement as it hit my stomach.
The ache started almost immediately.
I wrapped my arms around my tummy and rocked back and forth.
My mouth watered.
I hadn’t wanted to get sick.
I had just wanted to feel full, so I could curl up in a ball on the thin, lumpy mattress and finally get some sleep.
But within a few minutes, I had been hovered over the bucket, losing every morsel along with the acid in my stomach.
A bucket that he still hadn’t cleaned or swapped out for a new one.
Why?
That word burned the same way the bile had.
I couldn’t shout it in the basement. I couldn’t cry it from my lips.
I couldn’t make a fucking sound because of his threats.
Silence or else …
The good girl.
The girl I had to be, so he would feed me again.
This time, a small bowl of rice.
I didn’t eat it as fast, chewing every grain until it turned to mush. That stayed in, and I was able to rest on the mattress and close my eyes.
And not obsess over my hunger.
But I was waiting.
Waiting for the sound of the three padlocks.
Waiting for what was going to happen next.
Once I heard the first come unlatched, I perked up, anticipating the police rushing down the stairs to save me. Or hoping he was going to reward me and let me out for being a good girl.
I wasn’t going to be here for the rest of my life.
My mother would have called the police; they would have traced my trail.
Someone would find me.
They had to.
Because I couldn’t keep existing like this.
And he wouldn’t want to keep me—I had to be fed and taken care of.
Watched.
What good was I to him? What was my purpose?
Each time he came into the basement, I wanted to ask him. That had been three times so far, and I still wasn’t any closer to finding answers.
But my back flew off the mattress as the scraping of the metal echoed again, the second lock now loose.
The third.
The latch—a small cutout square in the wall, which was also covered in metal, just wide enough for him to squeeze his body through—then opened.
I’d checked out the space during my many walks around the rectangular-shaped prison, about the size of the living room in our apartment.
I knew every corner. Every dent in the cement.
How the one lightbulb that hung from the ceiling flickered whenever he moved across the floor upstairs.
The next sound was a pair of thick-soled black boots hitting the first step.
It wasn’t the police or a knight in shining armor.
It was him.
The wooden steps weren’t sanded or painted, and I dreamed of the day he would come down in his bare feet, full of splinters, in so much pain that he wouldn’t be able to chase me.
And I’d be able to run past him and escape.
That wasn’t going to happen today.
As he descended, I envisioned what food he had with him that would fill my stomach.
But as he got to the bottom of the stairs, there was only a cloth bag hanging from his shoulder.
No oatmeal.
No rice.
Nothing.
My stomach protested, a grumble so hard that I felt it in my throat.
“It’s time,” he said, standing in front of my mattress, his voice scratchy but flat.
Time for what?
There was no emotion on his face. No energy in his tone.
It was like someone had vacuumed the decency out of this man, and what was left was a vile, heartless devil whose eyes made me want to scream.
There was something very wrong about them—about him.
The glasses only intensified his evilness.
“Ronald isn’t going to wait anymore.” He pushed the rims higher on his nose, his gobbler jiggling from the movement. “I’ve been a patient man, Kerry. My patience is up.”