I didn’t eat breakfast, but I eat what he offers anyway, since I’m not sure when my next ration will be. If ever. The bread’s already a little stale. As far as last meals go, this one’s a disappointment.
“You know where we’re going today?” he asks.
“Prison?”
“No.”
“The agricultural college you work at?”
“Wrong again.”
“Back to the theater so you can face your fear of puppets?”
Something passes over his face, so quickly I might have missed it had I not been waiting for it. He may know something about me, but he has no idea what I know. “Were you dating my brother?” I ask abruptly.
He does a double-take, bread halfway to his mouth. “What? No.”
The reaction is believable, but I overreact anyway. “Yes, you were! This is some sort of sick romantic revenge! You were stalking us both! You twisted fuck!” I leap up from the chair, my wrist firmly cuffed to the side, and position it between us, as though Chris will view it as an insurmountable obstacle.
“I’m not—”
He comes at me and I swing the chair with everything I have. It thumps against his thigh and he curses as he tackles me. My wrist wrenches painfully when the chair skids sideways, and we land with Chris on top again. My breath lost, again. I kick at his shins as hard as I can, and he swears some more and twists my arm as he kneels on my legs. I try to blink away tears of pain and frustration, but I can feel them catching in my eyelashes and searing my cheeks.
“Help!” I scream as loud as I can.
“Fuck! Shut up!” As he’d done last night, he covers my mouth, but this time he’s prepared and squeezes my jaw tight so I can’t bite.
I squeal behind his fingers and try to buck him off, but it’s no use. He’s bigger and stronger and he’s had a lot more practice. “Would you stop?” he snaps, flipping me onto my back. My left hand is stuck up over my head, attached to the stupid chair, and he snags my other one when I take a swing at him.
“I hate you,” I sob, his face blurry through the tears.
“I know,” he says. “I hate you, too.”
THE SAME BLUE PICKUP that nearly killed me the first day we met is parked in a corner spot on the second level of my building’s garage, a guest parking pass displayed on the dash. Chris steers me into the back seat, my feet and hands bound. He said it wouldn’t have come to this if I’d behaved myself, but I’m not sure that’s true. The fact that he’s walking with a slight limp makes this mistreatment only slightly more bearable.
I’m still in last night’s dress and flats, but he’d scrubbed my face clean with a wet cloth after he tied me up, and let me swish toothpaste in my mouth so I felt slightly more human. Then he’d gagged me, ruining the illusion.
He covers me with a blanket, in case someone should peer in the back seat, and I twist around until the blanket’s covering only the lower part of my face. If I don’t exert myself I can breathe okay through my nose, but I have to lie on my side so I don’t crush my hands. I tip my face so I can look out the window.
I know we’re outside when I see the gray sky and the hazy sun. I can make out the upper levels of some of the buildings as we navigate our way out of downtown, marking our progress toward the east side of the city and the freeway. After that it’s just sky and question marks and I fall asleep.
Chris wakes me with a hand on my foot, uncoiling the rope from around my ankles. I keep my eyes closed as I feel his rough hands massaging the blood back into my feet, thumbs bumping over the ridges left from the knots. I wait to see if he does anything more, anything worse. The dress stops above my knees, and I feel it bunched there, ready to be lifted. But he doesn’t try.
“Reese,” he says, shaking my leg. “Wake up.”
I pretend to come to, squinting at him. From this angle, I can see sky but no buildings, a little more blue peeking between the clouds. He pulls me so my legs dangle over the edge of the seat, then grips my shoulder to lift me to a sitting position.