Stained (15 page)

He's breathing heavily, excited. He rolls me over, pulls off my coat and shirt, then unhooks my bra and takes that, too. I don't bother to fight him. There's an electronic whirring sound, a high-pitched hum, and then a snick.

“What was that?” I ask sharply, my senses suddenly alert.

“I'm marking our time together. Making sure I'll never forget you.”

My skin crawls. I prop myself upright, hear the faint, high-pitched whine again, and then the snick.
He's taking photos of me!

I slash out with my hands, trying to snatch his camera away from him, but he just laughs. More clicks. More images of me, half nude, captured forever.

I struggle to get up, but he's pulled my jeans partway down, and they tangle my legs. He keeps snapping photos.

Fury explodes inside me. I bare my teeth and grimace, trying to create the worst possible vision of me, photos he won't want to take.

Brian laughs softly. “You can make all the faces you want. I'll treasure each of them, and so will my friends. And your parents will get copies, of course. I'll send them anonymously, but I'll make sure they get them, with your face circled in bright red marker. I'll make sure they suffer. Unless you start learning faster.”

A sob catches in my throat. I know what he wants. “I was selfish. I made everyone around me suffer,” I say dully.

Brian climbs on top of me. “Yes! That's right. And?”

“I manipulated people. Acted like a victim. Especially with my parents.”

“Especially with your mom,” Brian says softly, his lips close to my ear. He grabs my breast, and I disappear.

MANY DAYS HAVE PASSED, but I can't stop thinking about Brian taking photos of me. I keep hearing him tell me that he'll share them with his friends. It makes me feel dirty to know that strangers' eyes will rake my body and get turned on. Makes me feel helpless, like the victim Brian says I am. I can't stop wondering if he's put the photos of me up on some porn site, or shared them with other perverts. God, I hate him.

I was so ashamed when he said he'd show the photos to my parents. But now I almost wish he would. Maybe they could find some clue about where I am. But I know Brian's too careful. He won't really let them see the photos, or if he does, he'll make sure there's nothing identifiable in them. Nothing that would help them find me. I'm so scared I'll never get out of here.

I wish I hadn't been so afraid to be who I am. Wish I'd shared the things that really mattered to me, like my comic scripts. If only I'd shown them to Dad. To Nick and Charlene, too. They would have seen more of the real me. Now I might never have a chance to show them.

My eyes burn. If only I hadn't been so afraid of people's judgment. If only I hadn't tried so hard to be invisible. I should have been all of me, not just a quarter.

I want to live. How I want to live! But not like this. Not kept in a tiny room like an animal in a cage. I almost want Brian to kill me to get it over with.

I shake myself. No, that's crazy. I need to live.

A car drives up. I stand, trying to keep my breathing even.

The stairs shake, and then Brian opens the door. “Honey, I'm ho-oome!” he calls, then laughs as he walks toward me.

Sick bastard.

Brian grips my shoulders, massaging them. “You're so tense. Relax. It's not good for you.”

I don't respond. I hate the way he plays with me. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I almost wish he'd tell me if he's going to kill me.
When
he's going to kill me.

“I have something I want you to watch,” Brian says. “Well, hear, anyway. So pay attention. Maybe you can learn from it.”

There's the sound of Windows starting up, and some clicks, and then I hear faint voices. I haven't heard a computer in so long, it feels like it's from another life that was just a dream.

Brian turns up the volume.

“Please, no!” a frightened girl's voice begs. “I did everything you asked.”

“You need to find freedom. Find release,” Brian's tinny voice says. “You've got too much pain, and you haven't learned to let it go. So I'm going to give you freedom. The ultimate freedom.”

There's a rustling sound. Metal rasps, like a knife drawn from a sheath. The girl screams.

I shudder, sweat trickling down my back. I want the voices to stop. Want to slap my hands over my ears, but I know if I do, he'll use it against me. Probably play it for me again. So I stand still, shaking deep inside, and listen. I try not to wonder how many times he's played this on his laptop.

“Please, I'll do anything!” the girl cries.

“Anything but take responsibility. Oh, you parroted the words back, Judy, but that's not enough,” Brian's voice says.

The girl cries out—a high-pitched cry of fear and pain that turns into a gurgle. There's a heavy, wet thump, and then silence, except for the sound of Brian's panting.

There's another click as he turns off the recording.

I retch, trying not to vomit. “What happened to her?”

“You know what happened,” Brian says gently. “She found everlasting freedom.”

Day 98, 6:40 P.M.

 

I'M HERE SO OFTEN that the Meadowses' house is almost more familiar than my own. I sit with Sarah's mom, and we talk about Sarah. We go on the website together and try to think up new ways to find her. And we avoid talking about the possibility that she might be dead, or if she's not, that she's probably having unspeakable things done to her.

“The psychic said Sarah is still alive,” Sarah's mom says, quiet so Mr. Meadows won't hear. “He said she's trapped somewhere and can't get to us.”

I duck my head. I don't know if I believe in psychics. I want to. I need to so badly, the way I can see Mrs. Meadows needs to. But if the psychic is just playing on her hopes, taking her money when things are so tight—that would make it even more unbearable. Mr. Meadows gets enraged when he hears about the psychic, I think because he's afraid to believe Sarah's still alive when he so desperately needs her to be. I can see his pain in the new lines in his face, in the deep set of his eyes. But we each deal with Sarah's disappearance in our own way. And Mrs. Meadows's is a psychic. It's easier for me to go there, since I love the paranormal. Love the idea of a superpower.

I squeeze her hand. “That's good news,” I say quietly.

“You want another grilled cheese?” Sarah's mom asks, pushing her chair back.

“Sure,” I say. “Thank you, Mrs. Meadows.”

“Ellen,” Sarah's mom says.

But I still can't call her that.

“Grilled cheese—it's one of Sarah's favorites,” she says, slapping bread and cheese down onto the frying pan. Her voice chokes off.

“I know,” I say. “And she also loves peanut butter and chocolate milk.”

“Yes. She does,” Mrs. Meadows says quickly.

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. I feel guilty about not having told them the truth, but I needed to be here too much. Needed that connection to Sarah.

But now I have a relationship with them both. A kind of friendship, almost family. I don't know if it's strong enough on their end to survive me telling the truth, but I have to try.

I clear my throat. “I need to tell you something.”

Mrs. Meadows freezes, spatula in the air. Mr. Meadows sets down his mug of coffee. Both look at me expectantly.

“I—I love Sarah,” I say.

They wait. Nod.

“But I'm not—” My cheeks grow hot. Sweat pops out on my upper lip. “I'm not really her boyfriend. I'm just her wannabe boyfriend.”

I stare at their faces. I don't see any anger or coldness or rejection. “We talked, we hung out sometimes, but I was never brave enough to ask her out.”

Mrs. Meadows turns back and flips over the grilled cheese. Mr. Meadows takes a sip of his coffee.

“Aren't you going to say anything?” I ask, my voice getting higher. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you before—”

“It's okay, Nick.” Mr. Meadows's mouth twitches. “We knew.”

“How?” I ask, bewildered.

“Sarah never talked about you,” Mr. Meadows says.

It's like he's plunged a sword into my heart.

“Thomas,” Mrs. Meadows chides, “look at what you're doing to the poor boy.” She turns off the stove, sits down beside me, and pats my hand. “Sarah never talked about you
that
way.”

“But she—she talked about me?” I say, my voice a squeak.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Meadows says. “She talked about your comic art and how talented you are. She said you're going to be famous someday.”

I sit up straighter, remembering the time Sarah told me that. Remembering her belief in me. They weren't just empty words. “When she gets back, I'm going to ask her out.”

“Good.” Mr. Meadows nods.

Mrs. Meadows gets a sad, faraway look on her face, and her body grows still, like she's not in the room anymore. I want to fix that. I want to bring her back.

“Did I tell you about the time Sarah stood up against a group of bullies, just to protect another girl?”

Mrs. Meadows blinks, then focuses on me. “No, you didn't.”

I lean back and tell them—and soon Mrs. Meadows is smiling again.

ESCAPE DOESN'T SEEM POSSIBLE, not without sight. I've explored this room so many times, but my hands tell me only so much. They tell me that I'm never going to get out of here.

I'm afraid I'll never have a boyfriend. Never go to college. Never become whatever I was going to become. Nick and I could have been something. A couple. An amazing comic-book team. I wish I'd been less afraid of what everyone thought of me and done more of what
I
wanted to do.

It's not fair. I'm not ready to die. I know life isn't fair; I've known that for a long time. But, still, I want to scream against everything that's happened, everything that got me here.

I don't hope anymore that my parents will find me. It hurts too much. I know they'd find me if they could. And I know, too, that they can't—or they would have already.

The days just keep passing, and the weather, too, is still changing. The foil balls keep multiplying. The ball I made today means that I've been locked up in here for three months. Three months of hell. Ninety-two days of peanut butter, crackers, and bananas. Just the thought of peanut butter makes me gag. But I force myself to swallow another sticky mouthful. I'm not going to die of starvation. I'm not going to die at all if I can help it.

I wipe my fingers along my pants, then take a long mouthful of water, holding it in my mouth to make it last. The jug feels too light. I long to drink more, to ease my thirst, but it's too easy to finish it all, and then have days of thirst far worse than this.

I rub my wrist over my forehead. I am so used to my own body odor and urine stink, I hardly notice it anymore. But I can't get away from the smell of him—his sweat, his sex, his craving me—no matter how hard I try. “My poor baby,” I imagine Mom saying, her voice all choked up. I invent things for her and Dad to say all the time.

The lack of human voices really gets to me. I never realized that we need to talk with other people just to know that we exist. That we matter. Loneliness is a howling, empty cavern inside me that just keeps growing.

I shake my head. I almost want Brian to come back just to have someone to talk to. I hate the relief that fills me, the unknotting of my muscles when I hear his voice and know that I won't be alone for a while, that I'll have food and water. Sometimes he acts so nice to me, almost tender, and I crave that. Then I remember what he's really like, and I hate him—and myself, too. My weakness fills me with disgust.

I want to see my parents so much, it hurts. I want to feel Dad's hand on my shoulder, feel Mom's hair tickle my face as she reaches in for a hug. I want to be reading a comic with Nick, walking down the sidewalk with Charlene, arm in arm, laughing. I wonder if any of them are thinking of me right now. I wonder if they know I'm still alive.

Despair pushes at me, making me heavy. I shove the hopelessness down. I can't allow myself to wallow in it. I've lost whole days doing that.

But it's not like your trying to escape has done anything
, a voice whispers inside me.
You're still here, still his prisoner—

And I'm still alive.
That's what I have to focus on. Because I want to live. Even now I can't let myself give up. And that's something I didn't know about myself before—that I have such dogged determination and strength. That I can be completely focused on a goal and work long past what I thought my endurance was, when I have to.

I was focused before—obsessed, really—with the appearance of perfection. But what did that ever bring me but pain? Pain, and not seeing people for who they really are. If I ever get out of here, I'll look at people differently. I'll look for their true selves beneath the mask of their bodies. I'll look at soul.

I take another mouthful of water, then carefully screw the cap back on.

I think I was trying to punish myself by staring at all those perfect faces. Punish myself for how I look, and for the way people treat me. But that's stupid. If I ever get out of here, I'm going to stop comparing my face to others'. Or at least I'm going to try to.

I want to get out of here so badly. I want to walk out the door with my head held high, because they've caught Brian, forced him to tell them where I am, and they've come to save me, the police and everyone I love.

Right. Dream on.

“I am going to get myself out of here,” I say. And I know I have to. Because no one is coming. I think, if I'm honest with myself, I've been waiting to be rescued. Oh, I've tried as hard as I know how to escape, tried everything I can think of. But there's always been a part of me waiting for someone to save me—because I
need
them to. But I have to let that go. If I want to get out of here, I have to be the one to save myself.