by Riley Ashby
“I might have believed that for the letter you had. But this was still in its envelope. No address. Just a name.”
The steak on my plate bled red across the white porcelain. I pressed my finger into the blood and brought the salty liquid to my lips. "Maybe she bribed the mailman to put it in my box."
"Oh, I doubt that very much." Conrad resumed eating, bringing a chunk of pink meat to his mouth. "You should know by now that I review all your mail before you get it, Meyer."
Of course he did. I knew that, somewhere in the back of my brain. Some part of me always tried to hold on to every little illusion of freedom, knowing eventually it would be snatched away.
"I'll ask you one more time, which is more leeway than I usually give. How did you get this letter?"
"I brought it with me," Madeleine interjected.
Conrad snorted. "That's pathetic. You were in your underwear when you disappeared into the back of my son's car. You mean to tell me your mother had preemptively written you a note regarding your kidnapping and that you hid it in your bra for safekeeping?"
Maddie looked at me across the table, eyes full of apologies. I shook my head subtly. This wasn't her fault. I'd always regarded her selflessness as a character defect, when in reality I was envious of her unending empathy for anyone and anything in pain. And though I'd thrown it in her face so many times, she was trying to use it to save me now. Too bad it wasn't working.
Conrad stood and walked toward me, fingers trailing against the smooth surface of the table with feigned nonchalance. I gripped my steak knife tighter, trying to work up the courage to use it to defend myself if necessary. He spoke softly.
"Tell me where you got this. I'm done asking. Tell me now and I won’t break your hand any worse than it already is."
I knew he would move, but I was still unprepared for how quickly his hand snatched out to grab mine. I was wearing the brace, no need to pretend I didn't need it anymore, but his pressure on the joint was enough to make me shift uncomfortably.
"Drop the knife."
"Let go of me."
"Not a fucking chance."
I swung the knife at his hand, slicing across his skin. The skin split as beautifully as my own did the times I cut myself for release; blood pooled at the edges, swelling over the edge of the skin, and then tumbled across his thumb and dripped to the ground. Madeline gasped, but I didn’t dare look at her. Conrad and I were locked in on each other.
“Let go.”
The longest heartbeat of my life passed before, one by one, his fingers released me and he drew away. I exhaled, suddenly lightheaded, and sucked in another breath as Conrad turned and walked away. As he crossed the threshold leading from the dining room to the hall, I finally looked across the table at Madeline. She was breathing too fast, chest heaving as if she’d come running into the room, but her eyes held something I hadn’t seen in awhile.
Hope.
“Quickly,” she whispered.
I shot to my feet.
And then, the sickening sound of wood on wood.
I knew that noise. My arm began to tingle reflexively, fingers going numb with pre-emptive pain. A thousand terrible memories, pushed to the back of my psyche for my own good, bubbled to the surface like boiling water. Maddie turned toward the source of the sound, but I couldn’t bear to look. I focused on her.
“Sit. Down.” Conrad’s voice froze the blood in my veins.
I wanted to obey. I did. But I was frozen, staring at the woman who had made my life worth living for a least a few short weeks.
“Maddie,” I said. She didn’t look at me, her eyes focused on Conrad as he walked toward me, thumping the bat against the ground to punctuate each step. “Maddie!”
Finally, she turned, and I saw why she had avoided looking at me. Every trace of hope in her eyes was replaced by unadulterated fear.
The legs of my chair scraped against the floor behind me, and Joshua’s large hands appeared out of nowhere, landing on my shoulders and forcing me to my knees so I had to look up to keep eye contact with Maddie. “I should have told you,” I said. “I—”
My teeth clacked shut as the bat met my chin, gently for now, but with enough force to close my mouth for me. I kept staring at Maddie, unwilling to look away. I might die right now. If that was what happened, I wanted her to be the last thing I looked at. But I didn’t have a choice as the bat moved from my chin to my cheek, turning my head until I couldn’t see her even with my eyes strained as far to the side as I could manage.
“Conrad, what are you doing?” Maddie pleaded, her voice punctuated by the rattling of her chain as she pulled at it, trying to get closer to me across the too-wide table.
“I don’t answer to you,” he reminded her. I stared at the floor. “Do you have anything you want to say to me, son?”
“I’m sorry.” I swallowed. “Dad.”
“Hmm.” He tapped the tip of the bat gently against my cheek, then pulled it back over his shoulder. “Not good enough.”
I fell flat on the ground a moment before the bat swung over my head, hair rustling in the breeze it created.
“Stop it!” Maddie screamed. Peeking under the table, I could see her feet barely on the ground, as if she were straining across the top of the table despite the collar and chain holding her back.
“Be a good girl and stay quiet for us, will you?” Conrad grabbed the short hair at the back of my head and pulled me to my knees, and Joshua yanked at my tie until it came apart and he was able to pull it from my neck. With Conrad’s grip still hard on my hair, Joshua sauntered around the table to push Maddie back into the chair.
He whispered something in her ear as he pulled my tie across her mouth and between her lips. Conrad pressed the bat into my stomach, pulling my attention back to the more immediate threat.
“Eyes on me, son.” The last word was punctuated with a jab of the bat to my stomach, threatening to send up half-digested steak. “Your time playing house seems to have caused you to forget where your loyalties should lie.”
The bat moved from my stomach to my chest, pushing me to my back.
“I told you not to test me, boy. Every day for thirty years. Yet you come in here and try to play me? Try to beat me at my own fucking game?” He brought the bat back as if to swing again, but I dug deep inside myself and shot back far enough that I could clamber to my feet without Conrad pushing me back down.
“Conrad. Just let her go. That’s all I’m asking.” All I had left was a Hail Mary. I’d tried to be strong, stand up to him, but every time he was one step ahead of me. “I’ll stay here, I’ll burn my house to the ground, I’ll live in that tiny room and do whatever you say until I die.” That was what he wanted all along, right? Why Alexander drew up that ridiculous proposal. Conrad just needed a way to get me to stick around, and now he had the perfect leverage. But if I was going to die in this opulent tomb, I had to make sure Maddie was free. “Just unlock her.”
I backed up another step only to run into Joshua, who didn’t hold me in place but also made no move to hold me. He didn’t need to. There wasn’t room for me to get around him, and he was unmovable.
“Why would I do that, when I can have you both?”
Another blow from the bat, this time to my side. I dropped my arm to protect myself, gritting my teeth against the pain in my humerus. I couldn’t withstand more dislocated ribs, not when they were still healing from my last brutal beating. I hadn’t been able to defend myself that time; I hadn’t thought I was allowed to. But if I didn’t get Maddie and myself out of this situation, it would have permanent repercussions for both of us. Still, I felt like there was a steel plate in my skull blocking off my sense of survival, my will to protect myself and my woman against the very obvious threat in front of me. I gritted my teeth, fighting against my own mind as much as I resisted the man attacking me with a baseball bat.
Conrad pulled the bat back for another swing.
“STOP!”
I cringed at Maddie�
��s voice, the one word we were never supposed to say. Even Conrad turned to look at her for a second, then did a double take. I followed his gaze as he spoke.
“What the fuck—”
“Let him go.”
Maddie was free of the collar, blood running down her neck and over her collarbones from the shallow cuts it left while she was fighting against it. She held a steak knife in her hand, and though her entire being trembled with fear, the look in her eyes as she stared down my father was one of pure hatred and disgust.
It was going to get her killed.
“Maddie, it’s okay. Just go.” I needed her to run, needed her to get as far away from here as she could before Joshua came to his senses. He could grab her before she took two steps if he moved. Hell, Conrad was close enough that he could catch up to her even easier. But still she stood there, waiting for me.
“I’m not leaving you!” Even as she spoke, she jumped and began to back toward the door, and a quick glance over my shoulder confirmed Joshua had begun to walk around the table, slowly, as if trying to sneak up on a frightened animal. “Let Meyer go.”
“You set that knife down and take your seat, and I’ll leave you enough skin on the bottom of your feet for you to be able to walk again tomorrow.” Conrad swung the bat toward her, keeping one hand around the back of my neck to hold me in place. “But if you try to run out, you’ll get to experience every punishment your mother endured over four years in the course of one night.”
No. No, she wouldn’t survive.
“Meyer,” she whispered, and I realized she was asking me. What do I do?
“Just go.” With a sudden burst of strength I jerked away from my father and leaped toward Joshua as I screamed, “Madeline, RUN!”
With one last look at me, she turned and bolted out the door.
Meyer
“Get her,” Conrad snapped at Joshua as Madeline disappeared through the door to the dining room.
“But Mey—”
“I’ll deal with him!” he roared, pushing the bat harder against my neck. “Bring her back here or you can start digging your own grave!”
Joshua turned and left without another word or final glance at me. I pushed against Conrad, trying to give myself some space to breathe, but he turned his attention back to me quickly enough.
“How did she get out?” He hissed the words, spittle flying in my face through clenched teeth. I shoved harder against his chest, and he finally stepped back far enough that I could breathe without his breath on my skin, but not so far away that he could put me back in the same compromising position in a second.
“I don’t know,” I gasped, rubbing at my windpipe. “You must not have latched it correctly.”
“Of course I fucking latched it correctly.” One hand closed around the back of my neck and steered me toward the door. “Did you give her a paperclip or something while you were alone together?”
“I swear, I didn’t.” But why didn’t I think of that? Whoever was responsible for getting her out, I owed them a debt. What staff was here besides Joshua? Had she managed to fashion a key herself, slipped something off his desk when she was in there the other day? “She’s gone now, Conrad. She won’t come back.”
“Oh, she will.” We were in the foyer now, the front door gaping open. I peered into the night but nothing was visible—no figure running off into the dark, no hulking Joshua dragging her back by her hair. It was cold outside. She didn’t have shoes. How far could she get before she had to hide? Before cold claimed her limbs and she was forced to crawl back here or risk death? God, I didn’t want her to be cold again. I shouldn’t have told her to run. But what else could I do?
We didn’t go to the foyer, but kept walking back to the study. Conrad pushed me forward into the room, then emphasized his displeasure by slamming the heel of his hand against my back. I hit the floor on all knees again as the doors banged shut behind us.
“Get up. You’re depressing me.”
I started to rise, only to be knocked down again with a foot between my shoulder blades. My teeth cut into my lower lip, and I tasted blood.
“I said—”
“I heard what you said.” With Madeline out of the house, I felt a new surge of courage. The worst way he could hurt me was no longer an option.
He was too far across the room at that point to retaliate, but he glared at me as he reached into his desk drawer to pull out that ever-present bottle of gin.
“Mouthy tonight, aren’t we? I much prefer you groveling. Reminds me of when you were a child.”
I scrambled to my feet before he could get back across the room to me.
"You know, I'm glad she got out. Because whether Joshua finds her and drags her back here by her hair, or she freezes to death out there in the cold, both of you will finally know that there is no getting out. Ever."
I backed toward the door as he drank deeply from the bottle, but he had his eyes on me the entire time. He put down the bottle and drew one hand across his mouth.
"Take one more step and I'll pull out every last one of your teeth."
"You have nothing keeping me here anymore," I said. I couldn't be more than ten steps from the door, but I was too afraid to look over my shoulder and take my eyes off my father. "I have no reason to put up with this abuse. She’s gone. She won’t come back, not for me. You have nothing that can hurt me.”
He laughed derisively as he came toward me, matching the step for step. "Abuse? I disciplined you like any good father would. And look what you got because of it. A high-ranking position in a Fortune 100 company, all the money you could ever need, and professional respect that no one could buy."
"You broke my brain," I spat at him. "I can't go a single fucking day without wanting to kill myself or everyone around me. I should have brought a gun to the office and shot you at your desk long ago." Reaching behind me, I tensed as my hand met the wood of the door. I fumbled for the handle. "There's nothing keeping me here anymore."
He struck at the same time that I turned the handle. Even though I knew intimately his speed and usual manner of movement, he still always caught me off guard. Maybe it was some part of my brain that insisted I let him do to me whatever he wanted; a deeply ingrained predisposition for obedience that had become a permanent part of my psyche. His fist glanced off my cheekbone. I had a wild moment thinking, at least it's not the bat.
Fight back, I told myself, and lunged.
He wasn't expecting me to retaliate, not after I'd given up so easily earlier in the dining room. He grunted as my shoulder caught him in the stomach, but remained standing. His big hands closed around my neck as he lifted me off him and throttled me.
"That bitch has ruined you," he growled. "She was supposed to toughen you up, give you that final push you needed to become the heir I always wanted."
"I'm sorry I disappointed you." I struck at his face, landing a hard blow against his jaw that forced him to loosen his grip around my neck, and I was able to slip free. I sprinted for the door. My priorities were all wrong. Now was not the time to be duking it out with my father. I needed to get Madeleine, get in a car, get the fuck out of here.
Instead of heading for the foyer, I took the long way around to the garage. Conrad's footsteps faded behind me, and I knew I'd caught him off guard with my decision. He thought that I was lovesick enough to go straight for Madeleine. But I had to keep my head on straight if I wanted to get us both out of here. I just needed her to survive long enough for me to catch up with her.
There was no fight this time around. As I turned the corner that would take me two the garage so I could grab a car and make my escape, I suddenly lost control of my limbs. I was no longer moving forward; instead my back went stiff as a rod and I was suddenly falling backward, the walls reeling around me like I was on a carnival ride. Ringing in my ears, the crackle of a stun gun.
Seconds felt like years as I lay frozen on the ground, waiting to feel like I had control of my own self once more. It was like the wors
t nightmare I'd ever experienced, but when it was over and I was able to move again, I found that reality was no better. Conrad crouched next to me, his smile almost sad as he held up a metal ring and then lowered it beyond my line of sight.
"Did you think I wouldn't have contingencies in place?” His face was a shade of crimson deeper than blood as he screamed, spittle flying into my open eyes. I had no recourse to defend myself. “We are far from over, Meyer. We are just getting fucking started."
The collar that had once sat around Madeleine's neck closed around mine; the click of the latch echoed in my ears with resounding finality. Every thing I'd tried, he'd always been one step ahead of me. I wanted to keep fighting, I really did, but it all felt so hopeless. I had nothing left to give. He'd won.
I didn't bother to fight as he dragged me upstairs through the hallways that I'd known so well as a child and into the area of the house I've never been permitted to enter. Conrad's personal wing. I didn't feel any joy in finally getting to see the rooms I'd always wondered about as a child. This was where I was going to die. I was sure of it.
"You'll get the same treatment as her. Maybe you'll find that romantic." Conrad yanked me against a wall and latched the chain around a hook on the wall that looked like it had been specifically made for this purpose. The food in my stomach threatened to make a reappearance as I thought of all the women who must have spent their time in this room, wondering when they would next get to eat or get a full nights sleep without being interrupted by my father. How many bodies were buried on this property, young girls who never got to see their families again after being taken in by the charismatic man before me?
"I hate you," I muttered under my breath.
"Good." He patted my head before walking toward the door. "At least you have the guts to say it to me now.”
He left no lights on in the room. I sat in the darkness, feeling like it was imbuing itself in my very pores. However Madeleine had managed to get out of this collar wasn't a possibility for me. There was nothing in this room for me to use to pick the lock. I tried to count the seconds, but lost track after ten minutes. All I could feel was the hard floor; the only sound was my own breath.
