by Dori Lavelle
The moment I start to drift off to sleep, music explodes inside the cabin, the sound so loud it makes my eardrums ache. I sit up in bed again, feeling disoriented.
The guard on the other side doesn’t seem to care as he continues to watch me. Can he hear the music too? From the way he’s looking at me, as though nothing unusual is happening, makes me feel as though I’m going crazy. Surely I’m not imagining this.
The music gets louder, making it impossible for me to even think about trying to sleep again. It also feels like the temperature is dropping. The chill on my skin is unmistakable.
I run my palms up and down my forearms, trying to rub away the goose pimples. It doesn’t help. The air is cooling fast.
When I think the music can’t get any louder, it does, until my head is on the verge of exploding. Desperate for warmth, I run back to the bathtub to turn on the warm water. A whimper falls from my lips when only cold water flows out of the faucet. I let it run for a while in case it needs time to heat up, but it doesn’t. I don’t need to guess what happened here. Dax is behind all this.
Tears prick my eyes as I charge toward the door and slam my hands against the wood, screaming at the top of my lungs for him to stop.
“You son of a bitch. Let me out of here.” There’s no way he will hear my voice over the sound of the blaring heavy-metal music that sounds like nails on a chalkboard.
He’s probably watching, enjoying my discomfort.
Defeated, I push away from the door, my face hot with rage.
In the middle of the cabin, I turn in circles, screaming through the music, my hands covering my ears. Screaming helps me feel as though I’m somehow in control.
The second guard appears on the other side and I move to the glass, the palms of my hands pressed against it, my eyes pleading with them to help me. They say something to each other then they start to laugh.
I slam my palms against the glass over and over again until they start to burn, and my tears flow faster.
Broken by my sobs, I sink to the floor just as Dax appears on the other side of the glass, standing in front of his men. He places the palms of his own hands on the sheet of glass as I had done with mine earlier.
I drag myself to my feet again and press my forehead to the glass. I beg him to stop hurting me. When he still doesn’t switch off the music or warm up the temperature, I back away from the glass and grab the rest of the lingerie he bought me.
On the bed, I do my best to cover my body, in search of warmth. But nothing will ever be able to warm me, inside or out.
Dax disappears again, and I try to sleep through the noise, to shut out the horror, but it’s impossible. Sleep continues to reject me. This is what he wants. He wants me to stay awake through the night, to go crazy from sleep deprivation.
He gets what he wants. I spend the entire night awake and terrified of what my future holds.
Chapter Seven
As soon as the sky lights up, the music stops. After hours of having my ears assaulted, I should feel relief, but even with the music dead, I can still hear it pounding inside my head.
I sit up from my crouched position next to the bed and drag myself back onto it. The cabin has warmed up, but the cold had entered my bones. It will take a while for me to get warm.
My head feels heavy as I rest, lying on the mattress. Now that the noise in my head is starting to fade, my desperation for sleep returns.
But the moment my eyes drift shut, I hear a click at the door. I open them again to see Karl entering with a breakfast tray. Perhaps sensing that I don’t have the strength to go to the table, he brings it to the bed.
When he smiles at me, I force myself to smile back. I need to reach out to someone, to make a friend before my loneliness makes me perish faster than Dax wants me to.
Maybe if I get closer to Karl, he might help me escape this madness.
He stays in the cabin as I eat my omelet. Despite the lack of appetite, I need to keep up my strength.
When I’m done, he hands me orange juice from a plastic cup. I swallow it down and ask for more to coat my dry mouth and throat. When some of the juice trickles onto my chin since I’m drinking it so fast, he hands me a paper napkin to wipe it away.
His brief kindness enforces my determination to get him on my side.
“Danke,” I say softly. Thank you is one of the few words I remember from my visit to Vienna with Dax.
He nods and looks away. When I hand him back the cup, our hands brush at the same time our eyes meet again. I grab the chance to connect with him.
“Help me . . . please.” My whisper slides through my trembling lips. I’m taking a risk reaching out to him. If Dax is watching, I could be punished dearly for this act of disobedience. But the events of last night have triggered my survival instinct. I have to take some kind of action before I go nuts.
My heart drops when he shakes his head. I don’t know whether he’s trying to tell me that he can’t help me, or that he doesn’t understand the words coming out of my mouth.
He says something to me in German but of course I don’t understand. When I don’t respond, he starts marching in one place. After a few seconds of confusion, I figure it out, or at least I think I do.
“Go for a walk?” I ask, my voice sounding dead to my ears.
He continues to march while nodding with a smile.
I nod back and push myself off the bed. Even though I don’t have much energy, it isn’t such a bad idea to get out of the cabin, to enjoy my illusion of freedom. Being out there would also give me the opportunity to get to know my way around the yacht so I can know where to go should I find a way to escape.
My nakedness doesn’t bother me anymore. I have far more important things to worry about, staying alive for example and keeping my sanity.
My feet feel as though they’re made of brick as I follow Karl out of the cabin, through a number of carpeted hallways and up the stairs that lead to the sundeck. It’s as luxurious as other parts of the yacht, with a plunge pool, a bar, and expensive-looking cream and brown loungers. Behind the lounge chairs is a long table with a buffet on display— canapés, fruits, and juices. At close inspection I notice there are no knives or forks on the table, nothing that could be used as a weapon.
Dax is seriously paranoid. Does he really think I’m stupid enough to steal a fork or knife when everyone is watching me?
I look away and walk to the loungers. Maybe I can catch up on sleep before Dax shows up to give my world another shake, to break off another piece of my heart.
Karl points to the food on the table. I shake my head and sink down onto one of the chairs. He nods and waves at me. I’m surprised that he’s leaving me alone.
The moment I lean back and make myself comfortable, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun and the salty breeze, the guard with the thin mustache appears out of nowhere and positions himself about ten steps away from where I am.
When our eyes meet, he gives me a wink that sends a shiver down my spine.
Ignoring what the wink might have meant and trying to pretend he’s not here, I lean my head back on a huge pillow and try to finally get to sleep, even though I can still feel the guard’s eyes on me.
The moment sleep starts to envelope me, someone coughs. I almost jump out of my skin when I open my eyes to see the guard standing next to me, his gun pointing to my chest.
On instinct, I raise my hands, panic rioting within me. “No.” I shake my head. “Please, don’t shoot.”
When he lowers his gun, I realize that he’s only following orders. He has clearly been instructed not to let me sleep. As soon as he’s convinced that I’m awake, he steps away to pick up a canapé from the buffet before returning to his earlier station.
I watch him push the canapé into his mouth, chewing it with his eyes trained on me.
After struggling to stay awake for a few more minutes, I lose the fight again. My sore eyes drift shut without me even noticing. This time, a splash of water on my face jo
lts me awake. Gasping, panting, and blinking away the water from my eyes, I snap to a sitting position. I choke back a cry when I see Dax standing before me, a dark expression on his face.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He throws the cup to the floor. “You don’t sleep unless you get my permission. Is that clear?”
As soon as I recover from the shock of having water splashed onto my face, he grabs me by the arm and drags me back inside.
“Leave me alone.” Pissed off, I struggle against him every step of the way.
“Never.” The single word causes my breath to solidify in my throat.
He doesn’t take me back to my cabin. Instead he takes me to another cabin and shoves me inside. “Welcome to the dungeon.”
The name is appropriate for the cabin, which is painted all in black—the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. My hands curl around my throat as I struggle to breathe, feeling claustrophobic.
“This is where you will be punished when you step out of line.” A sadistic smile stretches across his face. “But I choose to forgive you for your disobedience today.”
It’s a struggle for me not to spit in his face. I never thought I would live in a world where sleep is forbidden, where I could get punished for getting some rest. He doesn’t need to do anything to me in his black dungeon. Being denied sleep is punishment in itself.
“Don’t expect me to be nice next time. No more fresh air for you today. You will spend the rest of the day inside your cabin. We will have dinner together. I have something romantic planned for us.”
Responding would only get me in trouble, so I keep my mouth shut until Mr. Mustache shows up to take me to my cabin.
As instructed, not that I have a choice, I remain in my cabin until the sky starts to blush. No one brings me lunch or anything to drink, so I quench my thirst by drinking the water from the bathtub faucet.
When the ball of fire starts to sink into the horizon, Karl returns. Avoiding my gaze, he transforms the table into a romantic scene, with candle light and delicious-smelling food. Dax enters the cabin as soon as he’s done. Without a word, he pulls me up from the bed and escorts me to the table, pulling out a chair for me.
“Let’s eat,” he instructs when he has taken a seat as well. “I’ve been waiting for this romantic dinner all day.”
I lower my gaze to my roasted fish filet, potatoes, and broccoli. My eyes averted from his face, I eat. Not because he tells me to, but to fill the hunger that had been building up all day.
As we both eat, the silence between us is so heavy that I jump when he finally speaks.
“Are you enjoying your food?” He dabs at his lips with a napkin. “This moment kind of reminds me of the dinner we had the first time you visited my place, the day we became a couple. Do you still remember?”
How could I forget? Of course I remember the day I walked into the arms of hell without even knowing it.
If he expects me to reminisce with him, he can go to hell. I continue to eat my food fast, just in case he changes his mind and takes it away.
“Won’t you say anything to me?” He goes silent for a few seconds. “Let me guess what you’re thinking.” He puts down his fork but continues to hold onto the knife. He’s the only one with a real fork and knife. I have a plastic spoon, no fork.
“What am I thinking?” I blurt out, my voice heavy with sarcasm.
“You’re thinking you would love to wrap your hands around this knife and stab me with it.” He turns the knife around in the candlelight, so the light bounces off the silver. “But if you ever tried, I will put a bullet in your head before my guards even get to shoot you through the glass.” He pulls a pistol from his back pocket and lays it on the table, the barrel pointing in my direction.
The weapon is enough to silence me. One glance at it and I feel as though my breath has been cut off.
He continues his torture throughout the rest of dinner.
Once the food is gone and the table has been cleared, Dax picks up one of the negligées from the pile at the foot of the bed and tells me to put it on. It’s blood red with the nipple areas cut out.
When I’m dressed, he places an arm around my shoulders. “After such a romantic dinner, I thought we should have a movie night.”
I want to tell him that I’m tired, that I need to sleep before I faint, but I’m terrified of being shot. So, I allow him to take me to a movie theater on the lower deck, next to the dungeon. At least twenty people would fit inside the theater.
He chooses the seats right at the back. His movie of choice is one that he had filmed years ago, an erotic thriller. He fast forwards to a part where he’s making love to a prostitute.
The whole scene looks so real I wonder whether they had sex on camera.
When the prostitute turns around and I get to see her face, my mouth drops open. It’s not just anyone. The woman is Maria Adamson, the girl with the magnolia tattoo. They were not only a couple, but they had been co-stars. I had studied so much about her, how come I didn’t see this? Not that it matters anyway.
“I guess you’re not the first woman I made love to on camera.” He places a hand on his crotch as he continues to watch the scene unfolding on screen. “Maria was a great fuck. Such a shame she had to go.”
I clasp my hands tight in my lap. “Why did you kill her?” Maybe if I understand his motive for murder, it might help me know how to loosen his grip on me.
“Like I told you, she betrayed me.” The screen goes black and the lights go on. He turns to me, eyes narrowed to glowing flints. “I gave the bitch everything. I launched her career. And what did she do?” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “She fucked another man, a cameraman, for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t let her live after that.” His gaze arrests mine. “Don’t do the same. Don’t you dare betray me in any way or you’ll end up like her.”
“Fuck you.” My body tenses. I didn’t plan on saying the words out loud.
“Fuck me?” He nods slowly. “All right.” He reaches into his pocket for his multi-purpose remote. Minutes later, one of his guards enters the theater.
A few words are exchanged, then I’m dragged out of the movie theater and thrown in the dungeon, onto the cool floor.
Dax hands the guard a whip and watches with satisfaction as I’m flogged.
Chapter Eight
The hum of a helicopter overhead wakes me up. Not that I was sleeping deeply, considering how much pain I’m in. The first night was the sound of music that kept me up. Last night, it was the pain. I felt as though I was in the center of hell and the heat was melting the skin right off my flesh.
As I lie on my side like a zombie, my mind follows the sound of the helicopter, imagining myself on it, flying to my freedom.
I’m still on the floor, where the guard dropped me yesterday. I attempt to lift myself up, to pull my body onto the bed. The memory of the whip hitting my skin is still fresh, the parts it touched red and swollen, still on fire. The pain won’t let me get up from the floor, so I lie back down with a groan.
I stare up at the ceiling, wishing I could break through it. I can’t go on like this. I need a way out.
Every day that passes I discover something worse about Dax. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to handle the torture before I break completely.
I remain on the floor until Karl brings my breakfast. He lowers the tray onto the bed as usual, then he just stands there staring at me. I stare back, my eyes blank, my mind clouded from lack of sleep.
Understanding my pain, he picks up the tray from the bed and places it on the floor next to me. Then he stands back, still staring.
I part my lips, attempting to speak, but no words come out. He knows I want to say something to him, so he bends down to my level.
I turn my head slowly to the side to look through the window. The guard on duty is reading a newspaper. I return my focus to Karl.
My throat feels dry as I push out the words. “Mr. Pierce?”
Karl nods. With a tiny sm
ile he straightens up again, pointing to the ceiling.
“Helicopter?” I ask.
“Ja,” he says.
Given the size of the yacht, it doesn’t surprise me that it has its own helipad. But if Dax is really on the helicopter, I’m baffled that he would leave me behind on his yacht.
I hope Karl is right. With Dax out of the picture, I can try to connect with someone who would help me. There’s no way every single one of them is one hundred percent loyal. There has to be an invisible crack in the foundation. I just have to find it.
I move again to peel myself off the floor. Before I can make it to my feet, I hear a click and the door opens. My heart freezes inside my chest. Is Dax still on the yacht? Did Karl lie to me? The door opens, and my shoulders sink with relief.
Mr. Mustache steps into the cabin and says something to Karl, then he comes and helps me to my feet and onto the bed while I grit my teeth, biting back a scream as pain flares through my back, the area that was hardest hit by the whip when I curled up into a ball to protect my front.
I’m sitting now, even if my body is swaying.
Mr. Mustache stands back and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a note and hands it to me.
My eyes are blurry as I read the words scrolled across it in Dax’s child-like handwriting.
Dear Emma,
I’ll be away for a couple of hours. I have business to attend to. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. I love you, Emma, even when you can’t see it.
Dax
I curl my fist around the note, crumpling it, and toss it to the floor. What the hell does he know about love?
Karl taps me on the shoulder and I glance up at him. He points to the food. I shake my head and regret it when I disturb a dormant ache. Food is the last thing on my mind right now. The smells of the eggs and bacon make my stomach turn. Maybe my appetite will return later.
