by Fawn Bailey
My personality took a backseat to the situation I was in. I was no longer bratty, or selfish, or hopeful. All that mattered was survival, getting out of there alive, and running away from the man who had taken me in the dead of night.
It was hard to remember the details, and I had no idea how much time had passed since he’d snatched me out of that alley. My head felt thick like it was filled with cotton wool, and the overwhelming urge to panic was making it hard to think. But I needed to focus. I needed to figure out a way out of there.
Soon, I realized the ropes would be impossible to undo without a knife. I’d kicked the trunk, but it was locked, not just closed. Then I figured my best bet would be to fight the second the trunk opened. I would kick and scream through the tape, I would make so much noise it would be impossible to miss me. Sooner or later, maybe my kidnapper would have to stop for gas. I decided I’d start making noise the second I heard voices around me.
The thought made me laugh feverishly, no sound coming out through the tape. How was this real? Surely it was nothing but a nightmare, surely, I was going to get out okay. Surely. Surely. Surely.
The car kept moving, and my nausea got worse. I used to get travel sickness in cars all the time and this time it came back in full force, knotting my stomach and filling me with despair and fear. The drive felt endless. I tried counting the seconds, but they blended into minutes, then what felt like hours. I needed to pee so badly. My legs hurt from being tied up, and I felt the first tears falling down my cheeks. I tried to battle them desperately, knowing I couldn’t give in yet. I needed to fight.
Eventually the car came to a stop. I listened with bated breath as the driver’s door slammed shut, but there were no voices around, and I didn’t want to waste my breath unless I heard someone nearby. If we were alone, I’d benefit more from staying still and quiet, pretending I was still drugged. Then I could surprise my kidnapper when I attacked him.
It took ages for me to hear footsteps on gravel. I heard the sound of the trunk unlocking and shut my eyes as tightly as I could. And then, the trunk flew open.
The tension was incredible, my body pounding with adrenaline and the need to run away. But I could barely move. I pretended to be as lifeless as possible as a pair of rough hands grabbed me, hauling me out of the trunk and onto the ground. I hit the gravel with a thud, wincing but biting my tongue so I wouldn’t scream out loud.
“I know you’re awake,” that deep dark voice told me, and my eyes shut tighter. “You can stop pretending now.”
I lay there motionless, hearing him chuckle above me.
“That’s fine, have it your way,” he said. “Just one thing, my little one. You keep your eyes closed, this is your last chance to see me. I won’t be the one to rape you. I won’t hold you after. I’ll just watch you being brutalized.”
My eyes flew open, focusing on the blurry gravel.
“There we go,” he growled. “I knew you couldn’t resist.”
He kneeled next to me. His shoes came into view first, the leather dark and black and shiny. I was terrified of looking up, my body shaking as I stared at my own reflection in his brogue shoes.
“Eyes up,” he said in a rough voice, and I shut my eyes again, shaking my head and whimpering against the tape. “I’m not going to ask you twice. Look at me. Now.”
I shivered as I let my eyes fly open again. He was so close I could feel the hint of his cold, minty breath on my face.
I looked up, sealing my fate. It would be my undoing.
I whimpered through the tape and he smiled at me as I stared openly.
He was beautiful… painfully so.
Dark hair, dark eyes, scruff on his chin. He was handsome in a devilish way, the kind of man you’d kiss behind your mom’s back and never tell your daddy about.
He reached for my mouth and tore the strip of tape off with a single yank.
I started screaming on cue. His hand met my face with such brutal force I rolled onto my back.
“No one will hear you,” he said matter-of-factly. “No one that would want to help. But I’d like you to get over the screaming habit as soon as possible, please. I don’t like drama. I like pretty, obedient little girls.”
“I thought you liked broken things,” I rasped, my voice feeling ragged and raw.
He laughed in my face, getting up from his kneeling position. My heart was pounding at the sight of him.
“You aren’t broken yet,” he told me. “But I’ll make sure you are before long, little one.”
Finally, I risked looking around us.
We were parked in a round driveway, the car he’d driven us over in a showy BMW. Ahead of me, there was nothing for what felt like miles, the road stretching out endlessly and finally being swallowed up by the fog that lay low above the ground. But once I turned my head, I could see what lay behind us, and it took my breath away.
There was a large topiary along with a marble fountain in the middle of the driveway. It looked like something out of a film. Beyond it, there was a house that looked more like a castle. It was enormous. Like a place a girl like me could only dream of. I’d never been able to afford even a one night’s stay in a place like that.
“W-where am I?” I asked shakily. The place felt like a ghost town. There wasn’t a soul in sight, but just then, I realized there was an alien sound coming from behind the house. “And what’s that sound?”
“You don’t recognize it?” he asked me, chuckling. “It’s the beach, little one. It’s the waves crashing down on the shore.”
I realized I smelled it then, the thick scent of salt and water in the air. I’d never seen the ocean.
“We’re…” I whispered. “We’re not in London, are we?”
This elicited another laugh from him.
“No,” he said simply. “We’re far, far away.”
“How long was I out for?” I demanded.
“How long do you think?” His tone was teasing, and I hated him for it.
“I don’t know,” I grunted. “A few hours? Just tell me.”
“A day and a half,” he said with a pleasant smile. “You slept through the plane ride.”
I felt tears pricking my eyes. Angry, resentful tears for this man and what he’d ripped away from me. I had no memory, no recollection of the past day and a half. Just like my freedom, he’d taken that away too.
“I hate you,” I growled at him, the need to hurt him reverberating through my body. “I’m going to kill you.”
He looked right into my eyes and muttered, “You have the wrong guy, little one.”
He hauled me up and threw me over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing. I screamed in protest, but it didn’t help one bit. He carried me towards the house as I struggled on his shoulder, kicking him with my bound legs, my tied-up hands raining helpless blows all over his back. None of it helped. None of it even made an impact.
I realized with a start he looked different than my memory remembered. When he’d taken me in that alley, he seemed broader, huger. Now, he was still an intimidating figure, but not nearly as frightening.
He was all man, his face painfully handsome, like that of a model. His cheeks were carved out of marble, chiseled and sharp. He had a beard, thick and dark just like his unruly hair. He looked like a handsome savage, and I hated him with every part of my body.
We reached the house a few moments later, and I realized with a start we were no longer alone. So, I did the only reasonable thing to do. I screamed my head off.
I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. This man, whoever he was, was going to have to beat me into submission. I would fight back every second I spent with him. He would never break me.
But now, he merely laughed at the ruckus I was causing, setting me down on the ground. I flopped on the floor, my body unable to stand when it was so tightly tied up. My eyes danced around the room and I struggled to focus on one thing, there was so much going on.
The house was stunning. Pink marble and so much
gold it made my eyes hurt. Like Mummy would say, nouveau riche. Old money didn’t need to display their riches in such a vulgar way.
It was also full of women.
Women in various stages of undress, and just a few men to balance out the ratio. I gasped at the sight before starting to scream again, but none of them rushed to help me. In fact, most of them ignored me completely, as if someone tied up and screaming on the marble floor of the mansion was such a common sight it didn’t require attention.
“You better save your voice,” the stranger told me, smirking down at me.
He pulled something out of his pocket and I blanched when the metal glinted in the light. A knife.
He bent down, kneeling next to me like he had earlier. Then, his knife cut into the thick ropes. My heartbeat picked up and I stared into his eyes as he worked to get me out of my binds.
“You’d better keep quiet, too,” he said calmly. “Some people here might make sure you do in crueler ways than my own.”
I didn’t listen. Who would have?
The second he cut me free, I made a run for it.
But before I could even make it to the front door, he caught me in his strong arms, knocking me down on the ground. He hit me so hard that time I thought I would pass out.
I looked up through heavy eyes as he approached me again. This time though, he wasn’t smiling.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said darkly, but a second later, a smile lit up his face.
Dark and menacing, holding a promise of hurt like I’d never known. I shivered in fear.
“Welcome to your new home, little one,” he said, grinning at me.
3
Harlow
They had to drag me to a room. I didn’t stop fighting for a single second. Mummy would have been proud of me.
It took three men to bring me to a simple cell. It seemed in sharp contrast to the beautiful, luxurious mansion we were in. It was bare, dark and grey, with no windows.
The floor was dark marble, still a hint of luxury in an otherwise barren room. There was a wooden chair front and center in the room, and a bucket in the corner. I looked at my captor incredulously, kicking like a wild animal to get free and escape once and for all. But there was no use. With three men holding me down, I was helpless.
“You can’t keep me here!” I screamed at the top of my voice, but he merely smirked at me.
He hadn’t even gotten his hands dirty, using three of his employees to throw me around like a ragdoll. As if it was beneath him to touch me. I hated him more with every breath I took, hoping to get revenge for every second I had to spend imprisoned in this hellhole.
“Watch me,” he told me darkly, then motioned for the goons to leave.
They shut the door behind them and then it was just us. My bruised, battered body shaking on the ground, and him, powerful, tall, magnetic, standing before me like he owned me.
“Here is what will happen next,” he said calmly, looking at me with an indulgent smile as he paced the room. “You’re going to have a little makeover. And your training will begin. But not before you’ve been punished for screaming and misbehaving. You will spend three days in here. Behave, or I’ll make it a week. Understood?”
I spat at him.
His eyes darkened, and he approached me in three quick, long steps. He raised a hand as if he was going to smack me, but I didn’t flinch. I wasn’t afraid. He wouldn’t break me that easily. I would fight until my last breath.
“I dare you,” I said huskily. “I dare you to hit me.”
He leaned down and grasped my throat between his fingers, grinning down at me.
“You don’t want to dare me, little one,” he told me menacingly. “I’ll make all your nightmares come true.”
He choked me, pressing down harder and harder until I could barely breathe. But I didn’t make a move to stop it. Instead, I just stared into his eyes with pure hatred in my gaze, waiting for him to finish what he’d started. I knew he wouldn’t kill me. He had plans for me, and I wouldn’t go down that easy. Still, I wanted him to know I wasn’t afraid of him and his threats.
Moments later, my eyes started rolling to the back of my head and I gasped for air which made him chuckle.
“Not so tough after all, are we?” he asked, letting go of me suddenly and letting me fall to the bare floor. “We’ll see how you’re faring three days from now. I won’t be in to see you, little one. And your food will be limited. Think you can handle it?”
I growled at him like a wild animal. I felt feral and angry. Like a completely different girl than I used to be. I was going to fight for my freedom. I realized how important it would be to be independent and to know how to fight here. If I didn’t I would fall prey to someone far more foul than the man standing before me.
“Well, I’ll see you eventually, I’m sure,” he winked at me, his smirk evil. “Goodbye, little one.”
“I have a name!” I screamed at him, and he turned around, his eyes filled with amusement as he looked at me.
“Oh, I know,” he said perfectly sweetly. “Harlow Granger. I know who you are. You just don’t know who you’re about to become.”
He shut the door and locked it behind him, and suddenly, I was in complete darkness, blacker than the night and inescapable.
That was when the fear started to creep in.
The room was designed as a prison cell for a reason, and within hours, I started to feel the effect it was having on me.
It was making me claustrophobic. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the walls started closing in on me, and I started to have trouble breathing. I wheezed, feeling panicked and frightened, my senses on high alert for any sound, smell or appearance. But it was peaceful in there, almost artificially so. As if every sound coming from outside had been blocked purposefully, to make me truly feel how alone in the world I was.
I started to tap my left foot against the floor in rhythmic, slow motions. That provided some noise and calmed me down a little. Being a big city girl and living in London, I’d never experienced silence like this. It felt like true isolation, and it sent fear into my bones.
Time passed painfully slowly. I tried counting the seconds and minutes like I had in the car, but as the numbers grew, I felt angry and even more scared. I knew I needed to stay strong. All my instincts came out to play now, the primal need to survive at any cost standing center stage just like I had been not long ago.
God, had it really only been a day and a half? It felt like a lifetime away, standing on that stage holding bouquets and having roses thrown at me. Now, I was a prisoner. A captive. And just two days prior I was an innocent girl with big dreams and my head in the clouds.
I started exploring the room a couple of hours into my imprisonment. I looked at the bucket, which I’d already realized was meant to be used as a toilet. The mere thought grossed me out and I winced at the thought of having to use it. There was the chair, but other than that, the room was empty. I felt around the walls, finding the door the man had used. There was a smaller part of it on the lower half, kind of like a hatch. But it was locked from the outside as well.
The hours kept passing, and the overwhelming need to pee made me sit on the bucket, cringing the whole way through. The smell of ammonia filled the room and I dry heaved. It was gross, but instead of despairing over my fate, it made me even more driven to get the hell out of there and leave that godforsaken little cell.
What felt like years later, the hatch opened and I scrambled to get to it. A small tray was pushed inside. There was only one thing on it – a metal jug of water.
I felt angry as hell, my stomach complaining loudly as I contemplated throwing the jug across the room. But I knew I needed to preserve my strength, so I drank the water in slow gulps, deciding to save some for later. God knows how long they were going to keep me without it. They were already withholding food.
I looked at the jug from all angles. It was light, two small screws holding the handle in place. My fi
ngers gnawed at them, and my heart jumped when one of the tiny screws moved a fraction.
Retreating to the corner where there was the most light coming in from under the door, I got to work on the screw. My fingernails were bleeding in moments, still hurt from when I tried to escape the trunk. But I kept working because I knew it might be my only chance. I worked and worked that screw until it finally came loose, and when it did, I cried out happily. Now there was the problem of hiding it.
My clothes, bar my dress, had been taken away from me. Thankfully the room wasn’t too cold, so at least I knew they weren’t trying to kill me. They were probably saving my life for a purpose much worse than death, but what they didn’t know was that I would fight them every fucking step of the way to my demise.
When I emptied the jug, it felt like a decade later. I turned it around once it was empty and saw a small post-it note attached to the bottom. It simply said ‘return’, and I took the hint.
I placed the tray and jug back in front of the hatch and watched closely until it opened, and a hand withdrew the tray.
Briefly contemplating attacking the hand, I finally decided against it. I needed to use my makeshift weapon when someone was in the room with me and the door was unlocked. Otherwise, I’d never get out by myself. They’d just keep me in the dark cell until I died of hunger. I knew they would.
I hid the screw in my underwear. I used the bucket a few times, the stench making me want to die of embarrassment. More water came, and I drank it hungrily because my stomach was rumbling. It felt like they were playing a cruel game, never giving me food, but just enough water to keep me going to the bucket. I hated whoever the creator of this sick game was. I vowed to kill them when I got out.
I slept in short bursts of panic, nightmares plaguing my dreams. It was impossible to get comfortable on the cold, hard floor, but I kept trying. My life for however much time had passed turned into a routine. Water, bucket, sleep, and repeat, over and over again.
