The gravity of the situation sinks in, settling in my gut like a stone. I have no idea how long Spider intends to leave me here, or when he’ll return.
Or, what he’ll do to me when he does come back.
He’s made it clear I’d pay for trying to escape. Will he torture me? Will he finally kill me, deciding that I’m too much trouble to keep around?
No. If he was going to kill me, he’d have done it already. But that doesn’t mean he won’t do things to me that will leave me wishing he would kill me.
No one is going to help me. The men in this place obviously have no problem with him holding me prisoner. As I lie there listening to the sounds of this place around me, the truth of that seeps in.
A TV plays in the near distance, probably from one of the other bedrooms, and men and women’s voices filter through the walls, conversations muffled and unintelligible. Glasses clink in the barroom, and someone laughs. Signs of life, carrying on as normal, as if there isn’t a girl trapped in Spider’s room, tied to his bed, waiting for him to subject her to who knows what demented desires.
I’m not stupid enough to think that I’ll get any sympathy from the women here, either. None of them batted an eye when Dee let loose on me. Heck, Monica and Dee both seem to revel in the idea of Spider hurting me. They think I’m getting what I deserve. Based on the way Tequila deferred to Dee and the way everyone had turned their backs when she’d hit me, the other women respect her. As long as Dee turns a blind eye to Spider’s actions, so will the other women here.
Tears sting my eyes, helplessness wrapping itself around my throat like a noose. Dee and Monica were my friends once, or I thought they were, but within the space of fewer than twenty-four hours, the respect I thought we shared has turned to hate.
Because I betrayed them.
Closing my eyes, I push the tears back, along with the loneliness that threatens to shatter what’s left of my resolve. And the hatred for Spider that eats at my insides like acid.
In the Colony, they taught us that hatred isn’t just a sin. It serves no purpose except to consume the heart and destroy the soul. Maybe it’s true, but right now, I don’t care. Right now, that hatred burns away the sense of powerlessness, staving off the helplessness that, if I let it take over, will leave me an empty shell, without hope. It keeps alive the need to escape, to find Sarah, to take my life back.
Hours pass and no one comes into the room. Thanks to the clock on Spider’s bedside table, I’m aware of every minute that ticks by. With nothing to occupy my mind, anxiety shreds my insides as my mind spins with thoughts of what lies ahead of me.
More than once, the pastors talked about what men in the outside world do to women. Kidnapping. Torture. Worse.
It’s funny, but over the six months since I’d escaped His Holy Peace, I’d begun to realize those stories were lies. Except, obviously they weren’t. Not everyone in the outside world is a monster, but I’ve somehow managed to run into one who’s every bit as bad and scary and twisted as the pastors made the whole world sound.
Not for the first time, I almost wish I’d never left the Colony. Until I consider what would have happened if I’d stayed.
If I’d stayed, I’d have been forced to follow through with the plan the pastors had in store for me. I’d be married by now. At eighteen, I’d be married to a man almost three times my age. A man who’s so corrupt that his previous wife decided it was better to risk eternal damnation by ending her own life just to avoid spending one more minute with him.
I’d be barefoot and pregnant, a baby-making machine for a man who’s convinced everyone around him that he’s the perfect gentleman, the perfect husband and father, the perfect servant of God.
Seth.
I shudder. The magnanimous, gentlemanly face Seth wears in front of his congregants is just a façade. Living with him would be no better than spending the rest of my life here. If the misery, the pain and sadness I saw in his wife’s eyes the day before she died is any indicator, he might be worse.
No. If I hadn’t run when I did, I’d have ended up trapped just like her, in a life without anything to live for. I might have ended up so wracked with misery, loneliness and pain that I saw ending my life as a better alternative, even if it meant defying God’s will and leaving my family to deal with being shunned by the church that they could never be allowed to leave.
I got out of the Colony. I’ll get out of here, too. I just have to figure out how.
Several hours after Spider left, I receive my only visitors. Keys jungle outside the door and the lock clicks. I jerk my head up, tensing.
The door opens and Monica steps in, carrying a tray. She closes the door.
As soon as she sees me, any hope that she might help me instantly vanishes. She takes one look at me, tied up and spread out on Spider’s bed, and covers her mouth, stifling a laugh.
“Oh, this is too good.” She takes a few steps into the room, then stops and cocks her head. Her eyes gleam with satisfaction. “You know, I bitched at the idea of having to come in here and deal with you, but seeing you like this is totally worth it.”
Humiliation and anger well up. She’s getting a kick out of this? I grit my teeth, keeping my eyes on the ceiling, stifling the urge to tell her off. Getting into it with her would only make things worse.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I tell her.
It’s not a lie. Until now, I’ve managed not to think about my bladder, but it’s ready to burst.
“Yeah, drinking ten bottles of water in a few hours will do that.” She sets the tray down on the bedside table.
I look at her.
“Tequila said you were guzzling water back from the minute you got into the barroom.” She crosses her arms and assesses me, making no move to untie me. “You’re smart, I’ll give you that. We should have realized you were trying to store up so you could make a run for it. None of us picked up on it until Spider told us you rabbited.”
Is that how he knew I was planning to run? No. If the women didn’t catch on, then they couldn’t have told him before I tried.
Man, I can literally feel my bladder stretching as I lie here, threatening to let loose. I wriggle, tugging on the ropes. The idea that I have to beg her for anything galls me, but the alternative is too humiliating to bear.
“I have to pee like a racehorse. Please untie me.”
“Yeah, right. So you can try to bolt out that window again? I don’t think so.”
I huff in frustration. “I’m not trying to get you to untie me so I can escape. Did Spider tell you not to untie me for any reason?”
She cocks her hip.
“Look, I know you think I deserve this, but unless you want me to urinate all over his bed, I suggest you let me use the restroom. I don’t think he’d be thrilled if he came back and found out you let me make that kind of a mess.”
Monica’s eyes narrow. Her expression tells me that I’ve said something odd, but what? She shakes herself as if deciding it doesn’t matter and takes something off the tray she’s carried in. It’s a blue container of some sort, shaped kind of like a kidney, and a few inches deep.
“What is that?”
“It’s a bedpan.”
“A what?”
“Seriously?” She clicks her teeth. “It’s for you to piss in, Martian girl.”