It’s midmorning when I nose the car into the garage beside my woodland retreat. Calla is still completely out of it. I easily lift her and enter the house. I take her straight to her room, where I’ve filled it with familiar things. When she awakens, she’ll be disoriented, terrified, and in pain, no doubt, from what Typhon put her through, and to see her personal effects will calm her, I hope.
Even so, I shackle her wrists and ankles. I don’t like doing it, especially with what she’s gone through, but I’ve no choice. I can’t risk her somehow trying to escape while I’m catching up on sleep, and ending up lost in the woods. I’d track her easily enough, but she could break a leg, or worse, wandering around here in the pitch darkness.
I give her a shot of morphine to help with her injuries, and after a final glance, I switch off her light and close the door, then head to my room, where I collapse on the bed and immediately pass out.
Chapter Five
Calla
I come to slowly. My eyes are stuck together as if they’re full of sleep, and my head is sluggish. I lie there, trying to clear the brain fog. Everything aches, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. As I emerge further into consciousness, I force my lids to open.
That isn’t my ceiling.
I roll my head to the right despite the pain that shoots through my temple.
This isn’t my room.
But if that’s true, why are some of my things here? The little jewelry box I picked up at a flea market, the canvas print of downtown Denver I bought myself one year for Christmas. My old teddy bear from childhood that had one ear torn off from when I lost my temper and I was so racked with guilt that I couldn’t bring myself to throw him away.
And then, like a wall collapsing on me, memories rain down, sucking the very air from my lungs. A stark white medical facility. A doctor poking and prodding, his fingers invasive and unwelcome. Lining up with all those compliant women, just like me. Except for one. A girl with waist-length, wavy red hair, whose venomous glares should have stripped the skin off the men who used whips to drive us forward into that room. The room where all those men were waiting. The room where he chose me.
Oh God.
I don’t even realize I’m crying until I taste salt on my lips. I thought he was going to kill me. At times I wished he had. The things he made me do… the pain. God, the pain. That must be why everything hurts so bad. Inside, outside, my bones, my muscles, my skin.
My back aches, and I go to turn over. Only then do I notice the restraints. Both my wrists and my ankles are fastened to four posts, one at each corner of the narrow bed I’m lying on. Nausea froths in my belly, and trembles rack my slight frame.
I’m still here. A different room, but trapped all the same.
Please. No more.
I can’t take it. I’m not strong enough. Not like that redheaded girl.
Come on, Calla. Breathe.
I squeeze my eyes closed, and when I open them, somewhere within me, a well of resilience springs up. As long as I’m alive, there’s hope. I begin a mantra, a chant of sorts.
One day at a time. One hour, one minute.
One second.
Try to deal with things as they come to you.
Most of all, don’t panic.
The last one is the hardest of all. Already my heart is beating too fast, my throat constricted, my lungs striving for air, my body drenched in perspiration.
A scream develops, creeping into my mouth, but I let it die on my lips. The last thing I need is to alert whoever took me that I’m awake. The longer I’m alone, the freer my mind is to try to figure a way out of this nightmare.
The light outside is starting to fade, but there’s still just enough for me to take a good look at my surroundings. The room isn’t large, maybe twelve feet square, the walls are made of wood, and there’s a single bulb directly overhead covered with a beige shade.
I’m clothed in a thin cotton dress that isn’t mine.
And I’m chained to the bed.
I can’t get enough air.
I start to breathe even faster, my lungs working overtime to keep up, and a horrible tingling starts up in my hands and feet. I feel sick. A band tightens around my chest.
I’m having a panic attack.
I recall something I read online once regarding panic attacks and how it was important to take slow, controlled breaths. Using every ounce of energy I have left, I put it all into trying to follow that advice, and as the numb, tingling sensation recedes and my heart rate begins to return to normal, I feel a sense of control returning. I’m in charge of my body, not the other way around.
And then I hear footsteps, and my heart rate skyrockets again. I keep my eyes trained on the door, and as the handle turns, an impending sense of doom drowns me. I’m going to die here. I know it. A long, painful death at the hands of that man who gained pleasure from my pain.
But the person who appears isn’t my torturer. This one is even scarier. A hulk of a man who could snap my neck without breaking a sweat, his bare arms
