“It’s not the catching you part that concerns me.” He shakes his head. “It’s everything after that. If you ran, I’d have to drag you back here. You’d fight me, and someone would get hurt. That someone beingyou.And contrary to what you believe, I don’t actually want to hurt you, so the answer is no.”
“This is cruel.”
“Yeah, well, it’s better than being dead.” There is a bitterness to his voice that I try to ignore. He’s quiet for a moment, then adds without looking at me, “I’ll turn around to give you a little privacy.”
It’s not what I want, but it’s something. A small concession that feels enormous given the circumstances.
“Fine,” I whisper, defeated.
He moves to face the wall, his back rigid. I stare at him for a moment, making sure he’s not looking, then awkwardly maneuver with the bucket, my face burning with humiliation. When I’m finished, I pull the quilt over my body like armor and curl up facing away from him.
“You can turn around,” I say, my voice muffled.
I hear him move, his heavy footsteps cross the cabin.
The bucket rattles, and then the front door opens. I can only assume he’s taking it outside to dispose of. When he returns, that same heavy silence from before funnels into the space.
“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly. How do I respond, especially when it doesn’t feel like he’s sorry. “I know that doesn’t meananything to you,” he continues. “I know sorry doesn’t fix this. But... I am. Sorry. For what it’s worth.”
“It’s not worth much,” I say quietly, still facing away from him.
“I know.”
Neither of us says anything. I know he’s moved to sit in a chair when the legs of the chair creak under his weight. Every few minutes, he shifts, and the chair creaks again. It seems like his body is as restless as my mind. I continue lying down, trapped and terrified and so tired I can barely think straight.
“You should try to sleep,” he says after a while.
“I don’t want to sleep. I want to go home.”
“I already told you that’s not an option, Saint.” Irritation coats his voice, and I know he’s annoyed with me, but I don’t care. I’m annoyed at his lack of answers. At his presence, and the way it makes me feel when it shouldn’t.
“Everyone has a choice.”
He slams something down on the table, and I jump. A fresh wave of tears slips from my eyes. I don’t want to cry anymore, but it’s the only way I can release my emotions.
“You’re fucking right, and my choice was to keep you alive. So if I let you walk out that door, all of this will have been for nothing.”
“Good. I’d rather be dead than stuck here with you.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Eventually, I close my eyes, not because I think I can sleep, but because I can’t stand to stay awake any longer. Can’t stand to keep looking at this cabin, to feel the handcuff on my wrist, to hear the man who’s keeping me prisoner breathing.
It feels like fate hates me because sleep never comes.
I lie there in the growing darkness, listening to him breathe, listening to the wind outside, listening to my own heart hammering against my ribs.
I want to see my father. I want to find a way out of this.
I pray for an answer, but it doesn’t come. There’s only silence, darkness, and the presence of the man who holds my fate in his hands.
A man I don’t fully understand.
A man who terrifies me and confuses me in equal measure.
A man who kept me alive when he should have killed me.
And somehow, out of all that, the uncertainty is the most terrifying thing of all.
