“Fuck. Try to be quiet and hide the best you can, I’m on my way and I’m going to call the police.”
“Please don’t hang up,” I say quietly, tears now falling down my face.
“I’m coming as soon as I can. I’m calling them now. You’re going to be okay, I’m ten minutes away. I’ll be right there,” he says, the line going dead. Logically, I know he has to call the police, that’s who I should have called first.
I do as Aiden says, getting into the tub and hiding behind the shower curtain. I hide my phone under my bra and use my hands to cover my sobs and to control my breathing. Every part of me is shaking. I can hear the intruder walking around my room for a while, and I’m hoping that they retreat. But then I hear them open the closet and rummage around my clothes. It’s then that it clicks that they’re here for me. They aren’t looking for things to steal, they know I’m home and the only reason they would be looking for me is to harm me.
My heart is racing in my chest and I feel like I’m on the verge of having a heart attack with how fast it’s thumping away under my rib cage.
The intruder jiggles the bathroom door handle, quickly realizing that it’s locked. He kicks it once, and I hold my mouth tightly shut so that I don’t give myself away, though I’m fully aware that he is going to break down that door and there’s nowhere for me to go. The window in here is so high and small there’s no physical way for me to climb through it.
I wonder if I should have said more to Aiden, or if he will be able to get here fast enough, or the police. I can’t tell if we’ve been off the phone for one minute or ten. They hit the door one more time, the wood splinters and cracks, and what remains of the door smacks the opposite wall, making me jolt.
My hands stay firmly on my mouth as I try to breathe and pray that maybe he just won’t check behind the curtain.
Suddenly the sharp slide of the curtain startles me, and I’m looking into familiar green eyes. And they aren’t the ones I’ve fallen deeply in love with.
“You know Daddy hates it when you hide, sweetheart,” Sean says, like this is completely fucking normal and not like he broke into my home and physically broke down two doors.
He looks over my face, and he doesn’t seem disheartened by the tear stains tracking down my face or how absolutely terrified I feel.
“Sean, what are you doing here?”
“I’m here to bring you home,” he says plainly. He seems different, still as arrogant as ever, but like he’s on edge. The man I knew was always so sure about himself, at least in front of me. But as I look at him, he seems twitchy and irritable, and I know I can’t be stupid in how I handle this. Maybe I can keep him talking and in the cottage, that’s the most important thing. Aiden and help is on the way, I can’t let him move me to another location.
“How did you know where I was living?” I ask, staying in the tub. He looks me up and down. His pupils are blown, and he grabs me by the arm and yanks me out of the safety of the tub.
“That man who answered the phone, it wasn’t hard to find him and where he worked. Low and behold, he was your boss. You don’t change, do you, sweetheart?” I don’t fight, but I don’t make it easy for him to drag me into the bedroom either. His grip is tight on my arm, and I have to stop myself from wincing. “This little rebellion is over, you’re coming home. Things have changed, but you still belong to me.”
Sean might have been a controlling, selfish prick when we were together, but he wasn’t delusional.
“Sean, we broke up.” He yanks my arm again and bends down to get into my face.
“I decide if we’re done. I’m the one in control, which you clearly have forgotten. Daddy’s going to work on that. You just need more discipline. You need to understand your place, little girl.”
The blood drains from my face, and I try to hold back my visceral response to the name. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my mouth closed. “I don’t want to go back to Virginia,” I tell him.
“Perfect, because we’re not going back there.” I blink at him, he’s grabbing some of my things and tossing them into an open suitcase. “Where did you get this?” he asks, holding up the dress that Aiden bought me. I shake my head, not answering, and that’s when he shocks me by raising his palm and striking me across the face. I have to blink a few times, the vision in my right eye spotty as I let it sink in that he actually hit me. “Now you know how you’re going to be punished for not listening to me. Did he buy it for you?”
He lifts his hand to hit me again, and I sputter as I answer. “Yes, he bought it.” He tosses it on the floor.
“Ungrateful bitches don’t get presents, you need to remember that.”
“Sean, where is this all coming from?” I ask. I guess with his treatment of me, I didn’t expect him to care about me leaving. I knew he was upset because of the frequent calls and texts, but this level of behavior is beyond anything I ever thought him capable of.
I see some movement from the backdoor, and I steady myself. Someone is here, they have to be, it has to have been enough time between when I spoke to Aiden for him or someone else to come for help.
“You’re mine. I’m not sure what made that unclear. This is over when I say so. Be grateful I want you back and don’t hurt you more for sleeping with another man.”
So clearly, Sean is having a psychotic episode of some sort, and in an effort to not have him hurt me again, I just go along with his mumbling and nonsense.
“I think you’ll like Michigan,” he says, muttering under his breath and grabbing more of my things and tossing them into my luggage. He grabs the back of my neck roughly, making me whimper, and he smiles sadistically in my face. “Things are going to be so much better, sweetheart. You’re going to be better trained, and it will be fine.”
Fresh tears of fear trail down my cheeks when we hear something in the cottage. His hand grips my neck even tighter, and I tense up.
“Who the fuck else is here?” he asks.
I think quickly. “It’s my cat.”
