DOVE
Ithought I had died.
I was ready to die.
How bad does your life have to be that you’re ready to die? I had no family to speak of, only the memory of what they once was? The only family I had now been Christina. When my parents died, I was only twenty years old. I know people lose their parents a lot younger than I did, but I was devastated. My life was turned upside down. They said it was a robbery gone wrong, but I knew better. Why else would he have been carted off to the asylum instead of jail.
Bentley James, I’d never forget his name. Never.
There were whispers around town that he was a notorious serial killer, so why wasn’t he locked up, why was he among the insane, it felt like they had done my parents an injustice and while he was still breathing it felt like he was mocking me, everyday he took a breath when they couldn’t. I hadn’t thought about this for a long time, yes death would have been preferable.
The town got over it. After all, the bad man was locked upwith the criminally insane. He couldn’t hurt anyone, so it was brushed under the carpet like it had never happened.
That’s how I became invisible. They didn’t want to look at the girl they had failed. They didn’t want to see the reason their small town wasn’t so perfect after all. So, they did what they do best. They pretended it never happened, pretended my parents didn’t exist, acted like I didn’t exist because my face was a reminder that it did happen.
After a while I got used to being invisible, I preferred it that way, I even enjoyed that nobody saw me, until someone did but he wasn’t from here, out of all the people he could have seen I never thought it would be me.
Now, look at me. Held here against my will with nobody coming to save me. There wasn’t even anyone who could have said: ‘watch out’ because they were as dumb as I was. A stranger came to town and we all just trusted him. He offered us drinks and holiday fun. It was like giving your soul to the devil.
He seemed so nice when I’d met him, I was actually annoyed when Christina kept interrupting our conversation but she never did like when the attention was taken away from her, she was the center of attention wherever we went, so this must have been alien that he hadn’t shown a shred of interest in her.
She was lucky.
Although knowing Christina, she would revel in the fact of being kidnapped and held against her will. Don’t all girls have the fantasy of being hunted down by a delicious man and been kept against their will?
A fantasy is quite different to the reality, then you just have questions like: why me?
I know he’s in here, I can sense his presence, he’s nottouching me, he thinks I’m asleep, although I don’t know why that would stop him.
Even now, while I lay here pretending to be asleep with a million thoughts running around my head, I can feel him. I can feel him watching me.
I don’t feel the cold slab on my back. I’m no longer seated at that wall, but maybe I’ve just become desensitised to feeling the cold.
My arms are chained. I can feel the cold steel on my wrists, but I dare not move in case he realises I’ve been awake this entire time. This seems to be the only break I get from him when I’m sleeping, but I know he won’t let me sleep forever.
I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been his captive for. It’s not like I had seen the light of day since I arrived here.
It’s funny the small things you miss but all I really missed was a decent cup of coffee and a book, it was always the simple pleasures of life that made me happy and he’d managed to take away the menial things people take for granted.
“I know you’re awake.” His dark voice travels through my thoughts.
Shit, I thought I had played the sleeping girl so well.
“How long are you planning on keeping up this charade?” There’s humour in his voice, like I amuse him.
“As long as it takes for you to let me go.” I finally answer, but I dare not open my eyes for fear of what might come next.
“Well, you’ll be waiting a long fucking time, little bird. You aren’t going anywhere.”
“You can’t keep me locked in a cage forever.”
“If you stopped been so fucking stubborn and opened your eyes, you’d see there are no bars.”
It had to be a trick. Why would he let me out of his torture chamber? I wouldn’t know if he was telling the truth until I saw for myself, so I squint and look down and tomy surprise I’m laid on a bed. Not a stone slab like some slaughtered animal, but a bed.
My eyes flutter and look around. The room is quite pleasant at first glance. Large bay windows are covered by red velvet curtains, rosewood walls have pretty paintings on the wall, the usual dark gothic chandeliers hang from the ceiling. It even has a midnight black dresser with a mirror and a matching cupboard. The bed has wrought iron that my chains are connected to behind my head, but the plush covers and pillows around my body give a sense of comfort.
“Why did you move me?”
