Page 61 of His Obsession
Moving my gaze around the room, the feeling of dread overtook me, and my chest clenched. The small room with bare chalky walls was the size of my bathroom in my townhouse. A dirty porcelain toilet was next to the door, almost like it didn’t belong. The foam mattress topper I sat on was yellow with grime, and a puddle of vomit was on the floor next to it. I pulled my naked legs to my chest, moving them away from the stench, and hugged them. Where were my clothes?
“I… where… am I?” My tongue sat heavy and thick in my mouth, and the fog in my brain was dense. Forming words felt like an impossible task.
“Shh, don’t speak,” the voice screeched. I clamped my hands over my ears. “You’ll just annoy me,” he said. “Now, drink your water so we can have some fun.” The mirth in his voice made my stomach drop as a hatch in the door opened, and a water bottle tumbled through, rolling towards me.
“Fuck… you.”
Rohypnol… it would explain why I felt this way. They warned us about this drug in the clubs, and I was always so careful. I was careful last night too. I only had one drink, minus the spilled shot glass, and they were from… the bartender.
I kicked my leg out and pushed the water back towards the door. I wanted nothing that came from him. Who knows what he laced it with? My bare heel slid through the cold slime of vomit, and my stomach heaved, threatening to add to the mess.
“Thisisgoing to be fun.”
The hatch closed with aclang, and I was left alone in silence.
Tears burned my eyes as I laid my head on my knees and cried. What had I done? I tried to think back, needing to recollect the foggy details of what was… my well-thought-out plan. I remembered dinner, the club, feeling sick on the dance floor, going to the bathroom—wait… did I go to the bathroom? It was too… fuzzy.
I was going to meet that man at the club and expose him to Alek. I thought I was safe there. Alek should have found my ticket. I made him think I was planning to escape, but I gave him the letter to read in time, instructing him to watch out for the mysterious man. I thought my plan would work. Alek said he had extra men there. What happened?
I happened—My lips quivered in time with my shaking legs.
I am so screwed! I wiped the tears from my face and tried to stand, holding onto the wall for stability. My head pounding with the side effect of the drugs, I looked around the tiny room. The room was so small I could almost touch both sides with my outstretched arms.
The white paint, or what used to be white, was peeling and flaking off to the floor. A rusty drain cover sat in the middle of the room, and an old blackened sink sat next to the toilet that hadn’t touched a cleaning product for ages.
My fingers ran along the wall, scuffing off the cracking paint, adding more to the collection on the ground. I grabbed hold of the dirty doorknob, jiggling the handle, praying it would magically open and I could run free from my new prison.
A sharp clang caused me to scurry away. The hatch on the door opened, and a roll of toilet paper, paper towels, and window cleaner flew at my legs, clattering to the floor beside me.
“Wait…” My words were garbled but recognizable. “Alek will not come for me. He hates me,” I lied, praying that he would believe me and let me go.Desperate minds.
Without a sound from the man, the hatch closed back up, and I panicked. “Let me out!” I bellowed. Rushing back to the door, I pounded my fists as hard as I could to gain his attention.“Please!” I wept, collapsing to the floor in a mess of tears. “I don’t want to be here. This isn’t my fight.Please.Listen to me!”
No one responded.
“Why do you think he let me get taken? He doesn’t care,” I cried, hoping he was still on the other side, listening to me.
After a moment of silence, I pressed my ear to the metal door and tried to hear something. Muffled footsteps scuffed over the floors, moving away from me—he wasn’t listening.
My bladder pinched against my bent torso, telling me it was full and needed emptying without delay. The filthy toilet caused an involuntary scrunching of my face when I imagined my skin coming into contact with its atrocious surface. I hurried to grab the cleaner and paper towels, spritzing the seat and surrounding areas, I scrubbed until I was convinced I wouldn’t contract every bacterium and STD in the medical books.
After relieving my bladder for so long that Austin Powers would be impressed, I sprayed the drying vomit and wiped it up while dry-heaving into my elbow. There wasn’t anything in my gut to come up anyway, my growling stomach kept reminding me.
My muscles ached, and I was exhausted and queasy. I needed a drink, but I didn’t want to trust that water. He drugged me once—who was to say he wouldn’t do it again? I turned the faucet on, hoping to get a sip from the nozzle, but when I turned the dial, rust-colored water poured out and down the drain, making my toes curl.
I just can’t win.
I picked up the bottle and ran it under the burned-orange water, washing off the slime it had come into contact with. The lid cracked opened, giving me sweet joy; it was a new bottle. Surely he couldn’t have tampered with it if it was new…right?
I threw my doubts aside and downed the entire bottle in a few swallows, my thirst still unquenched, my throat demanding more. I threw the plastic against the door and sat down on my makeshift bed, and leaned my head against the wall, in my defensive position—knees up and holding on for dear life.
Alek was looking for me. He wouldn’t go through all the trouble of protecting me and training me if he didn’t intend to come and save me—save me, didn’t I tell him I didn’tneedsaving, that I could take care of myself? If I had the energy to slap myself, I would.
Maybe he was training me so he wouldn’t have to get his hands dirty, but that didn’t seem like Alek. We had a connection, or at least I thought we did. We had gotten close in the few weeks I was staying with him. Sure, we had our bouts of head-butting, but what friends, couples, lovers, didn’t? Not that I was any of those things to him, but he was definitelymyfriend. I’m sure Alek was doing everything in his power to find me right now.
My thoughts trailed back to his dark reaper tattoo on his back with the “eye for an eye” scripture below it. He refused to talk about it, but it seemed easy to comprehend. To me, it meant he refused to allow violations to occur without deadly repercussions.
Did that mean he was a killer, or was it just a symbolic figure? What about his loyalty tattoo that I had taken to heart? I was loyal to Alek by default, but also because he had grown on me. If I was faithful to him, he would give me the world, or he would destroy it. That was what he said. I just pray he read my letter to see that I was still on his side, and I never intended to sway from it.