Watched

Chapter 12: Broken

I felt truly unsettled about your most recent journal entry. What did you mean about killing everyone you've ever loved? I surely couldn't ask you about it based on the way you responded when I asked about your grandfather.

I studied you from afar for a few days, watching your actions for anything unusual. I tried to never turn my back to you and to know where you were at all times. I watched to see if you were carrying a gun or a knife. Would you strangle me in my sleep? Would you rape me first? Would it be a slow, painful, torturous death?

Every time you tried to speak to me, I gave you quick, curt answers, the way you'd been answering me since I came here.

One evening, you asked if I'd like to come fishing with you the next morning. I was fearful of having you take me out in the woods. If you killed me out in the middle of nowhere, no one would ever find me. At least if you killed me in the cabin, there was a chance someone would eventually discover what you'd done, if they ever found the cabin.

But I was so sick of being indoors, I agreed.

“What if we see another cougar?” I asked. Maybe you would let me die this time, watching the mountain lion eat me alive, getting some sick kind of pleasure out of it.

“I always take a gun with me,” you reminded me.

Great, I couldn't feel any safer about that. What if you turned the gun on me?

I slept fitfully that night, tossing and turning and wondering how long it would be until you decided to do away with me. I decided that, if I came back from the fishing trip alive, I would start keeping a gun or a knife with me at all times. I would have to find a way to work out and get back into shape since I'd been sitting around for a few weeks and I was starting to feel lazy. I could carry wood inside – the bigger armloads, the better, to make my upper body strong. I could do yoga to strengthen my core. I would have to develop an exercise regimen and stick to it if I wanted to be any match against your strength.

We woke up in the morning and you told me to wear thermal underwear and wool socks. You gave me a pair of heavy gloves and a hat, and I wore my own parka. We went to the outer closet and you fetched your pail and a small gun. I watched carefully to see where you placed it. You stuck it inside the waistband of your jeans.

I followed you as we walked along the path you'd made. We walked for quite a long time and I found I was getting out of breath. I definitely had to start working out again, today if possible. We finally came to a clearing and then I heard it – rushing water. About 50 yards ahead was a flat, gray river. It must have been moving swiftly because it hadn't frozen.

Maybe you were planning to push me into the racing water and watch me drift away. Freezing to death and drowning at the same time might be a fairly easy way to die. I was a good swimmer, but I was out of shape, and I remembered from the day I ran away that my muscles literally froze up as I got colder and colder.

You pulled out a pole and you handed me the long net you had brought along. “It's a little easier to catch fish with this. But I can get different kinds by casting further out into the river.”

We approached the bank and you cautioned me to be careful because it was slippery.

“Like you care,” I muttered under my breath.

“What?” You asked in shock, clearly having heard what I said.

“Nothing.”

You dropped it.

I stood and watched the water swiftly traveling past, only inches from my feet. I was shocked that I actually saw fish close to the surface. Despite the speed of the current, the water was still quite clear in that spot. I giggled and laughed when I saw the fish coming close to the surface.