Stockholm Syndrome | Harry

o n e

I opened my eyes to darkness. I couldn't hear anything but the buzzing of silence. I felt a tight pressure on my head, and when I went to touch it, my hands were jerked back. I tugged, testing it.

My hands were bound to something. I could feel panic stirring in my stomach, feel vomit rising in my throat.

What happened?

Where am I?

I pulled on the rope binding my hands on either side of my hands. Fear caused little whimpers to escape my mouth. I kicked out frantically, feeling that my ankles weren't bound.

I cursed when my heel connected with something solid. I curled my hands around the bars they were tied to. Wooden, and so large that my fingers barely touched each other when I tried to make a fist around it.

I stretched my body, reaching to make contact with something. My toes touched something solid, and I moved them along to feel that I was surrounded by the wooden bars.

A cage?

What the hell?

Where am I?

I stop moving when I hear a small creak a few feet away. My lips press together tight, my shoulders tense.

"Hi, sweetie." I almost sob. A male voice, thick and strong.

I hear footsteps come towards me slowly. I tense even more, my lips quivering in fear.

"Did you have a nice nap, baby?" I jerk away when a hand brushes along my cheek.

"Don't touch me." I whisper so quietly that I'm not sure I even said it.

"Don't speak to me that way, please." He says, frown evident in his voice.

"Where am I? Let me go, please." I sob, breaking then. My body collapses, all the tension evaporating into the soft thing under me. A mattress?

When he speaks again, I can tell that he's bent down so that we're on the same level, "You're home, baby." He says. "Home with your daddy."

I dissolve at those words. All of my tendons, bones, muscles disappear. I'm nothing.

"What?" I choke.

"You're with me now," He strokes my forehead with his fingertips. "My baby."

"No." I cry, voice breaking. "No, I'm not yours. I'm not home. Let me go." I'm sobbing now, and I refuse to think of my home, my family.

I can see then, and the brightness blinds me. I move my face away from the light, clenching my eyes closed. When I look up, I see a blindfold hanging over the edge of whatever I'm lying in. And I see a face above me. Dark hair, green eyes, sharp features.

"No swearing, Emma. I'll spank your bottom if you use naughty words."

I stiffened at that. He knew my name. Spank me? Naughty words? My mouth was open in shock, eyes wide. I tried to sit up, forgetting that my wrists were tied down.

He untied them, allowing me to sit up and look at my surroundings.

I was sitting in something that looked like a giant crib. The walls were a light pink. There was a long table with cabinets built in underneath it and a plush, pink cushion on top sitting against the wall next to the door. A pile of toys was in one corner.

Stuffed animals, trains, dolls, bubbles, crayons. Along another wall was a floor to ceiling bookshelf, filled with thin books, little trinkets and toys. There was a little rug with numbers and the alphabet on it. A painting of baby safari animals sat on one wall. It looked like a nursery from a decorating magazine.