asset [h.s.]

nine // escape route

Alicia

Every single muscle in my body aches and I feel utterly exhausted, but no matter how hard I try, I can't fall asleep. I spent the whole night lying awake in the small bed, my knees pressed against my stomach and my arms wrapped around myself protectively, staring up at the ceiling, wide awake. My cheeks are still tear stained but I gave up crying a long time ago, not even an ounce of energy left in my body to even produce more tears. All I can do is stare into the dark emptiness, wondering how I ended up in this mess.

The room I'm in is pretty small and I'm lying in a single bed, which I find strange seeing as the rest of the house seems huge and probably have king sized beds in all the other rooms. Maybe this is the special prisoner room, preserved for girls who are hanging onto their last shred of hope and are scarily close to completely falling apart. I'm trying to stay strong and I know that if I was watching this whole situation in a horror movie, I would be laughing my ass off at how weak the girl is as I stuff my face with more popcorn. But this isn't some horror movie I watch from the comfort of my own couch in my home, because it turns out I was never quite as safe there as I thought.

I'll be the first one to admit that I don't know how to handle this. I have no idea how I'm going to get through this. I was never taught how to fight off sedation drugs or escape from deranged psychopath kidnappers. Of course, I've been taught all about how to solve quadratic formulas and work out the missing angles in a triangle, but never how to save my own life when it's put in danger. Looking from that perspective, all the hours wasted at school seem pretty pointless now.

Being completely paralysed with fear all the time doesn't help either. I have no idea what they're going to do to me. I was only a few feet away when Harry shot a bullet through an innocent man's head without a second thought, so god knows what he's planning to do with me. Even though I'm convinced that if they wanted to kill me, they would've done it by now, I think ideas of torture aren't too wild a guess. Maybe they're just waiting until the perfect time to do it.

I suddenly hear the sound of footsteps making their way upstairs and I suck in a breath, hugging my body tighter and squeezing my eyes shut. Utterly terror stricken, I listen closely as the footsteps get closer and closer, until I hear the sound of the door being unlocked and then, slowly being pushed open. A pool of light floods into the room and I hold my breath, expecting whichever one it is to walk inside, but they stay stood in the doorway.

"Rise and shine." A voice I recognise as Carl's says. "Harry's busy with work or some shit, so I'm in charge for the time being."

I don't reply, staying wrapped up in my self made cocoon which I hope I never have to get out of. I think I'll stay up here all alone and starve instead of going back downstairs in their presence again, but that's probably what they want.

"You know, this isn't going to be very fun if you don't even bother to move."

I resist the urge to laugh bitterly in his face. Fun? How the hell could he think that any part of this could possibly be fun? For him and Harry maybe, but definitely not for me.

I finally lift my head from the covers, only enough to peer out and see Carl standing in the doorway, looking pretty bored. I have to admit he's good-looking, although my subconscious weighs in on the fact that he's not as attractive as Harry, but I immediately push it away, feeling absolutely disgusting for even allowing that thought in. But I reckon Carl could be a nice guy if he wasn't involved in.....whatever this is. He could probably get a pretty girlfriend too if he wasn't this odd, and bad seeing as he almost let me escape, kidnapper.

"Ah, so you are alive." He comments when he obviously sees me moving around. I freeze when he says that, but then I let out a small sigh. I'm sure they're going to force me out of this bed sometime soon anyway. "Are you going to shower or stay here all day?"