This Can't Be Love

Chapter 19: The Storm

"What's making that sound...?"

She looks around herself now, and sees that there is a chain sticking out from behind her under her pajama top. She lifts the pajama to check, and sees that there is a strong belt like shackle strapped around her waist. The chain that is attached to it, makes its trail into the the floor underneath the bed. Samantha kneels down and lowers her head to ground level. She sees that the chain's length is excessive, as it is coiled up and piled into a nest-like circle under the bed.

In the underground building again. Jenkins watches as Fuller drops back down into the room from the ceiling.

"Anything?"

"Nothing."

They dust themselves off and keep walking. They enter a small corridor now and begin to walk down a long flight of stairs. They make it down to a hot room surrounded by moving machinery.

"Looks like a dead-end, Fuller... With all these furnaces down here it would be easy to burn off any evidence."

"There's another room circled on the print... I think it's back upstairs."

"Let's check it out..."

In Aaron's customized basement again, Samantha begins to pull the chain from under the bed, uncoiling it from its nest. She pulls repeatedly and rapidly with a look of determination on her face until it tightens and she cannot pull any longer. She sees that the chain is actually sticking directly into the floor with no sign of what it is that holds it in place. Footsteps are heard on metal coming down the spiral stairs.

"Sam...?"

Samantha hears Aaron's voice but is still looking under the bed. She shakes her head now and angrily sits on the floor with her back against the bed. Aaron sees the back of her head come up behind the bed and addresses her.

"Sam... You're awake..."

Aaron is carrying a tray with a continental breakfast and cup of coffee on it.

"Here... Your favorite breakfast. Made your coffee just how you like it, its still with skim milk and three sugars, right?"

He sets the tray on the coffee table in the living area and walks over to Samantha.

"Come on, Sam... You haven't eaten in days."

Samantha doesn't look at him and just continues to sit next to the pile of chains by the bed.

"Oh... The silent treatment... Alright, look, Sam... I don't intend on making you my prisoner..."

Aaron now sits on the floor next to Samantha in the same position as her.

"You can move just about everywhere down here, I made sure the chain was long enough."

"Aaron."

"Yes, Sam..."

"Please get away from me."

"Don't be so tense, Sam..."

"My hands and feet are free, and I have enough chain here to strangle you."

"I want to think I can trust you more than that, Sam..."

"Trust... I thought I could trust you and look where that got me... And now you say you want to trust me... So easy to say that when you're not the one being kidnapped..."

"This isn't kidnap, Sam. This is--"

"Call it what you want to, just get away from me, Aaron."

"Hear me out, Sam... This is all a big misunderstanding..."