My knees were slowly growing numb from the concrete floor supporting them. The blood in my arms rushing back down to my torso due to gravity. I could barely feel the metal cuffs biting into the soft flesh of my wrists anymore.
My vision swam, coming back into focus with agonizing sluggishness.
A groan escaped from my chapped lips. The weight of whatever drug had been used to knock me out still lingered over my mind.
What had happened? I couldn't remember anything about...
Before I could finish the thought, Aaron seemed to appear in front of me. But he must've just come into the line of sight without me noticing immediately. Or I could've blacked out for a second. Either way, he was there.
Aaron flicked his hand, twirling the knife in it. I gazed at it closer, realizing with a sick jolt that it was my dagger.
"You must really like my dagger," I moaned, leaning my head against my suspended arm to gaze up at him.
In a second, Aaron was up in my face. The dagger pressed against my pulsing carotid artery.
I didn't dare move.
"Are you going to kill me with my own knife?" I asked him, drawing out my words. What was it with me and asking for it?
"No," he breathed, "I'm glad you didn't move, though. If you had, you probably wouldn't be breathing at the moment." He relieved the pressure with the knife and drew the tip down my throat.
"I can almost see your heart rate accelerating." His lips barely moved as he watched the knife reach my collarbone.
"Too bad it's not," I told him.
Aaron flickered in front of me.
I shook my head, sure I was just seeing things. He solidified in front of me again.
"Oh, Beautiful. I'm positive that it is." Suddenly, as if in response to his comment, my heart was thrumming in my throat. Trying to get out by jumping.
I gagged, like my heart was actually in my mouth. My eyes closed automatically as the retching took over my entire body.
When I opened my eyes, Aaron wasn't there anymore. I was back in the church.
The light streaming through the stained glass window was suddenly on my face. I gazed into the light, transfixed by it.
It was just a vision, I thought gratefully, sitting back on my knees. I let my head fall to my knees, starting a technique my therapist had recommended for times like these.
One. Two. Three.
I couldn't stop shaking.
Four. Five. Six.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Deep breath in...
Seven. Eight. Nine.
The shaking was subsiding. The panic clearing from my head.
Ten.
I sat up slowly, taking one last shaky breath.
It was over.
The therapist had actually been right.
Smiling now, I stood and made a beeline for my original destination. My heels clicked against the hardwood as I made my way to the center of the pew and sank into the thinly cushioned bench.
"Hey, God," I muttered, bowing my head for a different reason this time.
I'd been praying for three minutes seven seconds when a pair of footsteps entered the church. I closed my prayer quickly and got to my feet.
A man stood in the aisle next to my pew.
"Hello," I greeted him, moving towards him, "I was actually just leaving." I moved to slip past him.
"Lekia Born, isn't it?" he asked, grabbing my forearm.
"Yes, sir," I replied, using a magnitude of willpower to ignore my immediate instincts, "Would you mind letting my arm go?"
"I don't think you're telling the truth, you know," he growled, "I don't think that the Lakuan kid did anything to you." My eyes swept him up and down, sizing him up.
He wouldn't be hard at all to take out. Mid-forties, frail. But I didn't want it to come to that.
"Well, sir, I am telling the truth. And there is evidence to back up everything I've said."
"You ought-a be put in jail instead!" the man exclaimed, reaching into his pocket. His eyes grew confused as he went for the other pocket.
"Sir," I whispered, "are you looking for this?" His eyes darted to my hand, which held a closed pocket knife.
"I don't like being threatened, sir," I told him, prying his hand off of my arm. "If this ever happens again, I will take it to the police as assault and harassment."
I felt his eyes on my back as I walked away, trying my best to look confident. As I walked past the last pew, I chucked the pocket knife out the wide double doors and into the oblivion of landscaping.
"Sir, if you really want your knife back, I'd find it before the gardner comes in about a minute. He's always on time," I turned my back on him and walked into the doorway.
"Have a good day, sir," I called over my shoulder, finally walking into the sunlight.
I didn't walk for long. The sounds of the man's scuffling were already beginning.
My heels were off my feet and dangling from my fingers within seconds of reaching the side of the church. And I was running. I was free.
When I reached the courthouse, I leaned against the wall. Gasping for air. Luckily, I hadn't worked up a sweat. That wouldn't be a good for the hearing.
Ms. Born, would you please explain why you arrived at the hearing gasping for breath and sweat-stained?
Yes. I just sprinted from a certain location, that I won't make known, and crawled through a window I unlocked yesterday to get into the courthouse.
That wouldn't call my stability into question at all.
Sighing a bit at the insanity of it all, I jumped and placed the heels on the small sill of the bathroom window. I jumped again, getting a secure grip on the sill with my hands and pulling myself up. The window, thankfully, opened without any trouble. The janitor hadn't noticed that I'd unlocked it yesterday.
My body slipped through the small window with ease, as I'd predicted. I threw my heels off the sill to the middle of the bathroom, wishing I could just throw them out back the window instead. But again, my stability would be called into question if I wasn't shoes.
Grunting now, I grabbed onto the closest stall and pulled myself out of the window. My feet hit the cold tile with a soft thud. I quickly jumped up and closed the window, securing the lock. No one needed to know how I'd gotten into the courthouse.
I glanced at my watch as I grabbed my shoes and headed to the door. 9:53. Right on schedule. Lansing and Palika should be right outside the bathroom door, backs turned to me.
I slipped my heels back on and entered the crowded hallway. Lansing and Palika, as I'd predicted, were standing in the middle of the sea of people with their backs turned to me.
Walking on the balls of my feet, I walked up behind Palika's outer shoulder and coughed loudly. Both of them turned around towards it, but I was already gone from behind them.
"What are you guys looking at?" I asked, now standing in front of them. To my amusement, both of them jumped in surprise and turned around. Lansing got over his shock faster, since I do it all the time to him.
"Do I even want to know where you've been?" Lansing asked, rubbing a hand over his face.
"It's not like I crawled through the sewers to get here, Lansing," I assured him, brushing some brick dust off my slacks.
"I wouldn't put it past you," Lansing grunted, folding his arms across his chest. Palika was well over his shock by now, and decided to put his two cents into the conversation.
"What's up with you on court days, anyway? First one you nearly gave us a heart attack when we couldn't find you."
"I put a note on the fridge," I explained patiently. "And I was actually there before you." This conversation had been brought up numerous times, even though I'd shown them the note when I'd gotten back.
"According to the janitor, you were here before anyone," Palika countered. Palika had kept pressing me on this. Lansing had at first, but when I refused to him where I'd been, he eventually just accepted it. He was used to it by now.
"Palika, I'm not telling you. It's a secret. You do know the meaning of the word?"
Palika began to protest, but a voice interrupted him.
"Court will begin in two minutes."
"I better get in there," I sighed, giving Lansing a quick hug, "Defense is presenting their case today. I'm first on the stand."
The witness stand was not a comfortable place to sit. Don't get me wrong, the seat itself was very soft. It was the feeling you got when sitting there. Like if you said even one thing wrong, you'd mess up the whole case. Even though all you had to do was tell the truth.
Devon James paced the floor below me, his hands clasped firmly behind his back. I didn't like Devon much. No one on my side of the case did. He was Aaron's defense attorney.
It was actually poetic that Aaron had found someone just as sleazy as he was.
"Ms. Born," Devon started, taking a long pause. Just as usual.
It took more self-control than you can imagine to ignore the practically visible words above his head: Insert snide comment here.
"Explain to me what happened the day you were first raped by Mr. Lakuan." My body went cold.
"Well, Devon-" I began, trying to keep my cool.
"Mr. James."
"Devon. I've already explained this once."
"Refresh our memories," Devon gestured to the jury, grinning evilly. I squirmed in my seat, the witness chair suddenly even more uncomfortable. Looking up, I got a quick glance of Lansing. He was glaring fiercely at Devon.
My eyes darted back to my hands quickly. I had to do this. Had to dig up the memories. With a shaky breath, I started the memory again.
"We had tried to escape that day. But we ended up getting cornered in a girl's bathroom. We used chains and locks found in Aaron's unlocked torture chamber to secure the door shut. That's when we noticed the air duct, and started to look for bobby pins to open it."
I started to wring my hands. I was living the entire day over again, summarizing it for the sleazbag.
There were tiny details I was leaving out. The pounding on the door, how the pounding stopped and I knew we were screwed, the adrenaline pumping through my veins yelling at me to fight. To get out.
"Umm... Aaron had given me a beaten earlier and then hypnotized me. I know because I remember...I remember him saying 'sleep'." I had to take another deep breath to steady myself. I hated having to relive this. Hated that Devon was trying to rattle my cage, and succeeding.
"He called through the door to get me to open it, but Emily held me back. I struggled, trying to get to the door. Kala and Keke had to come help restrain me and yell over Aaron," My hands moved to my thighs, the nails digging into them. "He was in my head! And I couldn't get him out..." I took yet another breath and forged on. "Aaron eventually stopped yelling, and I managed to get a clear head. By then, I knew we were screwed. The pounding had stopped. I knew they'd remembered the air duct. So, I made a plan to give up early so they wouldn't think we'd noticed it and wouldn't block it off.
"Once the pounding started again, we had Levi open the door and the other four holding me back. So it looked like they'd just been restraining me the whole time. Aaron gave me one heck of a beating after he'd escorted the girls out. Then... he hypnotized me again. I woke up in the box and worked the rest of the day. He...he...raped me...after my shift."
My hands went to the back of my neck, trying to find something useful to do.
I hated having my emotions out of check like this. This wasn't how Dad had trained me. I should be able to block it all out.
But I wasn't. I could practically feel that wall crumbling.
"Is there any evidence that you were hypnotized that day, Ms. Born?" Devon asked pompously.
"No, Devon," I sighed, trying to keep from bursting into tears. I just wanted to be the one.
"That's very interesting, Ms. Born," Devon turned to the jury. "We are taking this girl's word that she was hypnotized and raped against her will. But there is no evidence that can substantiate this claim! I propose that Ms. Born was not hypnotized at all, that she willingly had sex with my client." He turned back to me, pointing, and continued.
"You wanted to lure my client into a trap and get him sent to prison. It is common knowledge that you two have bad blood," He turned back to the the jury. "Ms. Born played my client and then betrayed him so he would get sent to prison!" Anger started to roil in my stomach, joining all the other emotions in there.
Don't speak unless you're asked a question. Lansing's warning filled my head. I don't want you to have an outburst you'll regret later. So I held my tongue.
My hands rubbed at my neck, a technique I'd always used to calm myself. It wasn't working this time.
I closed my eyes, counting to ten slowly.
Ten.
I was shaking harder if anything.
"Ms. Born?" My head jerked up, finding that everyone in the room was staring at me.
"Sorry," I mumbled. "What?" I turned to look at the judge, who'd spoken.
"Mr. James asked if you ever willingly had sex with his client," Judge Mary stated.
"No," I shook my head violently, taking my hands back down to my lap, "No. Never willingly."
Devon scowled, "No further questions." I nodded and moved to get out of the witnesses stand. My hands were shaking so much, it took me a while to undo the latch and walk out.
I walked out of the trial area, keeping my eyes to the ground and rubbing my wrists. My heels clicked and echoed as I walked down the center aisle and out the doors. There were a few murmurs from the crowd as the door shut behind me.
In the quiet of the hallway, I broke down. Dry sobs wracked my body as my legs gave out. I just wanted to be the one...
The memories I had been trying so hard to suppress were all coming back in one huge rush. Every crack of the whip, every cut, every bruise, every word. They all bombarded my mind. Never ceasing, never ending.
And I was consumed.