C Roberts - Captive in the Dark

Moments later my lids were heavy, and I was flying, free falling then flying again. I didn’t dream, I just flew toward the horizon neither black nor white.

Caleb could and would hurt me. Not today, but maybe tomorrow or the next day. Still, for the first time I knew he could not destroy me. It would matter to him if I didn’t exist. And no matter what happened, I’d land on my feet because Caleb had shown me I had it in me. It was a strange gift, from an unexpected source.

There was a reason I didn’t want to sleep. I didn’t want to dream. I didn’t want to think about my mother, or Paulo, or my brothers and sisters. Or everything that followed between Caleb and me.

I especially didn’t want to envision Nicole, beautiful Nicole, lost and wandering around Mexico looking for me. I would never forgive myself if something happened to her. I tossed and turned as anger, sadness, and worry turned my mind inside out. The pain in my shoulder didn’t help and my tossing and turning had created a dull ache that felt like it was part of the bone.

And then there was the inevitable. The hushed voices. The memory of being held down as they pulled my clothes off. The way they ignored my screams as they sucked and pulled at me. I felt it all over again – that horrible beating.

Against the strength of the drugs I forced my eyes open and screamed. I sucked air into my burning lungs and tried to focus my eyes.

Caleb’s body jerked from the chair he’d been sitting in, and he turned on the light.

Realization hit.

I’m safe. I’m here. Caleb’s here. He’s not going to hurt me.

I gasped. My voice was laced with unshed tears and thick with emotion. “It was so real. It was like they were…” Caleb sat next to me and I went to him, seeking comfort, solace, anything. I didn’t need to say anymore.

“It’s alright. They can’t hurt you anymore.” His words were perfect. So right and comforting.

I reached around him with my right arm and pulled him closer.

For long, blissful seconds there was only the feel of his arms, the hard plane of his chest, his heartbeat pulling me away from the horror of my dream. I inhaled. “You smell like soap,” I whispered weakly into his shirt. I didn’t like the thought he had left me alone. I didn’t want to be left alone in the dark, not ever again. His fingers sifted through my sweaty hair.

“I waited until you fell asleep. It didn’t take long.” That surprised me some. I was so accustomed to Caleb’s snide comments. I had been expecting something more like, ‘My, my, Kitten, what a big nose you have.’

Were things so different now? Were we different? In some ways, I knew the answer.

“You didn’t have to sleep in the chair.”

“Really? ” Caleb’s voice was slightly mocking but lacking harshness or condescension. I realized he was teasing me.

“Asshole.”

He held me a little tighter, “You always have a retort.”

It was his tone that caught me off guard. “Is that suddenly a good thing?”

“It means you’re not broken.” He laughed softly and it made me want to do the same. But I didn’t have a laugh in me just yet. So I sighed contentedly.

It had been that strange, morbid humor that could only exist between Caleb and me at that very instant in time. We both tried to hold on to it, but it faded just as quickly as it had come on.

And then we were just quiet. Holding each other and knowing there were a million things that needed to be said, or asked, or explained and knowing neither of us was looking forward to it.

“We have to leave this place today.” Caleb whispered the words, as if by doing so he could lessen their impact. Sweat bloomed anew across my body, but still, I couldn’t let him go. I should really get up.

Right the fuck now.

But I didn’t want to move. Not while Caleb’s lips rested near my temple and not while the feel of his lean and muscular body wrapped around mine gave me a sense of security and belonging I’d yearned for all my life. But, in the end, it was too dangerous to stay.

I obviously felt things for Caleb. Some feelings were clear, but others weren’t. If I let myself trust him, with my safety, my comfort, my life, or…my heart, I was going to end up hurt.

Again!

I winced at the internal reminder.

It had always seemed to me as though I were split into two people, but not equally. One of us, the less dominant, was strong, confident, snarky, and not to be fucked with. She was the one who told Caleb to go to hell, she was the one who threw elbows and bit through shoulders. She was the one who forced me to keep going.

I was the other one. I was the one who needed love and validation. I was the one who didn’t want to let Caleb go because I was convinced he was important to me in some irrational, irrevocable way. I was feeling things I’d never felt before, and in other ways, I felt Caleb was more damaged than me. Not in some tragic sense, but in a fundamental way that bridged the vast distances between us.

But my other half didn’t think any of that mattered.

He kidnapped you for a reason, she reminded. Don’t trust him. Don’t be like your mother, stop falling for his bullshit. He doesn’t care about you!

I pulled back, but unlike before, his arms released me easily. Deep, Caribbean-blue eyes looked down at me. At first they seemed to want to express so much, but then…nothing. I was tired of nothing. I wanted something. I needed something.

“What is it?” he asked, his tone carefully veiled. “Tell me.”

“I think I’m done trying to run, but I’m also done with not knowing what horrible thing is going to happen to me next. I’d rather know Caleb. Please, just tell me and give me the time…”

Sitting there, I didn’t really understand what I was saying, but the part of me that was wising up, really did. Brace yourself…

Caleb’s blonde hair, usually groomed, now fell into his eyes. I resisted the sudden urge to brush it away from his face. As we sat in pregnant silence I watched him stare into his own lap.

His jaw was tense, his lips tight, but I wasn’t afraid. I was done being frightened of Caleb. If he were going to hurt me, he’d have done it already. He wanted to tell me. I only had to wait.

I remained silent, waiting for his words I craved, my heart jammed into my throat as I willed him to continue. “If only I’d never laid eyes on you, never met you…” His wistful words suddenly caused a deep ache in my chest though I knew they shouldn’t. “I have obligations, Kitten.” He swallowed deeply. His brows knitted together to instantly let me know he was feeling sadness, anger, and disgust all at once. The desire to touch him was almost too much, but then I realized I should be worried about what the hell his words would mean to me and less about what they did to him. “There’s a man who needs to die. I needed you… need-” He paused. “If I don’t do this now then I’ll never be free. I can’t walk away until it’s done. Until he pays for what he did to Rafiq’s mother, to his sister, until he pays for what he did to me.” Caleb stood abruptly, his chest heaving. He ran angry fingers through his hair and fisted his hands at his nape. “Until everything he loves is gone, until he – feels it. Then I can let it go. I’ll have repaid my debt. Then, perhaps…maybe.”

“Rafiq?” I’d heard the name before but the importance of that name eluded me. Why was he so important? Did he have more say in what happened to me than Caleb?

Caleb’s eyes returned to mine. He had been far away again as though his words had not truly been meant for me. He was back in control now, the impassive mask he wore so easily slipped over his face. My guard went up. The past few moments when he seemed almost human, evaporated. “I’m going to sell you as a pleasure slave to a man I despise.”

A wave of nausea slammed the pit of my stomach and pushed bile into my throat. His words hit me in harsh staccato slaps and as each word made contact I flinched.

Sell. Pleasure. Slave.

The reality hit me hard, knocking the air out of me. I felt like I was going to throw up and felt my stomach heaving and throat working.

No more movie references. No more fictional characters to relate to. This was real. It was destiny. I was…a thing, a commodity.

He’s made you a whore Livvie, a fucking whore.

Caleb was still speaking, but I hardly heard him.

With difficulty, I stopped myself from retching and cleared my throat, “Pleasure means sex right? A sex slave?”

Caleb stopped in the middle of another sentence and gave a tight nod. His head was slung low, his hair hung in his eyes. This time I had no urge to brush it out of his eyes, in fact, it felt like a manipulation. His every move was calculated. He knew just how to knit his brows to portray sadness. How to tumble his perfect hair into his even more beautiful eyes and seem vulnerable and trustworthy. Well, I wasn’t going to fall for it anymore. Whatever I might have been feeling, it was dying and the numbness was left in its wake. “And…that day. The day we met, that’s why you were there. Did you know the asshole in the car?”

Caleb’s eyes flashed with anger, and then cooled just as quickly. He was too fucking good at hiding his emotions. Why are you like this? Why the fuck do you care Livvie? He’s made you the one thing you swore never to be. “Does it really matter-”

“No, I guess it fucking doesn’t,” I cut in sharply. He wished he’d never met me? Well, the feeling was definitely fucking mutual. An old anger flared through me. My life just kept getting better and better. I was finally going to get out of one worthless existence, to prove to everyone I wasn’t worthless and my scholarship had been my ticket out, and then Caleb happened to me. I was finally… “I was finally going to show her she was wrong about me…”

“You don’t need her approval,” he said, correctly guessing who I was referring to. I looked up at him.

“You know shit about what I need. I’ve been dealing with your mindfucks for I don’t know how long now, trying to figure out why someone like you would kidnap me. Despite what you’ve done to me, I’ve had these thoughts-”

“Thoughts, or fantasies, Kitten?” he broke in softly, his expression still cloaked.

“Both, I suppose,” I admitted. It didn’t matter what I said, not really. “I told myself you couldn’t help yourself, that something happened to you to make you this way, to make you as fucked up as me but you’re even more fucked up than I am. And in the strangest corners of my mind I thought…”

“That you could fix me? What’s more, that I could fix you? Well, sorry pet, I don’t want to be fixed. Whatever your little school-girl brain told you about men is absurdly wrong. This isn’t a romance. You’re not a damsel in distress and I’m not the handsome prince come to save you.

You ran. I went to collect my property. End of story.

In two years, maybe less, I’ll have what I want – revenge. After that, I’ll make sure you get your freedom. Fuck, I’ll even send you on your way with enough money to go wherever you want. To do whatever you want. Until then…”

I wanted to cry. But crying hadn’t done me a bit of good before and it certainly wouldn’t do me any good now. “How much?”

“Excuse me?”

“Afterward. When I’m done being your whore, how much will you pay me? Whores get paid don’t they?”

Caleb stared at me for what seemed an eternity, then, “What would you like?”

“My freedom. But in lieu of that…a million dollars?” It came out as a question instead of a firm demand. The reality was he didn’t have to offer me anything. I had nothing to bargain with.

He could take whatever he wanted.

“A million dollars? A bit much don’t you think?”

“Fuck you.”

Caleb smiled, the self indulgent little shit. “My apologies,” he mocked with a slight forward bow, “What I meant to say is: no pussy’s that good. Though yours does come close.”

Now he was back to trying to shock me and perhaps if I were still the naïve school girl he’d met all those weeks ago it might have worked. But I wasn’t her right now and I liked it. I was powerful. Perhaps the calculating, angry, fighter version of me would take over completely and I’d never be weak again. “How close?”

His smile was wry, “Half.”

Outside I was a placid lake. Inside I was a raging ocean, “What exactly do I have to do?”

“Obey.”

“You?”

“Yes. But also-”

“The man you’re selling me to.” My stomach rolled but I met his eyes. I’d survived this man.