Unbroken

Then he moved to my face and unwound the tape around my head. He sniffled and cried some more, and I winced as strands of my hair got ripped out. Finally, my mouth was free, and he was balling up the tape and throwing it down on the sand. We looked at each other for several moments, and I realized quickly he wasn’t going to break the silence.

“Can I go?” I asked carefully, my voice scratched to shit.

“I am not going to kill you,” he answered, like he deserved a gold medal for his decision-making skills. “But you need medical attention.”

“So, like, the hospital.”

“Well, equivalent to one. The Itanis have a wonderful medical staff on standby. I must take you there now.”

I blinked slowly. “Shouldn’t I call the cops?”

“Cops are unnecessary.”

“Mrs Itani premeditated my death—”

“She has a mental illness—”

“She’s a psycho.”

“The police will not help you.” He said it firmly, his tone filled with so much certainty, and I believed him. “Talking to them will not help your cause.”

I didn’t realize I had a cause other than wanting to live.

“You will wind up back here, in this exact spot, if you ever turned to them. Do you understand? The Itanis are not to be fucked with.”

I nodded. “No cops. I get it.”

“Because you’ll be snuffed out.”

“Yeah.”

“Killed by someone with more of a stomach than me—”

“I get it,” I repeated, bitterly.

He helped me up, the man who should have killed me, who sort of tried to and then stopped. He took me up a sandy hill, making sure I didn’t slip and that most of my weight was against him. He had driven to the middle of nowhere for this, and now we were waiting on the side of a deserted road for a ride back.

Like, what?

Is this real life?

We didn’t speak, and I didn’t cry, which I found really strange. Perhaps I was shell-shocked. I should have been a mess. Instead, I dusted the sand off my clothes, inspecting the torn right side of my body. My leggings had torn, there were scrapes and oozing cuts, and while my leg was still numb, it didn’t feel broken. I touched my chin where a deep cut was, wincing at the blood still trickling out. They’d have to glue it shut, or stitch it closed; whatever it was, I’d have a scar. Totally better than death, though.

He tried handing me a bottle of water he removed from a bag he had for himself. Probably filled with the instruments he would have used to kill me.

I gave him a dry look. “I’m not accepting other people’s drinks at this time.”

For obvious reasons.

His mouth trembled the way a toddler’s did when they were overdramatic and sad. I actually felt guilty for not accepting his drink.What the fuck is wrong with me?

“I’m too nice,” I whispered to myself. “Too trusting.”

I made a mental note of how better to prepare myself in the future.

Never trust strangers, or your friends’ mothers.

May result in death.