I was so terrified, that I sunk so low as to beg. “Please. I promise to be good. Take me back to Logan.”
Jacob ignored me like he’d done for the past three days. Not one word did he direct toward me. Instead, if he wanted me to do something he spoke to Logan who then told me.
He pulled me down a long, wide hallway with oil paintings of naked figures on the peachy brown stucco walls. Some were of a woman, others two women, or a man and a woman. They were beautiful paintings, and I suspected they were worth a fortune. Wherever we were, the place reeked money.
Jacob slid a key into a lock then opened a door. The heavy wood creaked, and when I saw it led down a staircase and into darkness, I started shaking. “Please.” I pulled back on his grip and shook my head back and forth. I’d do anything not to be left alone in the dark again. “No. I’ll be good.” I hated the words I was willing to say, but I couldn’t stop them. I began hyperventilating as Jacob pulled me forward.
“No. No. Please.”
Jacob ignored my begging as he shuffled me in through the door and then down the stairs. I started to cry as the familiar mustiness sunk into me. I couldn’t be locked up again. The terror gripped me, and I thrashed against Jacob’s hold. My body moved like a trapped piece of paper flinging in the wind. My insides were ripping apart, tearing, burning with fear.
Jacob calmly continued down the stairs then walked along a hallway, me writhing against his hold the entire time, sobbing, begging. He remained unaffected as he kicked open a door and shoved me inside.
I jerked as it slammed behind me and Jacob then turned a key in the lock.
I slowly backed away from him. He brushed past me, and I staggered to the side, but he never grabbed me. Instead, he walked over to a tap in the wall and grabbed a bucket; then water started pouring out into the pail.
I turned and staggered to the door and started yanking on it. It wouldn’t budge. Then I pounded on it and yelled for help. I knew it was pointless, but I couldn’t help doing it. I guess I had a smidgen of hope that Logan would hear my panic and he’d come.
I was wrong.
Logan never came.
Jacob forced me over to a dirty mattress on a rusted metal bedframe and pushed me down. I instantly thought he was going to force himself on me, but he didn’t take off my clothes. He pinned me down with the weight of his knee on my stomach then calmly tied my wrists and ankles to the bedframe.
I yanked and pulled, trying to get free, yet knowing it was pointless. I watched Jacob as he dragged a collapsible plastic chair behind the front of the bed near my head then brought the bucket.
My eyes widened with terror, uncertainty. Jacob sat, reached in the bucket, and pulled out a soaking wet towel.
That’s when I knew.
I knew exactly what he was going to do. I’d seen it in the movies. Heard that it was used to get people to talk. Torture. Unimaginable torture.
A wet towel thrown over the victim and water poured over their face.
Drowning over and over again.
“No!” I went crazy. Struggling against the ropes as Jacob placed the towel over my face. “No. No. No. No.”
He held my head back then the water came and my words were drowned with garbled screams.
Day 7
The door creaked open on its heavy hinges, and then slow footsteps. Panic and fear reared, and I tried to fade back into the mattress, cowering.
Jacob had blindfolded me after the waterboarding. The agony … Panic setting off every nerve in my body as I struggled to breath but sucked in water instead. I tried to scream, to beg, to break free from the bonds that latched me to the bed, but there was no escape.
I was fighting for survival, yet losing with every water-drawn breath.
Jacob had done it time and again, pouring water over the towel on my face. I begged him to stop when he let me cough up water and breath for a few minutes. I sobbed, and I promised to do anything he wanted.
He ignored my pleas and did it again and I gagged, choked and struggled. Then when he was done, he took off the towel and replaced it with a blindfold.
The footsteps drew closer.
Was Jacob back? Was he going to torture me again? I wanted to fight, but I knew that it only made the torture worse. So I stayed quiet and still as the footsteps drew closer. Then I breathed in the familiar scent of what reminded me of a fresh cut grass—Logan.
Relief. Yes, I felt it. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did.
But my tears were gone, I’m not sure where. He’d stolen them away. Him or Jacob? I wasn’t really sure anymore, because Jacob had broken me, and Logan had wrecked me. Tainted thoughts of Logan filled me. A hate I had to keep hidden and controlled, because if he left me here any longer I was going to lose whatever grasp on reality I had left. Already I’ll never be the same girl again; I’d at least like to be sane.
I felt the soft brush of his fingers on my arm and recoiled. His touch stopped, and I heard him shift as if he was hesitating. Then he walked away. I bit my lip to stop myself from begging him to come back, to release me, to take me out of here.
He strode back, and this time he untied the ropes that locked my wrists and ankles to the bed, and gently helped me sit up.
“Emily.” His fingers traced down the side of my face then to the curve of my neck. “You can’t fight here.”
His familiar touch awakened my oil-drowned butterflies, and I felt sick that my body reacted to his touch that way. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.