FicWad

[I]Frank, Ray, Gerard, Robert…Frank, Ray, Gerard, Robert…Frank, Ray, Gerard, Robert…[/I]Paulina found that the familiarity of repeating these names over and over in her mind helped her calm down a bit. She knew, for sure, that these men had identities. They were people, people that were just interacting with another person, albeit in a bit of an odd way…

Paulina shifted in her chair, able to sit comfortably because she was alone. It was a flea-bitten, threadbare cushion that rested atop the wooden seat, but it was infinitely more comfortable than the cement floor of the basement. She snuggled down into the pillow beneath her rear and the one behind her, on the back of the chair. The girl wondered if she’d be able to get some sleep in before the final man came for her. She decided to try, at least, for the lack of anything better to do. Paulina closed her eyes and evened out her breathing, her situation seeming to be less terrifying to her now that she knew that she’d lived through four days. They weren’t planning to kill her, for now, at least.

Just as she felt herself nodding off, Paulina heard a creak coming from somewhere in the room, and the insides of her eyelids flushed red for a moment, and she knew that the door had been opened, and someone was coming. Light, quick steps padded down the concrete stairs. Paulina opened her eyes to see a young man.

He was, in fact, a very young man. He couldn’t have been very much older than Paulina herself, if he even was older. A boy, Paulina told herself. The fact that he was so young gave Paulina a bit of comfort, expecting to have an experience similar to the one she’d just had with Robert. He had long, light hair, glasses pushed back on his face, and a lanky frame. He approached her chair, and Paulina took her legs off the seat of the chair, choosing to cross them now, instead.

“Oh, please,” the boy said, holding up his hands as he drew closer. “Don’t let my presence infringe on your comfort. Pull your legs back up,” he ordered, his voice hard, his jaw set. Paulina immediately became nervous once more, the boy’s tone sparking anxiety in the young girl’s mind. She shook her head tightly, breath becoming irregular.

“No,” was all she managed to say. How had she been so stupid as to think that she was safe? She was never safe here. She couldn’t be. This boy had no more of a connection to her than any of Paulina’s other abusers, and she’d been foolhardy and empty-headed to think otherwise.

“I think you’ll learn, in time,” the boy said quietly, placing one hand lightly on the arm of Paulina’s chair and examining it closely. “That you do not tell me no.”

He leaned in even closer, bringing his hand up from the chair to Paulina’s face, cupping her jaw with his fingers gently, very gently. Gradually, his grip tightened, his fingertips squeezing the skin of her face, constricting it painfully. Paulina whimpered, trying to shake him off. He just held tighter, making sure that his grip was nice and firm before yanking the girl towards him, forcing her to stand to avoid falling to her knees. He tossed her down anyway, Paulina’s knees cracking painfully against the floor, causing her to cry out. He grabbed her by the neck and hauled her back into the chair, making the girl’s hair sweep across her face with the sudden, jerking movements.

“Still not going to comply?” the boy said quietly, leaning in. He slid his glasses down the bridge of his nose to rest on the tip, his brown eyes peering at Paulina’s gray ones harshly. Paulina shook her head quickly, drawing her knees up to rest against her chest. She did her best to hide what the shirt didn’t cover, however, by crossing her ankles at an odd angle. Thankfully, the boy either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. He nodded as she did as she was told, leaning back and pushing his glasses back up. “My name,’ he told her. “Is Mikey.” Paulina almost laughed out loud. Mikey? The name sounded so…out of place. The way Bob had sounded too harsh for the last man, Mikey now sounded too youthfully sweet for this steely-cold boy.

“Mikey,” she murmured, to show that she had heard.

“Hmm?” he said, cocking an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, did you ask a question?”

Paulina’s eyes grew wide, and she shook her head rapidly. “No!” she whispered. “No, no…I didn’t.”

“Alright,” he said, turning and walking away. He disappeared into the darkness that Paulina had not yet ventured into. He returned moments later with another chair, pushing it in front of himself until it was sitting in front of Paulina’s. He took his seat, folding his hands in his lap and staring at the girl in front of him.

“So, Paulina,” he began, continuing to survey her through his glasses. “You’re how old?”

“Eighteen,” she said quietly, wishing she could stop herself from holding Mikey’s gaze. She was terrified to look away.

“Eighteen,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Hm. Well, I hope you understand that you’re never seeing your family again,” he said off-handedly.

Paulina’s breath caught in her throat. Yes, she had figured as much before, but she hadn’t known for certain…The thought that she had seen her parents for the last time four days ago was…it killed her, to say the least. “I--I thought--”

“I’m telling you right now that you’re not going to see them again. Whatever you thought, whatever you hoped, it’s not happening.” Mikey spoke harshly, his words slapping the girl in the face harder than a beating ever could. “Think of your mother. Picture her face. What do you think she’s doing right now?”

The minute he began to speak about her mother, Paulina knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to break her, to stab her in the heart with emptiness. Despite her desperate attempts to block the boy out, Paulina was now picturing her mother perfectly clearly in her mind, from her kind, dimpled smile to her nimble hands. Paulina could just imagine what she was doing. Crying? Sobbing? Wondering why her only daughter had had to be taken from her? Paulina winced.

“And what about your father?” Mikey continued. “Have you ever seen your father cry, Paulina?” No. Never. Paulina had never even considered that he could cry. “Well, I’ll bet he’s crying now,” Mikey said when the girl didn’t answer.

They thought she was dead. That was it. There was no other way. No contact, no note, no clues…As far as her parents knew, Paulina had just vanished in a puff of smoke. Guilt flooded Paulina’s conscious, telling her that it was her fault. Why couldn’t she have said no? No! No! She didn’t have a lighter! No, she couldn’t light the cigarette! Fucking no! All the wishing in the world couldn’t change what had happened, and Paulina had probably ruined the rest of her parents’ lives.

“I wonder if they’ll ever get over it,” the boy mused, sitting back in his chair. “I wonder if it will haunt them their entire lives, knowing that they’ve lost their daughter. Maybe they’re blaming themselves. People tend to do that. They’re probably thinking about all the time they didn’t spend with you. Or all the attention they couldn’t give you, being busy and whatnot. Maybe your loss will tear their marriage apart. How could they stay together? They’ll eventually start blaming each other, wondering why it had been able to happen. Do you think? Do you think your parents could ever be the same now that you’re gone, and there’s no one around to blame?”

Tears began to leak out of Paulina’s eyes, because she knew that everything that Mikey was saying was true. The end of her parents’ marriage was inevitable, now. They’d get wrapped up in their jobs, trying to occupy their thoughts with anything but their presumed-dead daughter. Eventually, years would pass, and Paulina would be declared legally dead, if she was even still alive by then. Either way, they’d never really know.

Tiny tears turned into large, rolling, salty drops that cascaded down Paulina’s face, quickly coating her face in a shiny layer of watery crying. She sniffed, gasping erratically to draw breath, begging herself not to start sobbing.

“What about any friends you may have had at one time? They’ll all feel guilty for abandoning you, of course. And maybe someone, some boy at school, was in love with you? Imagine how royally fucked up he’ll be for the rest of his life, wishing he’d made a move so you wouldn’t have been alone. Guilt is something that everyone can understand, Paulina.”

Shaky breaths became choked-off sobs, catching in her throat and making her cry even harder, knowing that she was giving Mikey the satisfaction of being upset by his truth. Paulina shoved her fist in her mouth to stifle the noise, mucus running from her nose and mingling with the tears on her face that were dripping off at her jaw, creating a large wet spot on the front of her shirt. She tried to wipe away the gross mixture of sadness, but the non-absorbent material just smeared it all around her face.

“I know!” Paulina sobbed, smashing her palms into her eyes for lack of anything else to stem the flow of tears. “I know! It’s--it’s all m-my f-f-fault!” Her voice was made high-pitched and watery by her hysterics, and the knowledge of how she looked and how pathetic she was made her sob louder and harder. “I--I--I ruined their lives! It’s--it’s--I’m so--” Paulina was unable to form a coherent sentence.

Mikey stood, pushing his chair back. He attempted to put his arms around Paulina, but she fought as best as she could in her hysterical state. After a moment, Mikey was able to overpower her and encircle her tightly in his arms, easily lifting her up so that he could sit and place her in his lap. Mikey arranged Paulina’s small, lithe body so that she was curled against him, and his arms were wrapped around her shoulders as they shook with sobs.

“I--I--I--” Paulina tried to speak, tried to make some kind of coherent thought form from her mouth, but she couldn’t.

“Shh…” Mikey hushed her, rubbing her back soothingly with one hand while the other stroked her black hair. “You can cry. You can cry. It’s alright. You can cry.”

She could cry. Yes, she could cry, and she did. Paulina leaned her face into Mikey’s chest, her tears soaking through his T-shirt. If he minded, he didn’t let it show and allowed her to just keep crying.

Perhaps a few minutes later, perhaps an hour or two later, Paulina was hiccupping and using the backs of her palms to wipe away the last remnants of tears from her face. Her eyes were still wet and glossy, but new tears weren’t being created, at least, and the tiniest drops were just visible, glittering on the tips of Paulina’s eyelashes like diamonds. She took deep, shaky breaths that rattled in her lungs, but eventually evened out into deep, calm breaths.

As soon as she had finished crying, Mikey stood, taking Paulina with him. He easily carried her small frame in his arms, cradling her like a baby. Paulina looked up in time to see that they were ascending the stairs, heading for the top. She braced herself, knowing that she was about to be thrown down from the first stair to crash at the bottom and be left there for another unknown amount of time. But the fall didn’t come, and the backs of Paulina’s eyelids flooded with red, and she knew that she had been once again taken out of her little dungeon.


Hello there, everyone. I did my best to give you a nice, long update today, because I won't be able to update for another two weeks. Now, I know, some of you may have lost interest by the time I come back, but I'm hoping that you'll all just be able to hold out while the story's put on hold, and still read it when I start posting again. And I am not being writing-celibate by choice, by the way. On Wednesday, I'm going to Arkansas with my mom to visit some family, and I don't want to bring my computer because, with my luck, it'll get broken, or lost, or something. Not to mention, my grandmother's Internet connection up there isn't the greatest, and it would just be a pain to try to upload.

So, please go comment/subscribe if you haven't, and be patient, por favor? Thanks to all my subscribers, I hope I still have you all when I get back. Okay. OverAndOutxx

PS: I'm sorry I had to make Mikey so awful. in this chapter. Please don't kill me.