FicWad

ONE:

Simple moments change your life.
This statement rings true for me, on so many levels. At any given moment we have a choice. Do I want water or juice with lunch? Do I get the train home or catch a cab? The blue or black dress? Left or right?
They all make a difference, they all add up. Choices and moments; they can make and break your life. One moment you’re happy, the next you’re sad. One moment everything seems fine, seconds later it all unravels and turns to shit. Every little thing adds up and brings you to where you are today; every little thing has added up and brought me to where I am today.
Here I am, sitting at my desk, working hard and nursing the headache from hell. I knew I had the headache because I was working too hard, because I was having trouble sleeping. I should have taken the day off, I should be resting, but here I am sitting at my desk, sick as a dog, and unable to do a thing about it. I needed the money, and this job was a painful means to an end.
I couldn’t take it anymore, I had almost lasted an entire day but the pounding in my head would not subside, the pills I was popping as often as the small words on the back of the packet allowed were doing nothing for me. The bright computer screen continued to hurt my eyes, I needed to go home. More importantly, I wanted to go home.
I packed up my things quickly, patching a quick call through to my boss explaining why I was leaving, not that she would care. I was one of her many drones. Who was I kidding? If the monster didn’t let me go home, I had more than enough sick leave stacked up to just walk out. Today must have been a good day, because it seemed that I was able to go home without getting my ass chewed out. The moment I hung up I thought about ringing my boyfriend to tell him I’d be home early, but I thought the better of it. He was probably working and wouldn’t want to be disturbed. Men can be so temperamental, add a budding author into the mix and catching him at the wrong moment can cause a fair bit of trouble. He hated it when I interrupted his writing. He hated it when I asked too many questions; he hated it when I enquired about his days while I had been at work. Sometimes I felt like I needed to walk on eggshells around him. Then there were those moments when I was the only thing capturing his attention and the only thing he cared about. It was those moments that I loved.
I jumped into the nearest cab, wanting to get home as quick as possible. I hated days like this, days when everything became too much to bear. I couldn’t wait to get home, to get out of these clothes and just lay down. Even the slightest of sounds felt like an alarm going off in my head. My stomach churned. The last thing I wanted was to be sick. I always felt so violated when I vomited.
I dragged myself from the cab to the stairs of my apartment, scrambling through my bag for my keys. It was bright and sunny, making me feel like an idiot for forgetting my sunglasses. The brightness of the sunlight was making my headache even worse. After five minutes of searching I finally found my keys, dropping them once before finally getting the door open. Fuck, it was one of those days.
In triumph I dropped my bag at the door, kicking it shut with my feet.
“Daniel it’s me, I have the headache from hell so I called it a day” I called out into the apartment. “Daniel?” I called again when no answer came. It was rare that he wasn’t home, he was a writer after all, supposedly in the middle of a good story. He barely left the house unless he needed to when he was writing, and now was one of those times. It was really rare that I interrupted him when he was working, but I needed him to know I was home, lest I be hit with a baseball bat.
“Dan?” I asked, pulling my off the jacket to my work suit and walking towards the bedroom. “Daniel?”
I pulled open the door to the bedroom; it felt weird that Daniel wasn’t home.
A small startled scream escaped my mouth as I was hit with the scene in front of me.
“Oh my God” I breathed. It felt like an eternity for my brain to process what was in front of me.

“Bella!” came a startled response from Daniel. “This isn’t what it looks like...” he trailed off. We both knew he was lying. No one ever means those words when they say them, they are stalling, they are trying to think of an excuse, and escape. “Bella....babe...”
In front of me was something that I thought I would never have to witness. In front of me was my boyfriend of three years and my best friend, naked, and in my bed. There was nothing that needed to be explained to me, there was nothing that was unclear. The sight before me was explanation enough. The sight before me was threatening to bring up whatever contents that lined my stomach.
At that moment questions were running through my pounding head, anger was building up, hurt was bubbling over, I didn’t know what to do. Clutching my jacket tightly in my hands I ran, ran through the now unlocked door and down the steps I had stumbled up earlier. That apartment was somewhere that I could not be. My head pounded, my stomach churned and my eyes threatened to pour tears down my pale cheeks.
“Bella wait!” I heard him shout, but I didn’t want to hear it, “babe!” I didn’t need to hear it, I needed to get away. Clutching my things to my chest I ran down the street, not caring where I was going or where I ended up.
How could he do this to me? How? After everything we had done together, after all the time we’d been together. I was beyond hurt. I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. I couldn’t stop them from staining my face.
I spent hours just walking the streets, heels in hand, makeup running down my face as the tears continued to run. I couldn’t, more like I wouln’t go home, but I didn’t know where else to go. I had nowhere else to go. Everyone I knew was somehow connected to Daniel, everyone that I could go to see would remind me of Daniel. It wasn’t like I had endless connections in this city either; I had built a life here with him. I had built a life here because of him. We had been together for so long; our worlds had merged into one. We were two people who were known to everyone as one, it was always a ‘Daniel and Bella’, or ‘those two’. I didn’t know how to live without him.
I didn’t know exactly how long I had been walking around for, but I knew it was starting to get late. The sun was on its way down and it was starting to get cold. I looked around for a cab, searching the empty streets. I was reaching through my bag for my phone when everything went black.

*

Stupidly she fought against the restraints that bound her, it was instinct, he knew, her animal instinct to fight, but that didn’t make it any less amusing. In the corner he sat, he waited, time was on his side and all he needed to do was wait. When she finally gave up he would show himself. He’d been watching her for years, what were a few more hours?
Everything had gone according to plan, her stupid boyfriend had done exactly what he thought he would, what he knew he would, and she had reacted the way he expected. They all react the same don’t they, shocked at first, it quickly turns to anger. Let’s not forget all the tears either, all those tear stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes.
Now she was his, all his, and there was no one who could get in his way. His time had finally come, just as he had made sure that it would.
*

I was tied up to what seemed to be a bed, I didn’t know if it was rope or leather around my wrists and ankles, but whatever it was it was doing its job. I couldn’t move.
Despite the fact that I knew struggling was useless, I kept trying to break free, wishing that my binds would just break. My wrists were starting to ache from the struggle. Every movement caused the pain to get worse but I refused to give in. It was futile of course, but my brain was telling me to struggle, to move, to try.
I didn’t know where I was, or who had taken me, but I did know that wherever I was, I didn’t feel safe. How could I feel safe? The room around me was dark, and the bed was hard. There was no other furniture, no couches, no chairs, no other shapes I could make out. I couldn’t even tell if there was a window, I couldn’t really see far enough to make out the walls. I felt like my eyes were closed, but the tears that were welling in my eyes and falling down my cheeks were telling me otherwise.
“You should stop struggling, it really is worthless” said a voice from the darkness. I didn’t know exactly where it had come from, but it sounded slightly amused. What fucking twisted sick person would find this kind of thing amusing?

“Who are you?” I asked tentatively, my voice hoarse in the dark room, almost coming out like a whisper.

“Does it matter?” laughed the voice.

“I-it matters to me” I replied softly, stumbling over my words.
“Why?” they laughed. “So you know what name to scream?”

“Scream?” the question escaped my lips before I had time to think. It was a stupid question; of course I would need to scream. I was with some sick and twisted person who wanted to torture me in every possible way. I was tied to a bed, God-knows-where, how could I be stupid enough to think that there was a question about it?
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked in a soft whisper. Wouldn’t it be better to be prepared? To know at least in advance what to expect?

“Ah sugar, that would be ruining the surprise now wouldn’t it?” came the amused reply. I had a feeling that I was in no way, shape or form going to enjoy this surprise. No one who has been murdered or tortured ever does enjoy it though, do they?
“For now I think you can wait” they sneered, with a demeaning little chuckle. “Let the excitement build.”
I felt sick to my stomach. What was this sick bastard going to do to me? Better yet, why me?
I wasn’t someone special, I wasn’t someone of worthy to be kidnapped and tortured. They would get nothing out of it, no one would come looking for me, and no one would pay any money for me. Daniel would give up hope after a few weeks, move on and forget me. I’m sure he’d settle back into his life with ‘the other woman’ just fine. They seemed pretty cosy to me. I bit my lip to stop myself. I didn’t need to think about him, I didn’t need to cry again right now. I didn’t want to look weak. I needed to pull myself together, or what was left of me.
My heart sank. How could I not have known? How could I have been so stupid? How could I not have seen what was going on right in front of me?
This person had me for as long as they wanted me and no one would care. My family had cut me off; they had gone so far as to disown me, Daniel was not good enough for me and my mother hated that I wasn’t willing to live the life she had. The only person who I thought cared for me was cheating on me, I was worthless. No one in this world would possibly care.

*

He smiled as he walked out the door, locking her into the room. Everything had gone according to plan, but he still had one thing to deal with; her stupid boyfriend. He had so much as crushed her, and that did not sit well with him. Her boyfriend had taken her for granted and now he had to pay, he had to know exactly what he had lost. He also needed to not come looking for her. A search for her would make his plan hard, the last thing he needed was the whole world looking out for her. She belonged to him now. It had taken him this long to find her, this long to get her, he wasn’t about to let some prick get in the way.
“Watch my girl for me Bob” he muttered as he started for the door.

“Gee what is all this about?” asked Bob from the couch in the corner. “Why is she here? What exactly are you up to?”

“Nothing” shrugged the other man. “Just watch her Bob, and stop asking questions.” Bob rolled his eyes and shrugged. Once again, he would have to wait to find out what was going on. As always, he would probably be the last to know. He knew where asking questions got him though, and he wasn’t willing to go down that road again.

“Fine” muttered Bob from the couch, he knew the girl couldn’t escape even if she was a genius. Gerard wouldn’t have been that sloppy, the man was like a machine, exact, perfect, calculated, reserved and he had never made a mistake. Not once, in all the time that Bob had known him he had never once made a mistake.

“I’ll be back soon” said Gerard before walking out the door. Bob sighed as the door slammed shut, in all the time that he had known Gerard nothing had changed. Nothing looked like it was going to change.

*
I continued to struggle against the restraints that bound me. This couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t. It had to be some sort of nightmare. This was not real. This didn’t happen in real life, only in movies. I would wake up tomorrow and everything would be fine. I’d wake up in my own bed, my headache would be gone and Daniel would be there, lying next to me. Everything would be fine, life would go back to normal and this nightmare would be nothing but a distant memory. This was a dream; this whole thing was a dream. I just needed to wake up.
I heard the door creak open and then shut softly, the small moment of light hurting my sensitive eyes.
“Honey I’m home” the voice from before was back. This time he sounded happier, almost as if he was a child who had just gotten exactly what he wanted for Christmas. I didn’t reply, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say, were there even words that fitted a situation like this?
“Did you miss me?” he asked me. I don’t know how long I had been in this room, or how long I had been alone, but just as a false sense of security was coming over me, it left and I realized I had probably never been a lone at all.
The cigarette in his hand glowed as he took a long drag, illuminating his face, if only for a second. I felt my stomach churn. That face seemed familiar.
I heard something move in the corner of the room. My snapped to follow it, my body was acting on instinct. Was there another person here too?
The room was still dark, I was sure that it didn’t have windows, but there was a dull, amber glow from the corner. It was enough light for me to just make out the figure sitting in the chair.
“There’s someone I want you to meet” he continued, having guessed no answer would come from me. “Well, not meet exactly” he said as he got up, I heard the floor creak as he walked, his soft footsteps thudding in my head. “You already know this person, but probably not as well as you think...” he trailed off. His voice had disappeared. I was finding it hard to breathe. What the fuck was going on?



Author's Note:
I am re-posting this. I'm re-writing and getting back into writing altogether. If you like it let me know.
Up-dates will be sporadic thanks to real life getting in my way.
-xo