I slap hard. It's not my finest moment. She staggers back, laughing and rubbing her cheek. She nods, "There's my big boy." She starts to unbutton her blouse. I close my eyes and grab at my hair, "WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO TO ME?"

She laughs again, "I want you, Eli. I thought that was pretty straightforward and obvious. I wanted you when we met."

I clench my jaw to stop from gagging or pointing out that I was a kid when we met, "Leave or I will use the things I have to ruin you further."

She rolls her head back, "What do you think you can do to me, Eli? What damage can you cause that hasn’t been already? No one believes in my theory."

Spit flies from my lips as I snarl, "I DID! I BELIEVED IN YOU! BUT NOW I SEE THAT WAS AN ACT!" She is doing the thing she likes to do. I shake my head and point, "I'll bring you up on charges."

I leave the room for the bathroom. The quiet girl, I don’t know the name of, is in there. I smile at her, “If Jane comes near you in front of Sarah, freak out like she is a monster who kidnapped you and forces you to work here."

She nods and leaves quickly. I go to the room and sit. I don’t know what to do with my hands so I get up and grab a book from the shelf. I don’t even pay attention to the title, I just sit and hold it. It feels like eternity before she comes. I'm sure Jane has her hostage somewhere, and I am about to jump up and go find her, when the door lock clicks. She is led in with the same dead-eyed look on her face. It is defeat. We are back at square one with her, like I suspected.

I grin, "I've seen that girl before. You ready to wrestle?"

Her eye twitches but she looks like she has no clue what I'm saying or why I'm being so nice.

"Go sit by the fire."

She turns her back on me and goes and sits. I am stunned but I pretend to read whatever the hell is in my hands. I'm so nervous that I can't turn the pages.

I finally start to turn the pages, but I realize I am going too fast. I look down at her, "Want some water?"

She doesn’t move. I take a long drink and sigh, "That was good. Hint of lemon in it."

Her eyes burn with hate.

I continue reading and slowly start to realize it's Dracula. I flip another page and have another sip of water. If looks could kill, I would be exploded all over the room.

"Is there anything you want to know?" I ask over the edge of the book, trying to break the frost in the air.

She doesn’t waste a second, "Why am I here?"

"I like you here. I like to read and know you're close by. It's comforting."

Her face does that thing again that makes me think she knows me. She stops herself but still asks the question that makes my soul sing, "Do I know you?"

I can't stop my grin, "Do you think you know me?"

I lose her gaze and she shakes her head, "I'm confused. You act like you hate me and want me to suffer, like this is personal, but you have Stuart convinced it's about his boss."

"Maybe it's both."

She shakes her head again, "It never was about him. It's me. This is personal. You are doing this to me for a reason."

I fold my arms, excited about the level head she is maintaining in the room where I beat the hell out of her and even made her like it. "What reason could there be? You're Emalyn Spicer, right?"

She instantly freezes.

It makes me laugh, "I guess we both know that’s not your name, is it?"

She becomes the survivor for a second, "Why do you care what my name is?"

I can't say anything else so I get up and offer her my hand. She takes it like always.

I ignore the conversation we were having and focus on the one that’s going to change everything. "Which is it? The feet or you let me have you."

She almost tries to tug her hands from mine but she doesn’t. She speaks softly, "Feet."

She climbs onto the bed after dropping her robe to the floor on her own. I blindfold her and she gets into position. I'm almost excited about paddling her again, but it's got me worried that she is so compliant. I thought we were past this.

Finally, as I have finished strapping her in and am taking my first swing at her feet, she screams, "STOP!" She gets her breath, "I will let you have me. Just do it."

"You want me?" We are so close. I need her to be there for real. I need her to say it. I lose the hold I have on myself, "SAY IT!"

It makes her lips tremble to answer, "I want you."

I drop the paddle to the ground and look to the sky. Tears leave my eyes, thankfully she can't see me. I free her feet and mutter, "Don't move. Slip back up the bed to the pillows and lie there."

I slip back across the room and sit down. I drink and pick the book up again. I flip the pages as tears of joy slip down my cheeks. She is there. She is at the brink. She chose to let me have her over pain, she made a choice. She didn’t comply. She picked something and freed herself by becoming the person in the struggle who was in charge. She doesn’t see it or know it, or understand it, but it is a truth. She has freed herself. She has been dunked and faced molestation and beatings and she is strong. I think Stuart was right about her, the orphan in her is strong. She has already faced things we never did, not after we were freed. I spent summers in the South of France and at high-end resorts. Stuart was taken in by his grandma who loved him more than anything. We never had to stay hard.

I flip pages and take drinks and try to sound nonchalant about it all, but really, my heart is beating a mile a minute and I am out of my league. I don’t know what to do next to break down the wall. I take my shoes off and walk across the room slowly.

I sit at the end of the bed and pick up one of her feet. She must think I'm bizarre. What pervert massages feet. I turn my face away and spread her legs a little. Her breathing catches in her throat. It almost makes me look at her opening again, but I don’t.

I massage farther up her leg, slowly. I close my eyes and listen to her breathing. She likes it. Her wind is getting caught in her throat and her body is trembling. None of it is fear, it's excitement. I turn my face and press a kiss inside of her leg.

I lick and kiss a few times but she doesn’t ever seem afraid of me. I don’t know how to respond to that. I expected her to seize up and cry but she has spread her legs a little more. I get up and back away. It takes me a second to gain my composure. I walk around the side of the bed and whisper into her face, "Are you ashamed of yourself?"

She shakes her head but I can see the blush on her cheeks.

"What's the worst thing that can happen right now?" I ask.

She doesn’t respond to me.

"What's the worst thing?"

"You rape m-m-me." she stutters.

I smile, "You asked me to do it. Doesn’t that change things? You said you wanted me."

She looks angry but I know it’s at herself. She wanted me in that moment and she's disappointed. I pull the blankets up over her. I am exhausted and afraid I am making mistakes. I walk away, opening and closing the door. She thinks I've gone. I tiptoe back to the chair I was in and sit. Her lip trembles; she shudders and begins to cry in heaving sobs.

She rips at her blindfold and looks at me with those eyes that kill off every bad thing inside of me.

"Why are you crying? You don’t know, do you?" I ask her.

She shakes her head. I lean into her, "I would never have hurt you like that, but if I had, it wouldn’t have been the end of you. I need you to see that. You've survived everything else. So much more than any human can fathom. You think one act can destroy all the strength you have?"

She shakes her head and closes her eyes. I climb onto the bed and curl into her like we did in the barn all those nights. I hold her to me and know that when the morning comes, I won't leave this time. This time I will stay with her the entire time and save her.

She sleeps and I formulate a plan.

Chapter Thirteen

December 30th

I put her in the cell while she was sleeping and laid her phone next to her. Michelle and that Sebastian have messaged a lot. I wonder what she will think of seeing the outside world by way of phone. Sitting in the monitor room, I can see everything she does and not worry. I've locked up the entire floor and even gotten the young girl to leave.

With Jane being gone, I can try the thing I always wanted to.

She wakes, moving the phone and making noise on the monitor. The room lights up slightly, messing with the night vision lenses a little. I watch and can tell exactly the text she's reading by the faces she makes. It's horrible to watch her read their messages on her phone, but it's the one thing she needs to realize how simple and easy her life was. She made it so big, she made the barriers so wide, but now, in that dirty cell, broken and frightened, she has to be able to see how easy it really was to just be her. Just be a girl at school.

I know the agony she is living through. This is the part of the treatment I know all about. This is the part that sticks with you, appreciation of the simple things you overlooked, too afraid to rise each day and greet the world. I see those things, even more now that she's part of my life. I can see the lost boy I was when I look at her. It fills me with a small amount of joy and pride to know how far I've come.

I text her, hoping she's as ready as I believe her to be, 'How are things?'

She responds quickly, 'I hate you. How could you do this to Stuart and me? Why did you do this?'

'I need you to hurt and cry. I need those things from you.' I wish I could tell her why but I can't, so I will be the monster she fears and hates. The monster she needs.

'You're sick. I'll never cry for you again.'

'Don't make promises you can't keep.'

She sits quiet for a while, watching the phone until the light dims and I can see her more clearly. She falls asleep but I can't stop watching her in the silence of the empty room.

My phone startles me and I realize I've fallen asleep watching her sleep.