His(22)

Numb. That was a good word, numb. That’s how it felt when the shadow closed in.

But I had killed not long ago, and the craving was satisfied. The world was bright again, and I could see. My kitten was locked away tightly.

On the television I watched the news coverage. After an hour spent sipping beers, I saw the first mention of the case. My kitten’s photograph came up on the screen, and I looked down at the rest of the bar. Nobody cared. Nobody watched. Nobody knew the pretty young thing who had been abducted.

There was no mention on the news about her parents. No family at all. Nothing but a college friend, a girl with more piercings than I normally gave my victims, tearful and begging for any news about my kitten. She looked familiar, somehow.

With a snap of recognition I recoiled from the bar counter.

She’d been working at the library. She’d seen me.

My heart began to beat faster and I lifted my beer to my lips to hide my discomfort.

“Another one?” the bartender asked.

“No,” I said, throwing a twenty dollar bill on the counter. “I’m done.”

I hoped I wasn’t done for. I would have to learn more about her. Learn what she was all about, why her parents weren’t on the news begging for her to be found.

So many secrets, my kitten had. Almost as many as me.



Kat

Hours passed. It’s hard to describe how terrifying the darkness was. Dressed only in my underwear, I shivered, acutely vulnerable to every imagined horror in the corners of the black room. Every so often I’d feel a bug crawl over my foot, and I’d shake it away from me with a shudder. Cockroaches? Centipedes? I didn’t know, I couldn’t see, and that only made it worse.

Once, a bug touched my hand, and I jerked back instinctively, wrenching my wrist in the handcuff. The metal cut my hand, only slightly, but I could feel the blood slippery on my wrist, tickling as it dried. The bandages on my hands from the glass cuts began to unravel, and I tried unsuccessfully to keep them wrapped around my palms.

I didn’t know what time it was, whether it was day or night. The sedative he’d given me made my brain fuzzy, even as it was wearing off. The basement was completely, totally black and I had long stopped trying to slip out of the handcuff. I cried for a while, but that did nothing at all to help and only dehydrated me.

I needed something to drink. I hadn’t had anything when he’d fed me, and my throat was parched. My tongue stuck to the top of my palate when I touched it there, sticky with dryness. I closed my eyes and dreamed of waterfalls, of rainclouds.

Water. Oh, god, what I would do for just a drop. The gurgle of the water pipe next to my head taunted me, and I pulled at the pipe before realizing that there was no way I could break the thick metal.

“AHHHHHHHH!”

I screamed, and my throat hurt even worse, tight and dry. Only a few hours ago, I had told myself that I wouldn’t ask him for anything. Funny how things change so quickly.

For a while I didn’t hear anything. He might not be home.

Then a light came on outside the door, the thin light shining at the doorjamb. Steps came thudding down the stairs outside of the basement.

Gav. Would he punish me for yelling? He’d said he didn’t have a gun, but still I imagined him getting sick of me, raising a pistol to my head, pulling the trigger. I would have gulped, but I had no moisture left in my mouth to swallow.

The door swung open, blindingly bright, his figure dark in the doorway.

“I’m back, kitten,” he said calmly, as though he was a husband coming home from work. The coolness of his voice made me sick. “Have you been screaming this whole time?”

“Water,” I croaked. My tongue pressed against the top of my mouth, trying to wet itself. “Please. I don’t have anything to drink.”

He came forward near me. His features focused themselves as my eyes adjusted to the light. He didn’t look angry. That was good. He crouched down next to me and looked into my face, his expression almost gentle. Had he really gone out for a few hours and left me here? Then there was hope that I could escape, sometime when he was out…

“Oh, kitten. An oversight, surely,” he purred. His hand reached out to the handcuff and I offered it to him, hoping that he would unlock it. Instead, he shook his head, his fingers sliding over my hurt wrist.

“Kitten, have you been trying to escape?”

“No!” The word came out of me louder than I’d thought, and the scratchiness in my throat threw me into a coughing fit. “No, I—I—there was a bug, I pulled away and it—it hurt. I didn’t, I swear, I swear...”

I left off, the cough taking me over again. His fingers ran lightly down my arm.