We walked for what must have been hours through the forest. The longer we walked, the more aware I became of how much pain I was in. I began to worry Roan's drugs were wearing off. While I didn't like the idea of him drugging me, I also didn't want the crippling pain to come back. Not when we were out here in the middle of nowhere.
I bit my lip hoping that if it did come back it wouldn't be as bad as before. I tried to focus on other things, like getting away or where we were going. Roan seemed confident as we first set out and then confused. He kept checking his phone and every so often we'd change directions. He began to get agitated after a while and pulled harder on my rope. I wondered if he knew what he was doing. Especially when I saw several trees that looked pretty familiar, more than once. He began to look more and more tired and I wondered when he'd last slept.
It was hard thinking of Roan as...human, especially after all he'd done to me. But he was, just the same as me. Just like me, he had to have weaknesses. I chewed on my lip and got to thinking. If I couldn't physically overpower him, then I needed to out think him. I needed to take what little I knew about him and use it to my advantage. Maybe I could reason with him? Perhaps I could even convince him to let me go or more likely let his guard down.
I tried to think of what I could say but it was hard. My mind kept wandering to what he'd done to me. Sometimes it would hit me hard and I feared what he was going to do to me next, if I failed to escape. I was on the verge of hysteria more than once but I needed to hold myself together and focus if I was going to get out of here, get help, and get back to Derek.
Derek! Oh, Derek! What must he be thinking right now? He must have been going insane looking for me! He had to know what had happened by now, right? He had to know I was missing and that Roan had something to do with it! I knew Derek, he'd get the police and wouldn't stop searching until he found me. It gave me strength knowing that if...if I couldn't get away, maybe he would find me. Maybe he would rescue me like he had all those years ago. At the same time, I didn't want to put my survival on someone else. I needed to keep fighting and do all I could to get away.
Roan let out a heavy sigh and finally let us rest. We shared a bottle of water and then he pulled out a cigarette. I stiffly sat down and rested my aching legs as he smoked. Thinking of Derek, the one I loved, made me consider Roan's wife and kids. Maybe I could use them to get to him. It was worth a shot.
"Roan," I said quietly, after a minute or so.
He simply grunted.
I stared forward, "Won't...won't your wife be worried when you don't come home?"
He took a large drag of his cigarette and then let out a puff of smoke as he looked up at the sky. He seemed to be considering my question. After a moment he spoke, "I suppose if I had a wife, she'd be worried."
Had a wife? "Alison?" I said, looking up at him.
Roan smiled, slowly taking another puff. He let it out and said, "Ah yes, her. Good, wasn't she? Worth every penny. But no, she isn't my wife. The only girl I ever wanted to marry was taken from me. Lindsey, or Lanzey, whatever the fuck her real name is, was simply an actress."
I let my jaw drop as I considered what he was saying. "I knew it!" I said more to myself then him.
Roan laughed, "You did not."
"I did too! When you all came into the cafe that first time and she acted surprised to see me. I thought she either really didn't know I worked there or she was a good actress. WAIT!" I said thinking on it more."You have kids!"
"You can rent any kids at the right price for a few hours. I told their parents we were doing a photo shoot for some fucking calendars. Offered to buy the kids donuts and hot cocoa. Their real parents were just down the street."
"I don't understand." I said, shaking my head. All of it, his whole background, had been a lie. But why?
"Don't you?" he said, "They were just pawns, tools to get close to you. I'd been watching you for a while now, looking to have some fun. When that reunion party started getting thrown together, I looked into everyone who went to our school back then. I found Trin Brackner had died and found out she had an older sister name, Alison. No year book picture so I made up a story and hired an 'actress'. Then I had my Alison bump into Belia. Heh, tragedy always gets people falling all over themselves. She invited a complete stranger and me, to the party without question."
"So all of this...was to get to me...to what?"
"Well, I had planned to fuck with you a while longer. I'd get you to come to dinner with my 'family'. Only, they wouldn't be there, kids got sick and wife had to stay home with them or some shit like that. It would just be you and me then, with those charges looming." I wondered now if the fight I'd seen in that video was even the real one. The video quality had been so poor. He'd probably just got someone to wear a jacket like Derek's. I closed my eyes, wondering why I'd ever doubted him. I should have taken Derek's word, yet I had fallen so easy into Roan's trap.
Roan let out a puff of smoke and went on, "You'd stay, have a few drinks. I'd dose you then maybe kill you or fuck your brains out. Really I'd see where the night took us. I could imagine you waking up in the morning and me spinning some more bullshit," I watched him morph before my eyes. "Oh, Kiri, I never meant for this to happen. I don't normally drink. Kiri, my wife and kids, Derek. We can't tell anyone what happened. It was an accident. Heh." He smiled to himself as if he were imagining it. Then I watched him turn back into the Roan I knew, "Who know maybe I could have let this go on for a while, weeks, months years. We could have had a passionate affair."
I felt my throat clench as I nearly threw up but managed to hold it down. "NEVER," I bitterly choked shaking my head, tears welling up in my eyes. "If...if that had happened. I WOULD have gone to the police!"
"Well, it didn't happen" said Roan, annoyed, "I didn't actually do anything to you and you still called the police."
"I wish I'd called them sooner!" I spat.
"I bet you do." he said, "Could have... should have... would have… but it wouldn't have mattered. In the end, I would have still found a way to get to you."
"You're crazy, you know that?!" I said.
"For you." he smiled and then put out his cigarette. "NOW GET UP! Twenty-one questions is over."
He grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, "Where are we going? Where are you taking me?" I asked, thinking I might as well know everything.
"It's a surprise!" he smiled.
"Really? Why are we walking? Is it far from here, somewhere close by or did you hit a snag in your plans?" I spat, trying to estimate how much time I had left to get away.
He groaned, "I said we're DONE with the questions. Now get moving!"
"I don't feel well. My feet hurt and I have to pee."I admitted.
He paused, thinking about it, "I suppose I do too."
Without another word, he let go of my arm and pulled his dick out. He started peeing right then and there in front of me. I turned my head away but my hands touched his hip because of how tight and close the rope was. "Can't you do that somewhere else?" I protested.
"To the left, to the right, it doesn't fucking matter, Kiri. This whole forest is a toilet."
"I don't want to see that." I said, closing my eyes tightly.
He scoffed and finished peeing. Then he turned and said, "What exactly don't you want to see, Kiri? Me pissing or my COCK?" I winced at the second one, though they were both pretty bad. "Heh," Roan chuckled, "You're going to be seeing a lot of MY COCK, might as well take it in."
I refused to open my eyes to look at it so he grasped one of my hands by the wrist and forced it to brush against his member, "Take it in your hand!" he ordered.
"NO!" I refused.
"Take it in your hand or I'll break your hand," he said calmly.
"You wouldn't! We're in the middle of nowhere!"
"So? You don't need you hand to walk, do you?" I could hear it in his tone. He was serious.
I kept my eyes closed and opened my hand. He guided me to it and I palmed it. I felt the tender flesh pulse in my hand and got the sudden urge to twist and rip. He must have sensed it because he removed my hand and said, "That's a start. Now piss."
"Here." I said. "In front of you?"
"You didn't mind earlier, love,"
"I'm not your love," I said and turned. I squatted to piss and he yanked my rope nearly causing me to fall over, "Lift your dress."
"I won't get it wet," I said.
"Unlike you, I want to watch," he said.
"Sick bastard," I hissed.
He hit the back of my head, hard, "DO IT!"
I lifted the dress up around my waist and began pissing. When I was done I fixed it and stood. He slapped my ass and then just smiled before tugging on my rope once again.
/
We walked and walked and walked for what felt like hours after that. Never in my entire life had I ever walked so much in a single day. My makeshift shoes of bags and duct tape were slowly giving way and I could feel the ground beneath my feet. All my pain began to mount up onto itself and I started shuffling my feet. I wanted to stop again and rest but Roan wouldn't let me.
He kept us moving and I started crying as the pain got to be too much. He didn't care as long as I kept moving. I began to think he was going to make me walk until I collapsed but as it grew almost too dark to see, he finally called it a day. He found a small clearing in the woods and had me sit down against a tree.
He untied my hands from his but left my cuffs on. He made it clear if I so much as moved I wouldn't be getting any water or food. I was so tired. I didn't think I could move even if I wanted to. I rested against the tree and watched him run around collecting sticks. He soon built a fire.
He came back to me then and surprisingly took off my cuffs. Again he warned me to 'behave'. This time I listened. He gave me part of a pill. I gladly took it without question. He handed me a bottle of water and some food, a wrapped tuna sandwich.
I didn't care that it was warm or mushy as fuck. I just ate it. He gave me a muffin after that and I downed it as well with the entire bottle of water. I was hoping the pill he gave me would take the pain away. That I'd blissfully passed out again but after a few minutes I was still wide awake. The pain had dulled some but not enough to go unnoticed. Still, I supposed it was better than nothing.
I sighed and stared into the fire, depressed. Roan looked at his phone and then turned it off. I worried what might happen now that things were quiet. I thought to fill the space and perhaps take his mind off hurting me again. I decided to rip the band aid off and find out why he'd gone to such lengths to destroy my life.
"What do you want from me?" I asked. I watched him tear off chunks of a jerky stick and chew it. When he didn't answer me I asked again. "Roan, what do you really want from me?"
"Right now," he said as he threw another stick into the fire. It crackled as he continued, "I want you to shut up."
"Seriously," I said. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"I'm being serious," he said. "I'm tired."
"Fine," I said crossing my arms.
We sat in silence for a good few minutes and then he said quietly, "I want you to suffer."
"Have I not?" I said quietly back.
We both stared into the fire for another few minutes before he responded, "Not enough, not nearly enough."
"How much is enough?" I asked. "Days, months, years? Do you want my life? Are you going to kill me?"
He scoffed, ripping a weed from the ground. He began to pull it apart. "You think...you really think I went to all this fucking trouble, which was a lot mind you - you have no idea just how much - just to kill you?"
"I...I don't know," I sniffled. "You already tried and earlier you said you might."
"Hmp," He said, tossing the weed into the fire, "You don't know anything. You never did. You were always so stupid."
I sighed and pulled my legs in. They ached but I wanted to wrap my arms around them. I wanted to hold myself. Roan watched me move and then stared at me for a while. Eventually he added, "That isn't all I want. I want you to suffer but...I also want-"
"What?" I asked. "What do you want?"
He looked at me. He looked hesitant but continued, "I want what you took from me."
"What I took from you? What did I ever take from you?" I recalled bits and pieces from the café. He'd yelled at me, something about everything. "Oh, right, I owe you everything. I can't give you everything."
"I don't want everything!" he said, looking pissy, "I just want- I just wanted you back," he said looking away.
He...just...wanted...me...back. I looked at him plainly, "You never had me."
"I did," he said, looking back at me. He locked eyes with me. "I had you since the first moment we met. You were everything to me. My favorite toy!"
"Toy?" I repeated, "I am not a toy! What you did to me, what you're doing to me-" I paused. Maybe he really was mental. Maybe he didn't understand that people weren't things. "I'm not an object to be obtained, Roan. I'm a person. Living flesh. I have thoughts, feelings. I feel pain."
"I know that." he said. "Unlike you, I'm not stupid." He turned, looking into the fire. "From the first day I say you in school I knew you were different...special. You were meant just for me." I twisted in disgust as he went on. "When I was born I was really sick. I spent a lot of time in hospitals. I never really attached to anyone. Not even my mother. She was just like all the doctors. She was too busy deciding what was best for me to actually listen to me or get to know me."
"Even when I got better and recovered, she still treated me like I was sick...fragile. She needed me to be. My father abandoned us and she made me, my sickness, her purpose in life. She kept me boxed in, decided everything for me. What I would touch. What I would see. What I would learn and how I should feel. Nothing was ever truly mine."
"For so long I was alone, stunted. I knew so little of the outside world, of others. She poisoned my mind, telling me it would all hurt me...destroy me. Eventually people intervened and forced her hand. At the risk of taking me away, they made her put me in school. I...that first day when I introduced myself I remembered looking out at everyone. It was all so strange to me, I saw nothing. All the children might as well have been empty desks. They were no different to me. Just objects that were there. But you...you were a beacon. A light."
"You glowed to me, called to me. From the moment I laid eyes on you my heart beat for the first time and I knew what it was to...want. Okay, I'll admit when I first met you I did consider you a toy. You were so entertaining. But you proved to be so much more than that. You were my first connection...my only connection. I didn't know how to interact with you. I was in so much awe of you, I couldn't approach you. I would watch you for hours, doing school work, playing, running around. I..."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. For so long I only knew my side of things but this, this... "This... that is sick. Roan, don't you get that's fucked up? We were kids. You should have been playing, running outside and doing kids stuff."
"You were enough for me," He said, "I didn't just watch. I watched over you. You used to cry because of your dad dying and you didn't always have lunch some days because your mom was so sick, she'd forget about you. But I wouldn't. I'd tell the teachers. I'd make sure they'd get you food. Sometimes I'd give you my own."
I looked at him. I didn't remember any of that. Then again I didn't remember much from the time around my dad's death. He'd died so suddenly in an accident at his factory. I...it took me so long to understand. I just missed him a lot. I'd ask my mom about him but it would make her so sad...so I just stopped. She started getting sicker around that time. I had to start taking care of her. But it was so long ago, I realized I'd pushed most of it away.
"I despised summer," said Roan. "I found whenever I didn't see you I was sad. But when I saw you again, whenever you looked at me, it was like the sun shined just for me. I'd do anything to get you to look at me... to just look at me with those emerald eyes of yours."
"Is that why you hit me, why you cut my hair?"
"I admit it wasn't the best approach. But you looked at me, didn't you? As I said, I'd do anything to make you look and I also wanted a piece of you to keep with me, when we were apart.," I swallowed as his face twisted in madness. "I got better as time went on. I pushed myself to be braver, to venture outside and play with you. But...you...you always ran away or let others play with you when they...they had no right! I was the only one that could play with you! I made sure of that! I liked being around you. I started following you and then walking you home."
"You chased me!" I pointed out.
"It was our game."
"I WASN'T PLAYING WITH YOU!" I shouted.
"YOU WERE! You're just mad because I eventually caught you. I trained every day to beat you, you know that? You were so fast. I'd never had the need to run. But for you I learned. I used to run from my house to yours during the summer, hoping we could race but you'd never come out."
I had no idea he'd seen me during the summer. I'd thought it was my only escape. I felt sicker and sicker. I began to think I didn't want to hear this, to know these things.
"I'd watch you, study you from afar, try to understand what your little brain was thinking, and feeling." He said it like he'd been watching bugs crawl on the ground.
I glared at him and seethed, "I was scared all the time! You tortured me! There were days I didn't even want to go to school because of you." Tears welled up in my eyes. He had his own version of things but I would never allow it to cloud mine.
"You...you weren't always scared. You held my hand, you'd kiss me." he said upset.
"Because you made me!" I said in disgust, "You threatened my mother!"
"Don't make excuses! You still did it!" he said.
"BECAUSE YOU MADE ME!" I yelled.
"I don't believe that," he said. "You liked it."
"I didn't." I said. "I hated it."
"You didn't hate it! That's PERFECT POLLY and DUMBASS DEREK, messing with your mind. THEY TURNED YOU AGAINST ME! DON'T YOU SEE THAT? THEY TOOK YOU FROM ME! You had no idea how hard it was back then for me seeing you walk home with them. Watching you ever day, not getting to be near you, to touch you. It was driving me insane. I tried to make them stop, to make you understand you were just mine. That day in the closet-"
"You mean the day you tried to kill me!"
"I just wanted to talk to you but you wouldn't shut up. You wouldn't listen to me. I needed you to listen, to understand how much pain I was in. When you hurt me, I admit I lost it. I hated you, hated the way you made me feel. The way you denied me. I wanted you to die. I thought it would be better if you died so that it wouldn't hurt."
I stared at him as he zoned off into the past. I knew if Derek and the principal hadn't found me back then he really would have killed me even as he said "I couldn't do it. I was just going to make you still and then...then we could talk. You'd listen."
"No." I shook my heard "You tried to kill me, would have, if you'd been given longer."
"NO! I wouldn't. I wouldn't have! You would have seen that if they hadn't interfered. They took you away from me. They kicked me out of school. They wanted to take me away from my mother but she wouldn't let them. Yet she also wouldn't let me see you anymore. I thought I was in pain seeing you and not being able to be with you but not seeing you at all! It was too much! I broke out of my room and I ran to your house. I planned to get you, for us to run away but your mother caught me and called the police."
I stared into the fire in disbelief. I hadn't know that. I must have been asleep. I was so worked up that day. I remembered passing out when we got home.
"My mother, hmp, she sent me away to get 'help'. To get 'better'. She committed me to a fucking institution. Her own son! I was back in the hospital after everything I went through when I was little. They poked and prodded me but they didn't understand. All their medications, therapies and treatments, did nothing to help me. It just prolonged my pain. I knew what I needed but they-THEY wouldn't give it to me! I had to play their fucking mind games to get out. And even then it was YEARS, YEARS, KIRI, before I found you." He laughed, the fire dancing in his eyes, "BUT I DID IT! I FOUND YOU!"
I swallowed as he looked at me. "From the moment my eyes fell upon you once more, the pain stopped. I used to lay in your bed and just breathe in your scent."
I trembled, wondering when he'd- How? HOW! He moved slowly. Leaning forward, he started crawling towards me. "I was patient for so long, Kiri. I tried to be patient. But our game, our race is over now. And now that we're together, I'm never letting you go again. I'm never letting anyone take you away from me again."
I knew he meant every word. I watched him take off his shirt. In the firelight I saw his bare chest for the first time. I saw my name etched, scarred upon his skin. Not just once, but dozens and dozens of times. I understood now. I saw the full madness that was Roan Attley and I realized he was never going to ever let me go. Even if somehow I managed to escape I'd never be free. Not until he was dead or...I was.
He reached out, grasping hold of my cheek. He leaned into me kissing my softly, gently, and then more aggressively as he pushed me to lie back on the ground. I stared up at the tree tops, at the stars, vaguely taking in his feverish kisses. He kissed my chin and neck as he pulled at the dress he'd given me. He wadded it up in his hands then yanked it up and over my head.
Tears blurred my vision as he ran his hands across my breasts and then his mouth. I started crying, realizing I was trapped, entangled, smothered in his madness. I knew Roan was utterly, completely obsessed with me and he was beyond insane. He leaned in and licked the tears from my face. I shuddered as he smiled, taking off his shoes and then his pants.
He lifted my legs and I shuddered again. I knew what he was going to do. I knew he was stronger then me and there was no way I could outrun him. I felt so powerless in this moment and yet.. even thought I knew I couldn't stop him, I still tried. I instinctively lashed out and scratched his face but he grabbed my wrists and pinned me down.
"I know, I know." he hissed. "I missed you too. I missed you too."
He was twisting things to fit his own sick desires. I didn't miss him I loathed him. I screamed and struggled even more kicking up my legs. He put my hands together and held them down with one hand. Then he pinned my body down with his own. He let me wiggle and squirm beneath him until I started to grow tired, then he placed himself. Our eyes connected in the firelight as he shoved into me. He didn't need assistance this time. I wasn't wet but my body was still recovering from his last brutal attack. He bucked into me slow and hard and didn't take his eyes off me as I madly flailed about.
There was so much pain my body burned. When he let go of my hands I instinctively clawed at him, trying to get him out of me. I tore the flesh from his back but still he pumped and pounded me into the cold, hard ground. This time I didn't pass out. I felt every inch of him driving into me, tearing me apart, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. He leaned down, trailing kisses along my neck before he rested his teeth on my shoulder. I felt him bite down and break the skin. I jerked looking up at the tree tops and the stars in the sky as I endlessly screamed into the night. |
