Everything was so sore… My head was spinning and the newly bandaged injury in my side from the bullet was throbbing as if it had only just been put there. I couldn’t remember falling asleep… The last thing I remembered even the slightest bit of was walking down the hall of the hospital…
I tried to sit up only to find that I was already upright. Why was I upright…? I was leaning forward slightly, too. This was starting to become reminiscent of that first time, but I could wriggle my fingers and move everything except my arms. My wrists had only been restrained with… I thought they were leather belts at first, but my eyes didn’t seem to want to open to make sure of that.
Why wasn’t I having another attack? I should have been in the middle of a violent one by the feel of my surroundings… I heard a door open, at which point I stopped moving and slowly managed to even my breathing. I must have been drugged. If I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be capable of doing that at all; I was sure.
“Ruth, you can’t touch her. You might get a disease, so just listen to the woman! She said the girl wouldn’t be awake for several more hours, anyway.” I knew that male voice…
“Why isn’t she dead yet, Ivan? If we did it now, there would be no hassle. She wouldn’t feel my hands around her scrawny neck! Besides, the sooner the police pronounce her dead, the sooner we can get our hands on your brother’s money.” I really should have known my aunt and uncle had been behind everything… Eric had said he was a commissioned kidnapper, after all. The doctor had been a part of the whole thing more than likely. I really was alone…
“We’ve waited twenty years to get at that bastard’s money, Ruth. A few more days won’t hurt us and then we’ll be off to Europe just like we always wanted. We just have to be patient.” Ivan had always been the one who seemed to be thinking whenever he looked at me. I had never felt comfortable in that house for that reason. Ruth had simply tried not to look at me and only fed me what she had to. She hadn’t been capable of having children at all, which was probably in the best interest of the population, and it seemed to cause her maternal instincts to be non-existent.
My parents had written in the will that, should anything happen to them, Ruth and Ivan would receive custody of me because of Ruth’s infertility. They had assumed the couple wanted children back then. Maybe they had at a time. It would certainly explain Ruth’s hatred of me aside from the fact I was in her way of getting her brother-in-law’s money and company once I became twenty-one. I wasn’t meant to know more than likely, and, quite frankly, I didn’t even care at that moment. I just wanted to get out of there.
“You had better be right, Ivan. I’m sick of seeing her face.” I kept as limp as I was capable of at the feel of Ruth’s hand tugging at my hair and pulling. Violently, her hand was yanked away. No doubt Ivan wanted to keep me unconscious.
“I am right! Besides, I know what you mean. She’s the spitting image of her father when he was a boy except with her mother’s face. It’s disgusting, really. Anyway, we should go and check on the police before they suspect something. We’ll come back later and finish the Frenchman’s job.” The Frenchman… Eric… Where was Eric in all of this…? Why did I care? He had been the first to kidnap me and now I understood why he hadn’t told me why. Why he hadn’t told me who. I really should have suspected something the first time, but I didn’t seem to be very smart. I really wasn’t fit to run Dad’s company…
The moment I heard the door shut and the footsteps trail off quietly, I slowly began to move as if coming out of sleep just in case one of them was still there waiting for me to awaken. When I opened my eyes, I was alone in a room full of boxes and yard supplies. Upon looking around, I recognized it as the garage Ivan had bought around the time I had come to live with them. It was large enough to be a bedroom and a kitchen in one. I had been shocked when they hadn’t just thrown me in after it was installed to keep me out of their way.
The garage had been installed right beside the house, but the garage door faced the back instead of the front to allow the door with the steps on the right wall to be facing the fence rather than the house, efficiently blocking its use. Luckily, Ivan had pumped electricity out to the garage so he wouldn’t stumble about in the dark and he constantly left it on, so I could actually see what I would be doing.
Eric really had been smart in tying my torso to the back of the chair. It was too bad Ivan hadn’t thought of it when restraining me. I studied my wrists and found that they really had been tied down with leather belts. Had Ivan forgotten to buy rope? It didn’t particularly matter; I just needed to get out of there before the drugs I had been given wore off, but why had they turned my arms with my wrists facing up? It had probably been to pump drugs into my blood. I could see the bandages wrapped tightly around my elbows.
I leaned down and found the buckles on the undersides of my wrists. They had made this a bit too easy… I bit down on the leather at my right wrist and pulled it out of the buckle carefully. Once it was free, I pulled hard to release the catch. Ivan had had to cut into the leather to make another hole for the catch, so it was a bit harder than I had thought it would be, but I managed to get it released and free that arm. Once I could feel my fingers again, I quickly proceeded to yank on the other belt and get it off within a few seconds.
I carefully moved to my feet, hoping the floor wouldn’t creak and that the door was unlocked and that Ruth and Ivan wouldn’t be outside when I got out there as well as twenty other different thoughts that ran through my mind; most painfully, there was the thought of Eric only coming after me to get his payday… Why did it hurt so much to know he had been lying to me; at least withholding information from me? I had to stop thinking about it!
I was wheezing… Gods damn it, I was wheezing! The drugs were wearing off! I had to hurry and get to the police outside because I couldn’t calm down! I couldn’t breathe! I caught myself before I could call for Eric. He wouldn’t come for me now that I was back in the hands of Ivan and Ruth…
“Eric, you asshole, I should have known…” I shouldn’t have been speaking, but I couldn’t stop myself from saying it despite the fact that it caused my wheezing to get worse. I couldn’t see straight anymore… If I could just get out to the policeman and allow them to see me… I opened the door on the side of the garage and stumbled down the stairs into Doctor Gregory who was standing there with a grinning Eric.
For a second, I thought I saw his grin falter, but the moment Doctor Gregory, now lacking her coat, caught me, she rushed me back into the garage and practically threw me back into the seat where I raised my legs and drove them into her stomach, knocking her off balance. It hadn’t been on purpose, but I was in the midst of an attack and since the drugs had been hindering most of my attacks for the past however long, I had no control over my violent struggling to breathe.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eric pull my inhaler out of his pocket and shove it into my mouth. I didn’t even notice him press the button to allow me to breathe again, but that wouldn’t last very long. I could already feel the tears welling in my eyes as he took a step back to give me space. I moved to my feet, wobbling a moment as I caught my balance, and looked up into his grinning face. That grin was the same one he had used to face David and Jason…
“Pourquoi criez-vous, l'amour?” Why are you crying, love? I could understand him again… Maybe the fake doctor had been right about shock causing the opposite of Eric’s quirk of forgetting English when stressed, but that didn’t matter right then. I could feel my airway closing again as Eric tried to place his hand on my cheek. For a second, only a second, I wanted to let him, but the mere thought of allowing him to after what he had done to me hurt more than not breathing. I slapped his hand away with my left hand and used my right to slap him in the face. Whether or not he had actually had the time to dodge it before I had struck him, I wasn’t sure, but there was a mixture of shock and remorse on his face, though his shock seemed to nearly overwhelm it.
“You bastard, don’t touch me!” I screamed myself hoarse, mostly hoping that someone would hear from outside, but I was cut off by another attack that forced my hands to my throat as if to tear an invisible attacker away. Eric quickly placed my inhaler in my mouth and pressed the button to relieve my sore throat again. Once that was done, the woman moved back up to her feet and shoved me into the chair I had previously escaped, once again binding my wrists with the belts rather than rope.
I felt no urge to escape anymore. I just wanted Eric to kill me. At least then I wouldn’t be played with like a child’s toy any longer. I didn’t even have the strength to continue sobbing, though my eyes continued to shed tears against my will. I leaned forward slightly, allowing my white bangs to hide my face while the rest of my black hair sat around my shoulders.
I really should have known no one was capable of caring about me, of loving me… After all Eric had done to convince me that he loved me as much as he said he did, the betrayal had negated all of it. He threw all of that away for whatever petty cash Ivan and Ruth would give him for helping kill me.
“Eric, let’s go. If the police need us, we don’t need them coming in here to find us.” Eric hesitated a few seconds until she was at the door.
“Give me a moment, femme mentant.” The woman scoffed and left quickly, slamming the door behind her. He didn’t speak until he was sure she was gone.
“She’s a liar, is she? Sounds quite perfect for you, monsieur.” I don’t know what caused me to say such a thing, but it was out before I could halt it. Eric knelt down in front of my legs, pinning them in such a way that I couldn’t kick at him, and took a gentle hold of my chin to raise it and bare my face to him.
“Je vous aurais dit, l'amour, mais j'ai cru que vous me détesteriez...” I would have told you, love, but I thought you would hate me… He paused a second, his face torn between so many emotions that I couldn’t distinguish all of them. I kept my visage of hatred as well as I was able but looking him straight in the face wasn’t helping me keep it that way.
“Why would I hate you, Eric? You were commissioned by my aunt and uncle to kidnap me so that they could kill me more easily while taking suspicion off of themselves. You lied to me; you betrayed my trust, and you screwed me over.” I jerked my chin out of his hand and refused to meet his eyes again, leaning back into the chair.
“L’amour, I didn’t mean to…” I cut him off before he could continue to speak.
“You didn’t mean to what, Eric? You didn’t mean to let me find out this way? You meant for my death to go smoothly? You could have taken my inhaler and left me to suffocate quickly enough! You didn’t have to put on a charade! You didn’t have to lie to me or tell me you loved me when you obviously don’t!” My voice broke and I couldn’t keep my eyes closed anymore. I glared down at my knees against his chest.
“L’amour…”
“Don’t call me that!” I hadn’t even realized I had shouted even louder at him until I started gasping for air through my tears. He was silent for several seconds before relieving my throat again, bringing my inhaler to my lips for me. I dug my fingers into the arms of the chair to keep myself breathing evenly, though it wasn’t working as well as I had hoped.
“Je suis désolé ainsi, l'amour...” I’m so sorry, love… He placed his hand on top of mine and turned it over. When he left my inhaler in my hand and closed my fingers over it, I looked up in shock. Why was he giving that back to me now of all times? As I stared at the device, thinking it would disappear if I didn’t keep my eyes on it. He leaned in close and placed a kiss on my cheek, only brushing his lips against the skin as if he couldn’t put any more pressure on the skin without it shattering the way my heart had.
“Eric, you…” He placed his hand over my mouth to silence me while his lips moved to my ear to allow him a better ability to whisper.
“Good bye, l’amour.”