“This is conditional. If you keep treating me poorly I’ll tell the school you can’t go. If you respect me and do as I say this week, then on Saturday you can have this back. Understand?”
Tina didn’t reply.
“Understand!”
“Yes.” It was everything she could do to not fly across the room and beat the woman to a bloody pulp.
“Yes, what?” Rebecca asked.
Tina stared at her, unsure what she wanted.
“How about a ‘Yes, ma’am.’” Rebecca said.
Tina couldn’t believe this.
“Of course, if you don’t want to respect me as your mother I can always call the school right now,” Rebecca said.
“Yes, ma’am, I understand,” Tina said.
“That’s better.” Rebecca stood. “Now I don’t want you coming out of this room tonight unless I give you permission, understand.”
Again, Tina did not reply.
“Understand!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tina growled.
Rebecca smiled. “Don’t act like you have it bad. You just have to respect me for a few days, I had to respect my Mother her entire life and if I didn’t — well, society was more accepting of physical punishments back then and to this day I can still taste the bars of soap she made me suck on while taking me over her knee.”
The words were right there. She wanted so hard to lash out at the woman, but knew doing so would be disastrous.
“By the way, what are you wearing to the prom?” Rebecca asked. “I didn’t see a dress in the closet.”
“I have a dress being made… ma’am.”
“Really? I hope it is ready in time. We should go pick it up together. It will be a nice mother daughter bonding experience.” With that Rebecca left the room, her hand pulling the door shut behind her.
Tina wanted to scream.
“Where’s your bike?” Alan asked after meeting Jimmy in the street. He had been getting a Coke from the kitchen during a commercial and had just happened to look out the window and saw Jimmy walking home. Knowing something had happened, just not what, Alan hurried outside.
“Brett took it,” Jimmy said.
“What?”
“I set the bike against a tree to pee and I guess he was following me in his car, because all of a sudden he grabbed it.” Jimmy was obviously pissed off, his anger showing in both his words and his face.
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
“Because I was in the middle of peeing and because his friends were there.” Jimmy shook his head and slammed a fist into his palm. “I can beat the shit out of any one of them by themselves, but together…”
“Good point.” Alan could see the three of them overwhelming his brother and then viciously pounding the shit out of him once they had him down. It would not be an honorable fight, but they wouldn’t care. Bullies like that never did. “But now there are two of us so let’s go get it back.”
“I don’t—”
“We are doing this so don’t even think about putting it off,” Alan said, shooting down what he knew Jimmy would say. “They won’t be expecting both of us to be there so quickly and we won’t stick around. Just grab the bike and go. If they want to come after us, so be it.”
“But he’s on the other side of town and its getting dark,” Jimmy said.
“So we take Mom’s car. She won’t care. Come on.”
Jimmy finally agreed.
Samantha couldn’t believe it but the rope was actually slipping off her wrist. A shiver went through her.
Jimmy usually tied each wrist separately and then attached the second rope to the rope between her wrists. This time he had just wrapped it around both her wrists and now her right hand was actually coming through.
Oh my god! She thought. “I’m going to get out!”
The burned areas of her wrist screamed as she pulled against the rope, but the pain was masked by her determination to get free. Hell, she would probably slice off her own thumb to free herself and not feel a thing.
On cue the rope snagged against her thumb joint, which stopped her hand from sliding out. All hope fled.
She tried squeezing her fingers into the smallest fist possible, but still the rope would not move.
No! No! No! she silently screamed while pulling with all her might.
It came out.
Samantha was so stunned that she failed to realize her right hand was sitting in her lap, and that the rope around her left had fallen to the floor.
She was free.
Panic hit.
She turned her head toward the door while her right hand rubbed the rawness of her left, and then the left of her right. If it’s unlocked I could — she failed to finish her thought, the idea of freedom after the longest day of her life was almost too much to bear.
Oh God, what if I’m home tonight. Please God let me get home.
She crawled over to the door and used the handle to stand. Her legs shook with exhaustion while her hands shook with excitement. Her mind was racing.
Please…
She twisted the handle.
It was unlocked.
She pressed her body against the cool metal door and then eased herself back and pulled. It opened less than a centimeter before catching on something.
No, her mind said weakly.
She pulled again.
The door didn’t get past the obstacle.
NO!
Somehow the door was locked on the outside, only not through the knob. Something was attaching it to the wall.
Samantha fell to her knees crying, her fists clenched, her mind screaming with frustration and sadness. Jimmy had planned for this. The little bastard had put some kind of lock on the outside just in case she got free, and now, once he found out she had tried to escape, he would punish her.
He would do -
Knowing how awful it would be Samantha couldn’t finish the thought and collapsed into herself on the floor, her body rolled into a crude ball, her hands hanging onto her knees. Sobs echoed through the room while tears dampened her face and then the floor.
If only she had fought him off in the beginning. If only she had been more alert while walking home. If only this, if only that; the list could go on and on.
The word “fought” stuck in her mind.
She brought her head up from her legs as an idea made itself known. Her wet eyes crossed the room and stared at the shelves of food and water.
I could fight him off.
This hung in the air as if spoken out loud, waiting for criticisms. None came. Using an object from the shelf as a weapon, or the shelf itself, would give her an advantage Jimmy was not expecting, which meant he would not be prepared for it, which further meant she could easily get the upper hand. All it would take was one good solid blow to the head and Samantha could be free. One hit as he walked through the door and Samantha would be on her way home.
In her mind she saw Jimmy toppling over as the blow knocked all sense from him. She would then run through the door and out into the yard. From there she would get to the road and head home.
HOME.
The word sounded fantastic, unlike anything else she had ever wanted. Never before had it seemed like such a wonderful place. All she had to do was hit him hard enough. Once down Jimmy would have no chance at catching her and she would get home.
What if it doesn’t work?
The question went unanswered. If she thought about failing it would fail, and if she failed the consequences would be far worse than anything her mind could conjure up, of this she was sure.
When one thought of bullies they often pictured them living in nasty rundown houses or trailers whose outside walls were just a preview for the horrors inflicted upon them within while growing up, something which they were always trying to make up for at school by picking on the weaker kids. This wasn’t the case with Brett Murphy. Instead his house was like all the others in the neighborhood areas of Ashland Creek, alas, a bit worn from the harsh winter, but nowhere near as rundown as Hollywood would have pictured it. To everyone that knew the family too his parents didn’t seem that bad, and in fact, they weren’t. Like most middle class families they had provided Brett and his older brother Brian with a wonderful childhood, one free from the dramas that many unlucky kids faced all across the country. They also had stayed together despite a marital affair that had occurred when Brett was ten. None of it mattered, though, because Brett still had grown up bad, and, judging by the path he was taking, would continue to be bad well into adulthood.