Prologue
She won't beg, refuses to. She has heard him with the other girls, heard him beating them. Their screams permeate the bars and the cold grey walls until she can hear their crying, their tears, and their pleas. They plead for him to do anything else, beg him to stop hurting them, and that is when it gets quiet, well not quite. The screams turn into whimpers, painful sounds, and grunts as he forces himself on them, rapes each girl, fucks them like he owns them, and that is what he whispers to them while he is doing it. At least, she thinks that is what it sounds like from where she is chained to the wall.
He has her in a center room. When she looks out the narrow window of bars she can see other rust covered bars, other rooms like hers across a narrow hall. Everything is cement or concrete, everything is dark and dank, and at the very end of the hall, when she is able to peer just enough, a step comes into view at the edge of her vision. They are below ground, a basement perhaps, she doesn't know, but it doesn't really matter. She doubts he'll let her live long enough to find out.
As it turns out, she does find out. She won't beg, and even though she is bludgeoned and bloody, she refuses to break to his will, would rather die than beg him to rape her. He hates her for it, loathes her, and she sees the anger in his eyes, glistening black as night. He'll kill her either way so she won't give in. She won't beg so he doesn't want her. He can't break her, so he'll just kill her now, and when he removes her from the dingy room, guides her from the dark cell through the dark hall past the others, toward the stairs. She knows what is next.
The steps trip her as he shoves her forward. Her knee scraping against the edge, her skin breaking, pulling apart, and her blood dripping from that top step, the step that brings her to the surface, to a door that he pushes her through. The cold night air feels like a slap on her skin, and a balm to her lungs. It doesn't matter that it is cold, it doesn't matter that she is freezing, being dragged over the ground in merely her underwear, all that matters is that she can take a breath of air that doesn't smell of death, that doesn't weigh her lungs down with scent of sweat, grime, and blood.
She is walking a foot ahead of him, hands tied at the wrists in front of her. A dark branch trips her, and she falls to the soil and moss with a gasp, the blood soaking her knee mixing with dirt, creating a red mud that sticks to her skin. He tells her to get up, tells her to rise in the same voice that has been telling her; 'I own you Regina', 'you are mine Regina', 'so beautiful', 'tell me you want me Regina', 'this can all stop if you beg me to'. The same voice that has been filling her ears with nothing but screams and agony for the last week. She thinks it has been a week.
She takes this chance. Lifts the long branch in her hands, and it is dark, she can hardly see in the light from his small flashlight, but neither can he. The bark collides with the side of his head. Her hands and wrists thrum and ache immediately from the impact, but she doesn't think, doesn't have a moment to dwell on the pain before she is turning and running. At some point she drops the branch. It falls to the ground barely making a sound. Just like he had. At some point adrenaline takes over, carries her from that spot in the woods to this gravel road.
Her mind is catching up. The pain in her body, the cold wind that gusts against her bare skin, she starts to feel it all as she walks this gravel road. It is all a blur after that. White lights, people shouting, she remembers dropping to her knees again, this time on the gravel, the small stones digging and cutting into her flesh. More lights, more voices, and then she feels warmth. A fuzzy blanket she thinks. It tickles her sensitive skin. After that she doesn't know what happened, can't picture anything else.
She wakes, opening her eyes to harsh lights, a steady beeping, but only one eye actually opens. Lifting her hand to her face she can feel the swollen cheek, the gash above her eyebrow from his ring meeting her face, his fist colliding with her eye. She feels like she is suffocating, air streaming in and out of her lungs in heavy puffs until people are surrounding her, talking to her with comforting voices, saying her name, but she doesn't want to hear it. She never wants to hear her name again. The sound of it reminds her of him, reminds her of the way he twirled it along his tongue each time he said it. Like using her name made him her god, and she hates the sound of it now, thinks she probably always will.
The next time she wakes up the lights are dim, the beeping still constant and irritating to her ears. It is an endless parade of nurses and orderlies and doctors to check on her. They tell her of her injuries, like she doesn't know of them already, like she didn't suffer through each one, doesn't remember it in glaring detail. The words they speak are meant to comfort; 'you'll be fine Miss Mills', 'your ribs will heal', 'the wound required stitches, but shouldn't scar too badly'. They go on and on, telling her how she is, but never asking what happened. She waits, sitting on her hospital bed, staring out the window, and she isn't sure what she is waiting for; death, life, the inevitable questions.
The questions come the next day. She has been in the hospital for three days. Woke up for the second time yesterday afternoon and hasn't slept a wink since. The sun is bright in the sky this morning, streams of light flooding into her room, and its comforting after spending days in the darkness. He taps lightly at her door. The action is unnecessary, the door is hanging wide open. She doesn't want it shut, started to panic when a nurse closed it last night. He is tall, muscular, with hair a mixture of blonde and light brown. His eyes pierce her, and she finds that odd, peculiar since he has only been looking at her for a moment. She already feels like he sees all of her. They are blue, maybe a tint of green too, and they crinkle slightly with his smile. The grin on his face is kind, thoughtful, different from the hospital employees with their sympathetic smiles and pitiful looks.
She is so busy staring at him, observing, she misses his greeting, doesn't realize he has said a word until the smile turns down and his brow furrows in concern.
"Miss Mills? Are you alright? Should I call for a doctor?"
"No," she practically shouts, she is tired of the endless stream of caregivers tending to her, "no," she repeats more calmly, "and it is Mayor Mills."
He smiles again then. His concern seemingly alleviated by her response. He has dimples she notices, and it bothers her that she notices at all, bothers her that she can't seem to tear her eyes from him. He is handsome, but she can't bring herself to care, now more irritated by his presence. She just wants to be alone.
"Who are you?" She can't hide the annoyed exasperation in her voice, but in all fairness, she doesn't try.
He takes a step closer while pulling something from his back pocket, metal reflecting from his hand. "I'm Detective Locksley, Robin if you like, and I'm here to ask you a few questions about your," he pauses, unsure of what to call it, "ordeal."
Regina scoffs, then looks down at the blanket strewn across her lap, the abrasive material clenched in her fists. She knew this was coming, the questions. "Well Detective," she looks up, meets his eyes, "what took you so long?"