Predator
Just another writing exercise. :)
Bella realizes several things as she wakes.
Ropes are knotted to her limbs, effectively keeping her hostage to the metal chair in which she is sitting. There is a matching table before her, where an emotionless man is standing. The walls of the small room are painted red with blood from past visitors.
Her eyes blink as she tries to remember how she got here, but she can't seem to get past the pounding in her head. What happened? She thinks to herself. She's coherent enough to know that nothing good could have placed her in this situation, but . . . What happened? Her heart beats against her fear-gripped chest as her breaths shorten.
This catches the man's attention. "You're awake," he says, and his shoulders relax. His expression softens to a friendlier one. "How are you feeling?"
Though he asks the question, she is well aware that this man doesn't care very much for the state of her well-being.
While she doesn't remember how she got here, she does remember a conversation she once had with Edward, in which he warned her of something like this.
Edward is a man of power – not even just him, though - his entire family. It's only natural that someone would try to challenge that. However he'd assured her that his family's power would always hold true.
If she was at any time unsafe . . . he would be there soon to remedy the problem.
He'll be here soon, Bella thinks to herself, I just have to make it until he gets here. I can do this. I can do this.
"If that bump on your head is any hint at all I'd say you have a mean headache," the man says sympathetically. "Would you like an aspirin?"
That's the worst thing that she could do. Accept medicine from her perpetrator?
How do I know I haven't already been drugged? The thought scares her even more than the current situation. What if they've done something to me? I don't feel like anything, aside from my obvious head injury, has happened. But then again, if I'd been drugged . . . How would I even know?
"You're usually more talkative than this," the man observes. "Is something wrong?"
How did he expect me to react to this? I'm being restrained, for Christ's sake! And how the hell does he know that I'm usually anything? I've never seen this man before in my life! Due to her position, she knows that her options of how to respond are limited. She does know that she cannot remain silent forever, though. It will anger him eventually.
She decides to take a friendly approach, similar to his own. She calms the shaking of her hands, breathes easily, and slows her heart rate before she responds. "I'm just a little surprised, is all. I'm sorry – I've been rude. What's your name, again?"
"Oh, I haven't told you my name."
"Could you?"
"Sure," he shrugs. "My name is Demitri, but you can call me Demit – all of my friends do."
She nods her head. "Well, Demit, it's nice to meet you. I'm Bella."
"I know who you are," he says, clasping his hands together in front of himself, still affable, but somehow less so. "I'd say I know you pretty well, actually."
Her eyes widen before she can stop them. It would have been better not to show her surprise, but the damage is done now. "So I take it you've been watching me for a while. Or you have had someone else watch me?"
"Look, Bella – why don't we skip through all of the stupid questions? There's no point in wasting time. You're here because I have a very important question to ask you and how you proceed will determine the outcome of your stay here."
"Oh," her eyebrows rise. "Okay. What's your question?"
"Where is Alec Volturri?"
"Who?" she asks, honestly confused. She's never even heard of him before.
Demitri puts his hands down flat on the table squaring his shoulders in a predatory stance. "Don't pretend that you don't know who I'm talking about. What did your little boyfriend do with him?"
Her eyebrows furrow. How would she know who he is? And why would he think that Edward would have told her what he did with the guy, if he even did anything at all? Edward doesn't tell her anything about his family's business. The fact that he's in the Italian mob is the most information she's ever been able to extract from him where his job is concerned.
"Look, hun," Demitri pushes off of the table, and begins to pace, still not crossing the boundary that the table sits. "You're a sweet girl – I don't want to hurt you," he says, "I really don't want to hurt you. But if you don't tell me what I need to know . . ." he shrugs his shoulders, "then that's what's going to happen. Just answer the question."
"But I don't know what you're talking about-"
"Don't give me that." He's becoming angry. "You're always with Edward Masoni; whether he meant to say something or not, something would have come out. Especially something as important as Alec Volturri."
She ignores the shiver that runs down her spine at the mention of his knowledge of her social life, instead focusing on the current situation. Where is Edward? This is getting scary, fast. She can tell that this is a man that she doesn't want to mess with.
"Come on," he urges her.
She stays silent.
"I didn't want it to come to this," he says sadly, shaking his head with pity, "but I guess it's the only way." He goes to the door. When the knob is in his hand he looks back and says, "Don't do anything stupid."
Once she's alone, she begins to think of ways to get out of her restraints. I need to get out of these ropes. There's no knife. I have no room to struggle. What if I tip the chair . . . It won't make a difference. Maybe I can get my legs free . . . he probably won't notice if my legs are free. Why would he look down? She leans forward to see how tightly her legs are bound, and finds that she is able to wiggle them a bit. As she does, she sees that some of her skin has been rubbed raw from the ropes already.
"How long have I been here?" she wonders aloud to herself in fear.
As she tries to figure this out, she remembers something else.
Something that happened earlier in the day.
Bella was sitting in the passenger seat in Edward's car. The top of the convertible was down, so her hair was all over the place. Her head was resting on his shoulder, and he was singing along to the radio.
"I'll be back at seven," he said as they pulled into her driveway. "We'll go to Romano's and then we can see a movie or something. Pack a bag; you'll stay at my place tonight." He kissed her forehead before she got out of the car, and then waved as he pulled out of her driveway.
When she approached her front door, she found that it was cracked. That's weird, she'd thought. She pushed the door the rest of the way open and peered inside.
A scene like none she'd ever seen before met her eyes.
It was her entire family – her mother and father, both of her brothers, her sister – even her dog . . . they were all there on her floor. Still-bleeding. Eyes open. Freshly dead. Gone.
Her hand instantly came over her mouth in a gasp. "No," she'd choked.
Then something hard came down over her head, and the world went black.
No, she thinks. They can't be.
But she remembers it all very clearly now.
They're all gone. Each and every one of them.
She doesn't have time to grieve, though, because the door begins to open. She wipes the pain off of her face to get back to the problem at hand.
Demitri reenters the room with a large bucket of water, a couple of wash clothes, duct tape, and . . . a friend.
"This is Tom," he says, introducing the man next to him. "He's going to help me out with this. Tom is going to cut you out of those ropes, and we're going to use some duct tape instead."
"Any reason why?" she asks with mild interest.
"Eh – just personal preference," Demitri says.
"Don't worry," Tom says, "It's just as secure as the ropes."
Well thank god for that, Bella thinks to herself sarcastically.
They manipulate her easily, cutting the ropes from her limbs so that she can stand, with Demitri holding her securely, while they lean the chair against the desk. Tom shoves her back down into the chair and tapes her wrists together before tipping the chair back to put her at an angle.
Then a cloth is tied around her head, and terror sets in.
She can hear the water splashing in the bucket.
She's heard of this before . . . and she knows that this will be torturous.
"Now," Tom says, "You're going to tell me what I need to know. This is your last chance before things get bad for you."
"But –" I don't know, she tries to say, but a cloth is shoved in her mouth before she can finish.
She thrashes in the chair as the water drips down her nose and throat, burning her on its way down.
She's suffocating.
She's drowning.
There's nothing she can do to get out of it.
After an immeasurable time they finally stop.
She gasps for air as the cloth leaves her face.
"Are you ready yet?" Demitri asks.
She isn't able to say anything at all before the cloth comes over her face, and the torture resumes.
They do this over and over and over again, until finally they do it for too long, and she loses consciousness.
Edward was sitting against a tree in the park with Bella between his legs. She was running her fingers along the veins in his right hand when she came across a scar. "How did you get this?" she asked.
He looked down momentarily to see what she'd been pointing at. "Don't remember."
She looked up at him doubtfully. It had obviously been a deep gash; there was no way he didn't remember how he got that scar. If Bella could remember that she got the small scar on the back of her leg from shaving, surely he could remember how he got a scar that ran the length from his wrist to where his ring and middle fingers joined.
She knew better than to question him. But that didn't stop her from saying, "It's new."
He had no response.
"Have you ever lost a fight?" she asked him after an awkward silence.
He scoffed. "I'm still here, aren't I?" he asked with a smirk.
Bella smiled at his confidence. "You don't have to kill the other person in a fight to win – it's just about the last one standing."
"That's not how it is in a real fight."
She thought about that for a few moments. "Can you teach me how to fight?" she asked, looking at him over her shoulder.
"What?" He was shocked. "Why would you need to know how to fight?"
"I could get into a fight with someone."
He laughed. "Fight about what? Who gets the last pair of Uggs in Macys?"
She rolled her eyes. "What if I got kidnapped?"
"You're not going to be kidnapped."
"You never know," she told him. "And you probably just jinxed me – thank you very much."
He laughed again, wrapping his arms around her tightly. He pushed her hair behind her ear so that he could speak clearly into it. "All you need to know," he said, "is that the best thing to do is to go for the eyes. Use a knife, your fingers, your keys – anything. Just go for the eyes."
When she regains consciousness again, she knows what she needs to do.
Someone is talking, but she isn't paying attention to what he's saying. Instead, she's focusing on the breaths that are coming closer and closer to her face, hinting at how close he is to her face.
She feels his hands come down on the side of her head to remove the covering on her eyes, and the second it's off she points her fingers, and stabs them into his eyes.
Demitri keels over from the pain, and Tom rushes over to him to see if he's okay, shock etched into his features.
Bella moves quickly, grabbing the knife that's sitting on the edge of the desk near her head, jumping up, and running from the room.
~ Madison ~