I'm so excited about this new story.
Richard is a cool character, and I really like what I've come up with.
Mostly all mapped out, so updates should be pretty close together.
Title comes from a Neko Case song.
Eventual M, but for now, it'll be pretty light, probably some language or violence.
Don't own, don't sue.
:) enjoy, and criticism or questions are definitely welcome.
"Emily? Emily.."
My eyes slide open and I am awake. I'm laying on my side, and my back hurts like hell and my head feels like it's split open. I glance around as much as I can without moving. I jerk up violently, remembering what had happened, but something cuts me and I scream out as I'm yanked back down to the floor. I am tied or strapped to something that hinders me from moving. I pull curiously and realize my hands are cuffed above me to an old iron radiator, and are now, thanks to me, bleeding and raw from where they've bitten into me.
"Emily?" someone says, and I freeze. Silence swells around me, and I know now what woke me up. I'm too afraid to move or lift my head or even breathe. I wait, listening.
"Emily, don't be afraid. You're not in any immediate danger," the stranger's voice says, and the fact that he says 'immediate' is absolutely not lost on me.
I do nothing but lay and start to shake, and my stomach churns and acid rises in my throat. I am stuck, and I am prisoner like I said I'd never be again, and the rest are either dead or drowning or being beaten by injuries. I am alone, and I am helpless. I try to stop them, but the tears inevitably start to come.
It's dark where they have me, and I can't see anything from under my hair and arm where I've hidden my face, but I can hear footsteps across the room getting closer. I start to shake outright, and my tears start to fully blind me.
The steps have stopped, but they're right in front of me and this man, whoever he is, he sighs and the floor creaks old under him and his weight shifts and suddenly there is a hand on my back, and I jump. My breath hitches and I start to really cry, loud sobs that echo across some empty space that I can't even see. My back and head and hands hurt, and as the tears fall slanting across my face, the salt interrupts more wounds to sting.
The man's hand start to move in what I'm sure is meant to be a calming gesture, but his touch is poisonous to me. I flinch away as best as I can.
"Emily, would you like me to help you up?" this man says, and, without waiting for my reply, his other hand joins his first to curve around my waist and hoist me into sitting. I convulse and a weird kind of whimper comes up and out of my mouth. The man at least doesn't let his hands linger, and for that, I am grateful.
My eyes are shut so tightly that there is pounding in my ears, but I refuse to look into evil eyes of this undoubtedly horrible man who has preyed on the weak and plucked me out of chaos into captivity. He and his people, the ones who grabbed me, who even after they shoved something scratchy over my head and I was blinded, I could hear whispering about me, these evil people, they would not get the satisfaction of breaking me.
Even as I thought it, I knew I didn't mean it. I am terrified as hell, like a little rabbit in a snake's cage.
The floor shifts again and I assume he's sitting back, waiting for me to look at him. Well, he can just keep waiting, because it's not going to happen. Suddenly, something touches my face, and I recoil back from it. From beneath the darkness of my eyelids, I hear a small laugh brash against the silence.
"I didn't mean to frighten you, I was just moving your hair from your face."
The gentleness of his voice surprises me, but I refuse to let my guard down about him, about any of them. I do, however, lift my eyelids slowly, the slightest bit.
The room they have me in is dark, and the man's face is obscured by it, easily dissected if I concentrated carefully, but I shift my eyes quickly so I don't lose my courage. I look around to keep distracted. Through my small amount of visibility, I can tell we're in a library of some sort. I can't tell how big the room is, but after looking up, I see a window near the ceiling and realize not only has the sunlight been forced out by two heavy curtains (leaving only a very dim light around the edges), but that they are also keeping me in a basement.
I blow the hair out of my eyes and turn, finally to study him.
From what I can tell, he could be anywhere from 35 to 45. He's fit and by the one side of his face I can make out, his jaw is strong and stubbly. His eyes are staring unblinking at me.
"Did I scare you, Emily?" he asks as I watch, and my trembling hits me again full force. My breath comes in puffs and my teeth start to click against in terror.
I can't draw my eyes away from his. It feels like he's hypnotizing me.
He reaches forward without warning, and again, I scramble as far away from him as possible, but it doesn't work, his hand keeps in motion through the darkness, touches my bottom lip and pulls it from between my teeth where I'd had it trapped subconsciously. I close my eyes and tears spill down my face.
"You shouldn't do that, Emily, your lips will-"
"How do you know my name?" I interrupt him, mid-sentence. Something in the back of my head, some trace survival instinct, pricks and tells me that I could have asked a better first question. 'Who are you,' 'Where am I,' 'What do you want from me,' all seem like significantly better choices.
His still-open mouth shuts and he tilts his head in, I don't know what, maybe surprise. He says, "I know a lot about you."
My eyes open and I find myself shaking my head in denial, I say, "You don't know me."
He stands suddenly, and I fall back, afraid of punishment, my knees scraping against the rough carpet in the effort.
He looks at me funny, but doesn't hit me or kick me, just turns and walks to a desk in the corner I hadn't noticed before. I'm extremely grateful for the distance and the darkness he's put between us.
It doesn't last. He doesn't sit at the desk, but snatches something from it's surface, and pulls a chair to me, the something in his hand, a manila filing folder I realize as he steps closer to me once again. He sits down, opens the folder, and I'm weary and afraid of what comes next, but he starts to speak.
"Your name is Emily Anne Abernathy. You are twenty-two years old, you were born in Boston, but you live currently in Melbourne, Australia. Your mom left your family when you were a child, but she's dead now, and your dad's in the hospital from kidney failure; that's where you were headed. You have two older sisters and a little brother, you work for a publishing company, you have a cat, you drive-"
"Stop!" I try to yell, but it comes out like a harsh sort of whisper. I'm crying, bawling, hunched over myself in fear and looking around in panic, my chest rising and falling so harshly with each sob that I start to feel light-headed. "How? How can you know?" I ask, desperately, searching, scraping my mind for something stable and steady and constant for me to latch onto, but I find nothing, and it leaves me flailing.
He looks up from where he sits on his wooden chair, his hands frozen on the file of my life feet from where I'm falling apart and says, quietly, "I know," he pauses and when he starts again, for the first time there is malice in his voice,"I know, Emily, because it's my job to know."
I reel back, panic cries out in my ears and fills my head and blocks my sight until I can't breathe, and I'm escape into blackness.