"I thought you wanted me to let me go."

Then her first tear falls. "I'm not so sure anymore."


Chapter 4: Depression


"What do you mean?" he asks with a frown.

She sniffs. "It's not like I have someone to go home to anyway."

He frowns at that. Does that mean that he'll have to kill her? What if no one pays her ransom?

She releases a sobbing breath, but her next one strangles in her throat. "My mother and father don't love me. My brother is gone. I have no one."

"You realize..."

She sniffs. "I don't care anymore. I don't want to live alone."

He knows that feeling well. "Will you tell me about them? Your family, I mean."

She lifts a shoulder in a shrug, maneuvering to face him for the first time in the conversation. She winces at her painful wrists, and he helps her get comfortable again, almost instinctively. Tears drip on to his hands and arms as he helps her sit and then lay down again.

She tells him that she left home because she didn't want to be like them, and that they stopped loving her after that. She tells him that her father is greedy and slimy, and that she hates him.

"I don't want his stupid money to save my life. I'll save myself or let you shoot me. I don't need him to rescue me."

He doesn't know if her attitude is brave or stupid, but he realizes that the emotional impact of her situation is catching up with her in a bad way. "If he saves you," he starts, but she cuts him off.

"If he saves me then I'll owe him. And I'd rather owe you people than him."

"What makes him so awful that you'd rather owe your life to a gang?"

She sniffs, and more tears fall from her eyes. "He never loved me or my brother. He just... went after all his money and political agenda... and he did the slimiest things to get where he is, and he never once thought to protect us. When my brother..." she chokes out a soft sob, and he feels the strange urge to comfort her. He's never wanted to comfort his... merchandise... before.

Why is this girl getting under his skin? How many others have cried and begged? But no... she didn't beg. Maybe that's why she's different. She wants to be brave. He'll comfort her if it helps her be. He's not sure why he cares if she's brave or if she's not. But she seemed special to him, ever since the first day. He sincerely hopes he doesn't have to kill her, but with each word and tear that wrenches itself from her soul, the possibility is dimmer and dimmer.

She's alone in the world. She has nobody except for him... her executioner.

Jesus.

She cries herself to sleep, and he watches her, his mood as dark as the room that surrounds them.


The next day, she's morose and refuses her breakfast again.

He's surprisingly gentle to her. He wants to hear about her, to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over her. He asks her to talk about her job, and that makes her glare as the tears fall. "I don't have one. I got fired two days before this all started. I wouldn't sleep with the manager so... the sluts that did got promoted, got the seniority... when they downsized, I was out."

"That's so low."

She scoffs. "I know." More tears. "I don't even have a job to get back to. I'm pathetic."

"You aren't," he says gently. "You're... you're brave. Be brave. Okay?"

She looks up at him then, a strand of hair sticking to the tears on her face. "Why should I be? Who will be waiting for me when this ends?"

"A stronger you than in the beginning."

She snorts, and her shoulders slump. "No," she shakes her head, and more sobs rise in her chest. "I know my father. There is nothing waiting for me when this ends."

He swallows.

"He's not going to pay for me, is he?"

He is silent, and she sobs for a long time.