Chapter Nine

The next day, I wake up, the pain in my stomach just a dull throb. I groan and stretch my legs, scratching them as I do so. I sit up and wait for David to unlock the cellar door. But he never comes. After about fifteen minutes of waiting, I get impatient and wake up Chloe.

"Chloe! Chloe, wake up!" I say, waking her up.

"What?" Chloe asks tiredly.

"Why hasn't David come down to get us yet? It has to be eight at least and it looks like David already got Marsa and Ethan. So where is he?" Chloe furrows her eyebrows and shrugs.

"I don't know. Did you try the door to see if it was unlocked?" I shake my head, feeling foolish for not thinking of that sooner.

"Well let's try it." We walk up the steps and twist the doorknob. The door opens up to the hallway and I feel my cheeks flush in embarrassment.

"Oh. I knew that." I say stupidly as we step into the hallway. Chloe rolls her eyes and we take turns in the bathroom. Then we head to the dining room. As Marsa and Ethan serve us our food, David smiles warmly at me as if last night never happened. I smile back, wanting David to think I've fallen for his trick. He seems to buy it, and is very social throughout the entire meal.

After breakfast, I casually confront David.

"Hey." I say.

"Hi." David answers back.

"I was thinking that maybe we could play some games in the game room together."

"Um… S-Sure." David says, stuttering slightly. Yes, David, the crazy, psychotic stalker/kidnapper gets nervous when the girl he kidnapped wants to spend time with him.

We walk to the game room and start playing a bunch of different games. I beat him in Mario kart, and he beats me at Super Smash Bros Brawl. I totally destroy him at Assassin's Creed 3, but he makes a comeback with Guitar Hero. We decide to relax before the tiebreaker, seeing as we did skip lunch.

While we eat Fritos and Cheez-its, we decide to play Candor. It works like this: one person asks you a question, and you have to answer truthfully. Then you get to ask them a question. You keep playing until you get sick of it and both people have asked the same number of questions they answered.

We mainly ask each other stupid questions, like 'what's your favorite color?' or 'what kind of music do you listen to?' David basically already knows all of my answers, since he's been stalking me for seven years, but I learn quite a bit about him. I learn that his favorite color is green, he is 21 years old, his birthday is August 8th, he has no siblings, and he listens to grunge music (Mainly Nirvana).

There is one question that I've been itching to ask him, though. I need to know if he knows I self harm.

"Okay, so after this question, we should get to the tiebreaker." I say.

"Okay. Ask away!" David exclaims.

"So, before you, uh, took me, did you… um…. Did you watch me when I was getting dressed, or in the shower?" If he didn't, then he wouldn't know that I self harm. Because, when I'm dressing, you can see my scars, and I self harm in the shower.

"No." David chuckles darkly.

"I'd figured I'd see you some day, with your actual consent, so I decided I could wait a few years." Heat rushes to my cheeks and I look down, embarrassed.

"So… Let's get on with the tiebreaker." I say awkwardly.

"Which game should we play?"

We end up picking Just Dance, because all of the other games I hadn't played before, David hadn't played before, or they were only single player.

"Let's play Just Dance 5." David says, holding up an unopened case.

"How did you get that?" I ask.

"They haven't even announced its release yet."

David just smiles and says "I have my ways. This would be a good tiebreaker, since neither of us have played it before, but we're both familiar with the series."

"Well…. Okay, fine." I say. I'm actually pretty good at Just Dance, so this will be a piece of cake.

"But we should both do a solo to warm up, and then the tiebreaker will be a duet. Deal?"

"Deal."

David puts the game in and selects it in the menu. We look through all of the songs, then decide which ones to do. David ends up doing People by AWOLNATION, and he was actually really good. He was definitely better than I thought he would be. I do Cover Up by Imagine Dragons, and the whole time I can feel David's eyes staring at me. After I'm done, we decide to do a warm up with a duet, since there is a different mode for duets in this version. We do Nicotine by Panic! At The Disco and Party Poison by My Chemical Romance for our warm ups.

"So, are you ready to get your butt kicked?" I cockily ask David.

"Never in your wildest dreams, Love." David sneers. We decide to do Just Give Me A Reason by P!nk and Nate Reuss. As we dance to the music, our bodies dance in unison, getting perfect on all of the moves. I find it kind of ironic that David, the psycho stalker, and I, the self harm freak, are dancing to this song. The song is all about imperfect people and their imperfect love. There's a line that says We're not broken, just bent, and we can learn to love again, and it seems so relatable. We are both 'bent' in a sense, so it seems fitting to dance to this song.

At the very end of the song, I trip on my own feet like an idiot and start to fall backwards. David catches me by the waist, and for a moment we stare into each other's eyes. As I look into David's bright green eyes, I see longing, lust, and… what might have been… love. David pulls me up slowly as he leans in. I don't know what to do. I can't breathe. I can't move. I can't think. All I can do is watch helplessly as David's lips meet mine. After a few moments of me not reacting, David slightly moves his lips from mine.

"Kiss back." He growls. I immediately unfreeze and spring into action. I kiss David back and wrap my arms around his neck. Our lips move in sync as David's arms rub up and down my back. Suddenly, the door opens, and Marsa starts to speak.

"Master, miss, it's time for dinne-" She stops talking mid- sentence as she realizes what we're doing. David and I break apart, thoroughly embarrassed.

"Oh, sorry master! I won't disturb you again." Marsa quickly closes the door and I can hear her running down the hallway. David laughs quietly as he lets go of me.

"You have no idea how long I've waited for that." David takes my hand and squeezes it reassuringly. We both look at the TV screen and see it still has our dance scores up.

"I won!" David says triumphantly.

"You only won because I tripped at the end!" I claim.

"Well, that doesn't change the fact I still won. And since I won, you have to do me a favor." I sigh.

"Fine. What do you want?" I ask.

"We'll see." David says mysteriously.

"Come on, let's go get some dinner." David leads me out of the game room, still holding my hand. As we're walking, I shed a single tear, but wipe it away before David notices. I shed a tear because that was my first kiss. My first kiss was stolen by my psycho stalker. Maybe I wouldn't care as much if it were my second or third kiss, but it was my first kiss. It's a memory that I will never forget. I mean, it wasn't horrible. It just felt…. Weird. I would relish that moment, though, because that was the first and the last time I felt comfortable around David.

At dinner, David is beaming. He talk about all sorts of things that no one really cares about, but he doesn't seem to notice that no one's listening. As Marsa and Ethan clear our plates, David suddenly slams his hands on the table, making everything jump.

"Oh! I forgot! I'm moving you upstairs now. You'll never have to see the cellar again."

"Thank you, David. That's really nice of you." I say, giving him a smile.

After dinner, David shows us our rooms. Mine is slightly bigger than Chloe's, but she didn't seem to notice. Both rooms have a walk-in closet already filled up with clothes and a connecting bathroom. My room is violet, and Chloe's is pink.

As David leaves my room to go to bed, he turns around.

"By the way, you can take the gauze off your stomach tonight. Try not to do anything that will open up the scar again, okay?" I nod and David smiles. Then he closes the door and I am left alone for the first time today.

I walk over to the bed and lay on it. It's really comfortable, and I feel myself slowly losing consciousness. Suddenly, my door opens and Chloe walks in the room, slamming the door shut.

"What were you thinking?" Chloe says loudly, but not loud enough that any one else could hear. I sit up abruptly, still on my bed.

"What are you talking about?" I ask, confused.

"The kiss!" Chloe says angrily.

"Marsa told me before you got to the dining room. We made a pact to stick together, to be wary of David, to not let him in. but lo and behold, you just totally disregard it and get all cozy with him!"

"I was acting, Chloe! I didn't want to kiss him. It just happened. I couldn't control it. I'm sorry." I plead.

"That's not a good enough excuse! You don't come back to the cellar last night until I'm asleep, which is saying something, since I was up for a while waiting for you, and now you're all buddy buddy with David! What happened?"

"You want to know what happened?!" I yell.

"This happened!" I pull up my shirt to reveal my stomach. The gauze held up fairly well, but a huge blot of blood still bled through.

"He told me it was because I was ignoring him! Now do you see? I couldn't let him think that way. If he continued to think I ignored him, he would go after you. I can't let that happen. If only one of us gets out of this hell hole, it has to be you. Please forgive me." Chloe looks at my stomach, shocked, and then does something completely unexpected. She hugs me.

Now, let me get this straight: Chloe is extremely claustrophobic. She can't handle tight spaces, and hates hugs. In fact, this is probably the second time she's ever hugged me in the five years I've been her best friend, the first time being after Laura was kidnapped.

I get over my initial shock after a second and hug her back. After a moment, we separate, and Chloe walks to the door. She looks back at me through the doorway and whispers something.

"Just remember not to fall for him." Then she closes the door, and I am left alone once again.

For a second, I just sit on the bed. And then I get up and change into pajamas and go into the bathroom. I look at myself for a few seconds before starting to unwrap the gauze from my stomach. I take my time, imagining what it will look like. I finally unwrap it all the way and throw the gauze in the garbage.

I look at the wound, and realize David carved letters into my stomach. It spells out one single word: Always.

As I'm staring at the single word written on my stomach, I realize what David meant. I will always be stuck here with David. I will always be forced to act like I love David. I will always have to kiss David. I will always wake up in the morning and see David. I will always be David's, and David's only.

I quickly put my shirt down and leave the bathroom. I climb into bed, telling myself it's not true. I'll escape. I won't always be David's little pet. But in the back of my mind, there was still one tiny little seed of doubt. As I fall asleep, the seed of doubt asked me, Are you sure?

The answer, of course, was no.