All it Takes is a Night CHAPTER 13
The silence is deafening.
I feel empty. Lonely. Violated.
You don't realize how much you regret until you're close to death. Until everything you have ever loved is stripped away from you.
I don't have Silver this time. No one came with me. Sonic isn't sitting in a chair next to me.
Shadow, my best protection, is dead. Never going to come back.
"Rouge?" His voice follows the sound of what I'm assuming is a plate coming into contact with a table.
He takes my blindfold off.
I blink, unable to rub my eyes. "What are you doing?"
"Well, I realized there's no way you'd know where you are. So there's no point in keeping you blind forever." Suddenly there's a fork in my face. "Eat. I don't want you to starve."
I turn my head away. "I don't want anything you have to give me."
"I know you're hungry. You were asleep for a while. I guess I got you so good you were too exhausted to stay awake." He smiles at himself.
Well, pretending to sleep when you're wide awake with fear for hours really makes you hungry. But, I wasn't about to tell this guy that. I have to stay strong. "Yeah, that tiny dick of yours definitely made me lose my appetite. No thanks."
"Why you little—"
"You'll never compete with 'Mr. Fuck Buddy'—" What? I didn't want to use his name. "His is huge."
He slaps me. But I don't stop. "He felt a lot better. And he's probably had sex a lot less than you have. How does that feel?"
"You're only saying that to make me mad. Never mind, no food for you." He picks up his plate and walks out to the kitchen nearby. I guess I'm in some sort of really small house or apartment. I'm assuming a house, as no one would be so stupid as to hold someone hostage in a place plenty of people occupy.
I can see by the light in the kitchen that this guy isn't as muscular as Shadow. He could've so easily taken him, if he wasn't stabbed by surprise. The image I could never get out of my head…
Maybe if I piss this guy off enough he won't want me anymore. "At least he's made me orgasm, and I enjoyed it very much."
He chooses to ignore me, and sits at a small table. He picks at the food he was about to feed me. "This isn't all about sex, Rouge. I want you to know that I actually love you. That one time was just to establish dominance. So next time, you'll learn to enjoy it. I just have to train you, which Jackson failed to do."
"I'm not a lap dog." I spit at him.
"You will be, soon."
I stare down at my feet, which ache. My whole body does, since I haven't moved in a while. "That's not what love is about, at all."
I realized, Shadow has never ever tried to change me. He never told me to not do something unless I was putting myself in danger. All those moments we had together, he was never forced to endure them. I was never forced to be with him. He was my first kiss in a long time that I actually wanted. Our relationship isn't just sex either, even though it was all we were doing the past 24 hours. It was fresh and new. We both realized how strong our feelings were. But all that didn't matter now. Our first kiss didn't matter. The first time he hugged me, laid with me, protected me; none of that matters now.
How am I going to survive this?
"This would just be so much easier if you cooperated with me, instead of fighting with me." He decides to give up on the food, and pushes himself up to walk towards the trash.
"Listen, um…"
"Just call me Lex."
"Lex? Is that short for something, or what?" Lex? He couldn't have come up with anything better?
"Don't worry about it."
"I need to ask, if you always kept such a good eye on me, how was Jackson able to lose me? To never find me while I was where I was?"
"Because that's the night I wanted to save you. Did you not listen to me? He stopped paying me that night. I was 'fired', you could say. So I didn't see you again after that, until I was invited to your little party last night. I was a friend of a friend." Lex chuckles.
"But if you wanted me… why didn't you just keep following me?"
"Everything got so crazy last night. At that point I couldn't even find you. And after Jackson tried to kill me, I first thought it was best to give up on you. But here we are." That dastardly smile again. "And I'm never letting you out of my sight."
Now I'm crying. "Why are you and Jackson so… crazy!? Why me!? What is so special about me!?"
"I don't know Rouge. But that's love for you."
I can feel it coming on. An anxiety attack like the one I had in the bath. That night with Shadow…
"That's him! Shut the door! Shut the door!"
"I'm sure it's no one, just— stop!"
"Shadow! Don't let him in! Don't let him in!"
"Rouge? Rouge look, I'm not Jackson! It's me, Shadow!"
All the flashbacks. I can't think straight.
"Rouge! Fucking look at me!"
That time with Shadow melts away. I know I can feel my eyes open, but I can't see what's actually around me. Now I see Jackson. Not Shadow. Not the bathtub.
"You've come back to me. Oh I've missed you so much Rouge. So much."
"Get away from me!"
"So you come back, just to torture me and push me away!? What kind of a person are you!? So horrible to me, just like before."
Going back to him. His house. Sonic.
"Maybe now I should show you the side of me you wish you never had to see."
I'm screaming now. I don't know what I'm screaming at.
Jackson. In front of me. Touching my face.
My cheek hurts. My cheek…
"Rouge. Rouge! Jackson is in jail! What are you talking about!?" Lex. Its him, not Jackson.
Not any better though.
"Y-you slapped me…" I feel the right side of my face throbbing.
"What was I supposed to do!? You were screaming like a maniac! And as far as I can tell, it worked." He leans back, crossing his arms. He raises an eyebrow at me.
Just like Shadow…
The tears. The tears are back.
"Please stop crying. You're such a baby. This isn't the Rouge I remember." Suddenly his hand is playing with my hair, which hasn't been cut in a while. "What happened to the spunky, always-found-a-way-to-get-what-she-wanted Rouge? The one who wasn't crazy?"
"I've been crazy since I met Jackson."
"I guess it'll be my job to fix you." Lex forces his mouth onto mine. "The more you obey, the easier it'll be on you.
…
It's been about a month now.
I only know because he keeps a little calendar in the kitchen. I always watch him when he goes to mark off another square with a little red X. Today is circled, and I'm nervous to find out why. Maybe I will when he gets home.
He always leaves. Every day. Maybe he has a job? I don't know. But he won't tell me. What am I gonna do? Run out of here and tell everyone he has a secret job at Taco Bell?
I've been getting a lot hungrier than usual lately. I mean, I've been pretty used to being on the verge of starvation, but now it's like every time I see any bit of food I want to devour it.
I can't resist when Lex feeds me anymore.
I have to. I can't push it away. And that makes him happy since I'm not resisting him so much. Maybe that's why he's seemed happier the past few days.
He unties one of my limbs a few times a day. One leg, then the other, then an arm, then the other. This way I can move a little, but he doesn't risk me fighting. But I'm still too weak to fight him.
But, I've given up anyway.
"Good afternoon, baby." Lex's voice interrupts my thoughts. I didn't notice him coming in.
"Hey." I whisper.
"Today's the day, Rouge." He marks the red X on the circled day.
"The day for what?" I ask.
"The day I reward you. You've been being so good lately."
I brace myself for whatever he has planned. I close my eyes and lay my head back.
He unties me.
All of me. At the same time.
"Wh-what?" I stammer.
"You've been good. Might as well give you free reign of the house. You broke a lot faster than I thought you would."
I stretch my weak arms. My brittle legs.
Still too weak to fight.
"Don't try escaping. I've got everything locked up with alarms and I've got footage in my room. You try to hurt me and I shoot you. But I won't be killing you. So imagine a leg wound with no treatment."
I cringe. "What do I do?"
"Whatever you want. Except, you know, leaving." He pulls me into a hug. "Thank you for finally accepting me."
"Accepting" him was the last thing I was doing. The fight had just left me.
It really feels so much better to be able to move though…
My stomach growls.
"Someone's hungry." Lex places his hand on my stomach. "You've really gotten an appetite lately. The hunger finally hitting you? I knew that's what would get you."
"Food. Please." I whisper.
"Okay, my princess." I didn't notice he came in with bags until he was reaching into one. He pulls out something. "Here. I got some special food for the occasion. I was so excited to let you out of that chair. Our life together is going to get so much better from here on out."
Lex pulls many things out of the bags on the counter. There's cheeseburgers and there looks to be soaps and hair stuff and some… tampons?
He notices the confused look on my face. "Oh, you have periods, don't you? I mean I thought they were monthly. I know it might just be late or you just got off before I got you. But best be prepared, right? I didn't know what kind to get so I just grabbed the most expensive kind."
My period? I almost forgot about that. Maybe it's late from stress, or my lack of nourishment.
Then the nausea hit me suddenly. I threw up right there.
Lex kept calm, told me it was okay, that I was just overwhelmed with being up on my feet again. But I couldn't keep calm. I knew what was wrong.
I'm pregnant. With Shadow's baby.