**Chapter 3**

***Aria's POV***

The next time I was awoken by the lights and sirens the room was freezing cold. My nakedness did nothing to keep me warm and I felt exposed even beneath the comforter. Charles was probably watching and I snuck a look at the camera in the corner. My breath fogged in the air and I pulled the comforter closer to my body. I glanced around the room, seeing that there was a glass of water sitting on the side table with a nightgown next to it. I peeked at the camera once more, hoping that Charles wasn't watching right now as I slipped out from under the covers to grab the glass of water and night gown. The floor was cool under my feet but not freezing thankfully. I took a drink of the cold water, feeling it soothe the burning in my throat and the dryness in my mouth. I pulled the thin nightgown over my head, the fabric nearly see-through and barely long enough to cover my ass. I grabbed the glass of water and climbed back under the covers, trying to stay warm. I shivered when I took a drink from the water, but I knew that I needed it and the water felt so good as it ran down my throat. When it hit my stomach it growled at the lack of food and I couldn't remember the last time that I had eaten anything.

I took another drink of the water, enjoying it as it slaked my thirst. My vision began to blur the more I drank til my fingers could barely hold the glass up. I looked into the water, seeing some particles down at the bottom of the glass and realizing that Charles had drugged the water. My breathing increased and I almost wanted to throw up to get rid of whatever drug had been in the water. I needed the water though and I didn't know how long it would be until Charles gave me water again. I drained the glass and fell back onto the bed, the glass slipping from my fingers and falling onto the carpet below

I woke up in a new room, the walls were bare and grey with the floor a dirty concrete. I was tied to a chair in front of a table with three switches in front of me, each with a picture of one of my friends. My hands were left free, but my legs were tied at two different points and another rope secured my torso to the chair. A projection appeared on the opposite wall suddenly, making me jump slightly.

"Who will be shocked? Pick one or all suffer." The projection showed.

I looked at the switches on the table, horror struck me when I realized that Charles was going to make me electrocute one of my friends. I shook my head, unable to fathom hurting any of them.

"Choose now." The computerized female voice sounded.

Still I couldn't do it. I didn't want to hurt anyone, how could they ask me to choose who to hurt. Suddenly the voice picked up again, counting down from five.

"No, no, no, no." I chanted as the voice neared zero.

As soon as time ran out, I felt the shock wave pass through me making me scream. I heard the screams of my friends reflected. When the electricity stopped, my tears began. I started sobbing at the cruelty. My body thrummed with pain when the voice repeated the option.

"Who will be shocked? Pick one or all suffer."

She started counting down and I wasn't sure if I could take it another time. She got to one before I hit the switch for Spencer. A tear rolled down my cheek as I did it, her scream echoing through the room. I only had a moment to break down sobbing before the projection changed and the voice came through the air again.

"Who doesn't get water today? Choose one or all suffer."

I stared at the switches again, knowing that I had to remember everything that I was doing. If I was going to hurt my friends then I wasn't going to let anyone bear the brunt of the damage. This time when it reached one I flicked the switch for Hanna. The questions continued. Who gets food? Who gets the freezing room? Who gets the roasting room? Who will be beaten? Who would be poisoned? I remembered every choice I made in that room, Trying not to let anyone get hurt too badly but knowing that if they ever found out that it was my choice that they suffer then my friends would never forgive me. Gas was released into the room when the game was over for the day, making me dizzy. I fell into unconsciousness.

Trigger Warning: Explicit descriptions of sexual assault

When I woke up I was tied to my bed, my hands and feet bound and a gag in my mouth. I looked down, only to see that I was naked as well, the sheet completely removed from the bed and the room was freezing again. I felt my nipples tighten from the cold. I pulled at the bindings but they held tight and every pull made the ropes cut further into my skin. I heard the movement before I saw him. He still wore the mask, but aside from that he was completely naked. There was too little light in the room for me to make out any distinctive characteristics and I realized that it would be a repeat of last night. He stroked his cock til it was hard and then he moved to the bed. Instead of settling between my thighs immediately, he moved to my head and began unfastening the gag which was tied in my mouth.

I felt tears form in my eyes as I realized that he was going to fuck my mouth. Once the cloth was clear I slammed my mouth shut in refusal. He shook his head at my action before pinching my nose so that I would only be able to breathe by opening my mouth. I held out for as long as I could before desperation for air made me open my mouth. Immediately he shoved his cock fully in my mouth and I began choking as it hit the back of my throat. He grabbed the back of my head and moved me back and forth as he thrust into my mouth, shoving himself deeper and deeper. I felt the urge to cough every time he hit the back of my throat but he never let me have a moment to breathe.

He pulled out of my mouth before refastening the gag and moving further down my body. I could see my spit on his cock and I figured at least this time when he fucked me it wouldn't be quite as painful as there was at least some lubrication. He settled himself for a moment between my thighs before plunging into me again. I whimpered against the gag and he slapped me across the face once more. The tears streamed down my face as he thrust into me, grasping at my breasts as he did so. His fingers pinched at my tightened nipples, which were already sensitive from the cold.

My body went slack as I stopped fighting against him. This was my fate. Maybe I deserved it for what I did to my friends earlier. I had hurt them and now he was hurting me. He buried his hand in my hair once more and pulled me up so that I was looking at his mask. Again he finished inside me, making me fear that I hadn't take my birth control since I had been kidnapped. I pushed that fear to the side though, what did it matter? I probably wasn't going to survive long enough for it to be a problem.

*End explicit content*

I kept track of days by how many times he visited me. I figured it was once a night, but I couldn't keep track of how long it had been that I was being punished for. My room seemed to close in on me more and more every day, and if I thought Charles could manage it I would think that he was actually making my room smaller every night. My body was constantly sore, bruising evident on my hips and breasts as well as across my face and covering my throat. I could hear my friends crying from their cells, begging for food, for water, retching from the poison that I was giving them. Every night before I fell asleep I cried while recounting everything that I had done to them. How many times I had shocked Hanna, whether the frigid room alternating with the sweltering room was hurting them. Always making sure that they got the water when they had the hot room. A small notebook tucked in the back of the nightstand drawer a written reminder for the damage I was doing to them.

Every night, Charles came in and raped me. My body was constantly sore and I wondered how much longer I could survive this. After three days, I had been given food. I scarfed it down so fast that I was amazed it didn't make me sick. He had come seven times at night when I received the bottle of pink hair dye with directions to apply it.

"I'm not your doll." I had told the camera, ignoring the bottle.

That night, I was dressed in a doll's dress my limbs sluggish from being drugged. He shoved himself into my mouth again, before bending me over the bed. My legs were too weak to hold my weight so I was just slumped there. Instead of thrusting into my pussy he placed his cock at my ass before pushing in slowly. It was probably the gentlest that he had ever been, but the agony of being stretched without any lubrication left tears running down my face the entire time that he thrust into me.

"You are my doll. You belong to me." He informed me as he continued to fuck my ass.

He repeated it again and again while he wrapped his hands around my throat, not stopping as I thrashed on the bed and gasped for air. Not even when I begged did he release. My vision began to fade around the edges and I was sure that he was going to kill me.

When I woke I was naked again. I noticed there was a message above my side table, "Use it now or lose it all." I sat up, feeling that my head was so much lighter. My hands went to my hair which now fell just past my jaw. My pillow was still covered with the dark locks. I robotically grabbed the hair dye and began coloring my hair so that it had pink streaks like when I was younger. When I was done, I noticed that there was a small note under where the dye bottle had been placed.

"I like your pink hair." It read.

Instantly, I was reminded of Jason back before we knew that Alison was alive. The memory of being free of this prison brought tears to my eyes. I missed Jason, I realized. More than I thought I would. That memory of him though was tainted. I didn't want to think of that though. I didn't want to lose the comfort that his presence gave me. I curled up in a ball on the bed, crying for the life that had been taken away from me.

I didn't get clothes back for four more days and even then it was only the doll's dress. I didn't want to wear it but knew that if I refused I would be punished even more. The games continued every day and when he was done with me at night, I just wanted everything to be over.

After fifteen days he left a bottle of pills for me on the night stand. I cried as soon as I saw them. He was offering me a way out of the torment, but I couldn't take it. I wouldn't give up, not with my family still wondering where I was. I threw the pills across the room. He was gentle that night, probably taking my refusal to die as a sign that I had accepted this. After he finished, he held me for a while. He crushed me so tightly to him though that every bruise and unhealed cut roared with pain. My body wasn't healing because of the horrible condition I was being kept in. I ate every three or four days and sometimes it was only barely cooked meat which made me sick. Water came every other day. He let me sleep only so that he could come in and rape me when I was off my guard. Some days he played the sirens for hours after I crawled under the bed holding my ears.

I barely had enough energy to play the games and flip the switch, I could barely stand on my own. Most of the days I stayed curled up in the bed, crying the whole time. On day 21, I woke up to find that I was suspended naked from the ceiling in the freezing room. What little energy I had was used to lift myself up to relieve the blood rushing to my head. I passed out from all the blood rushing to my head and woke up in the game room by being shocked.

After day 27, I got real clothing. No shoes still and no underwear either though at least I got a bra. That was the day that the door unlocked. The female computerized voice ordered us to proceed to Ali's room and prepare for arrival. I was shaking when I exited my room, the others looked about as shaky as I did. Emily comforted that now that we were together we would be okay, that our punishment was over.

Ali's room was empty when we got there, instead filled with boxes but Mona was nowhere in sight. There were a couple of newspaper clippings in the boxes, they were the first scrap of news from the outside world. But the news was far from comforting, Ali was a sitting duck without police protection. Soon she would be joining us here.

I unpacked the closet while the others worked on the box. I had already put a few of the hangers in when I saw the message carved into the back of the closet.

"He's going to kill me. –M"

I called Spencer over to look at it, wanting someone else to confirm what I was seeing. My fear for Mona skyrocketed the moment Spencer saw it. We had to escape before Ali arrived, otherwise there would be no saving Mona. I continued to shake as I unpacked the closet, my eyes drifting over to the other girls. They were still visibly shaken from our four weeks of punishment, but none of them had the same bruises that I did. No marks marred their faces and no one else had choke marks around their necks. I hoped none of the others got the nightly visits. The thought caused tears to come to my eyes, but I blinked them back, opting to finish working instead.

Once we finished unpacking the boxes, we retreated back to our rooms. When I walked in I saw a box sitting on the bed, it was filled with my things from home. A shiver ran through me when I picked up my Pigtunia puppet. Charles had been in my house, with my parents and brother. I felt a protective instinct fill me, furious that he would dare try and hurt them. I could take the punishment that he dealt out, but he couldn't do that to my family. I clutched the puppet close to my chest, trying to draw some comfort from it before I carried it out towards the other girls' rooms. I heard voices in Hanna's room and saw that Emily was already in there.

"A is making this house our home." I commented when I walked into the room, holding Pigtunia up as evidence.

"He took our stuff before he brought us here." Spencer said, holding up a necklace for us to see. "I thought I lost this ages ago."

"He planned to bring us here the whole time." Emily spoke our thoughts. "To live like his dolls."

I shivered at the words. I didn't want to be a doll, but that is what we all seemed to be. I glanced quickly at Emily, wondering if he had called her the same thing and that was why she used those words. I was so lost in thought that it took me a minute to realize that the paper Hanna passed to me was really about our families, about how they were losing hope. They couldn't though, I couldn't stand the thought that they were suffering because of A.

"They're barely hanging on to hope."

"I don't wanna hear that." I responded, pushing the article away from me. I couldn't look at it. It would only confirm my fear that my family was giving up. That my suffering was in vain. I wasn't sure how much longer I could go on if my family wasn't looking for me anymore.

"Like you said, that's probably not even real." Emily attempted to reassure me.

"Real or not they don't know where we are. They don't even know if we're alive." The fear spread through me and I could feel my heart breaking as I looked to see my pain reflected in the others. "Can you just imagine what they're going through?"

"It plays in my head on a loop." Spencer admitted. "Day after day, night after night."

Suddenly, I didn't care that Charles would punish me. Anger bubbled up within me and I felt the most alive I have for the past few weeks. I spun around to look at the camera, the recording light taunted me as it flashed on and off.

"I will kill you for what you're doing to our families. Do you hear me?" I snapped, letting the new feeling of anger bubble up to the surface.

Spencer and Emily grabbed me, trying to calm me down. I knew that they didn't want to be punished by Charles again, but I couldn't stand that my family was hurting. I took a breath, looking at the other girls before moving away from the camera, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me upset.

"Not knowing where I am has made my mom physically sick." Hanna broke the tension, tears filling her eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself in comfort. "They took her to the hospital."

I put my hand on her shoulder, hoping to offer some comfort. Maybe she didn't know it was me that pulled the switch yet and would accept comfort from me. She didn't flinch away from me, so that was something at least.

Spencer began shuffling around the room, turning away from us to look at the box and she began grabbing things out of it. "Let's all help Hanna unpack." She suggested.

I stared at her like she was a crazy woman. How could she think that unpacking into this hellhole would help anything right now. She grabbed two items and handed them to Emily and me.

"Hanna I'm going to help you unpack." She announced before her voice dropped down to a whisper. "We're going to find Mona and we're going to get out of here tonight."

"How?" Emily questioned, as we watched Spencer.

Spencer looked at us for a moment before turning back to the box of things on Hanna's bed. She grabbed something out and turned back to us, holding a red etch-a-sketch in her hands.

"Did you guys know that I won an etch-a-sketch contest in third grade." Spencer said nervously, shifting the red toy between her hands.

"Of course you did." I commented, eyeing the camera in the corner before looking down at the toy in her hands.

"I can draw some really cool pictures." She said before switching to a whisper again. "The generator still shuts down for the switch over."

I looked at her, not realizing that I had never heard the generator shut down. I must have been asleep by that point. I wondered if it was before or after Charles nightly visit.

"Yeah, I know." Emily whispered, which made me think that perhaps she wasn't being visited in the night. "I heard it too, but I was too scared to leave my room."

"See." Spencer said before turning the etch-a-sketch towards us. She had scrawled a message on the screen which read 'Charles is a DiLaurentis.'

I stood shocked there, looking at Spencer. I knew that the others were looking at her as well. I couldn't believe that Charles was related to Ali and Jason. A wave of nausea filled me when I realized this. Maybe that was why Charles mimicked what Jason had said. We quickly unpacked Hanna's box before separating and going back into our own rooms. I made it back to my room, unpacking my box as well. I laid down to rest, knowing that if Charles did come before the generator shut off if I was awake he would know that we were planning something. I closed my eyes and waited for him to come or the generator to shut off, whichever came first.

**End Chapter**