For a long time after that night they lose any progress they'd made, hardly talking and arguing when they do. Paul just doesn't know how to make her understand. She doesn't seem to want to.
"It's just how things are here." He tries one morning, and she moves for the first time, flinging a plate at him. It doesn't do any good - it's paper of course - but the eggs on it spill to the floor and it makes him mad.
"Those were our last ones!' He cries. He could have saved them, made pancakes or omelette.
"He'll bring more won't he? You can put it on your f*cking shopping list!" She screams at him suddenly. Her eyes are bloodshot.
"That's not-" He stammers.
"You can bake a cake and we can have tea and then that son of a bitch can come back and- and-" Her voice breaks and she falters. Paul is too stunned to speak. "We'll be here until we're old and grey and pass peacefully in our sleep, right? Oh god." Emma trails off. "I can't breathe."
"We're alive." He says suddenly, crouching in front of her. "Just think about that, nothing else. You have to breathe." He says stupidly. "Please Emma, you can't die." He begins to cry on that last word, and she abruptly stops. The suddenness and bizarreness of it snaps her out of her panic.
"You've been here for so long." She breathes. "I'm so sorry."
"Why are you-" He hiccups. "I'm sorry. I always thought that as long as I was here, alive, maybe he wouldn't- hurt anyone else."
"He... hurts you."
"Doesn't matter." He shakes his head. "Just... don't go crazy. If you yell like that when Nick's here..."
"What?" Her voice is faint.
"The first week I was here... I thought I was gonna die. He hit me so hard and I couldn't even get up for a few hours. God, I've never told anyone about this before."
Emma starts to hyperventilate, quieter than before.
"Nonono, I'm sorry- if you listen to him then he probably won't do that, Emma, it was just because I was trying to get out-"
She stomach drops for the hundredth time that week. "Of course I'm going to try and get out!" She cries. "I have a life, a family! I was going to visit my sister, and her kid-" She chokes on a sob and rushes to the door suddenly, sort of limping but making it there regardless. Paul runs to her side, eyes wide.
"No!" He says, grabbing her arm as she bangs on the door as she has so many times before. "I just told you, Emma. Not again. Please."
She looks into his eyes and her leg throbs, and she thinks of every other time she's tried to fight, thinking she'll get out or die. Neither has ever happened.
And for the first time since waking up in this godforsaken shed, she stops herself from screaming.
And she sits back down.
...
"The thing is." Paul says as he makes coffee for them both. "The problem is, that he locks the door behind him."
Emma glances at him sharply. He hasn't addressed the possibility of escape before.
"So even if we combined our efforts and overpowered him..."
"We could kill him but then what? Wouldn't have the code."
"... And we'd starve here. Nobody would ever find us."
Paul hands her a cup, styrofoam and useless like everything else here.
"And the chance of us getting out before he locks the door..."
"We could be fast." She suggests, unconvinced. "Faster than that lumbering jackass."
But Paul shakes his head. "With your leg? And I haven't run anywhere in years."
"I could get out, go and find help."
Paul's eyes flash with alarm and she clarifies before he can speak. "I wouldn't leave you here, of course, I'd come back for you as soon as I
could."
"It'd be too late." He says breathlessly. "He'd kill me and get the hell out of Hatchetfield."
"...Ok." She says firmly. "That's a no-go then."
"What?" Paul blurts out.
"What do you mean, what? I'm not leaving you to die, dumbass."
Paul smiles at her like she is everything to him. What Emma doesn't realise is in that moment, she is.
"I'm sorry I've been... kind of a dick." He says as his smile fades.
"What? Dude, none of this is your fault."
"No, but... I guess I should've been trying to help you, all this time. Instead of just telling you to accept- whatever this is."
Emma brushes away the grim satisfaction she feels at that admission, doesn't say I told you so or finally. What she says instead is: "You went through this too."
He nods, stirs his coffee. "I've never been so scared in my life. For about a month, I did everything I could to- to get out." He trails off but she waits for him. "I, uh, lost my voice, from shouting; ripped my nails off trying to pull the carpet up, but its all concrete underneath anyway." He rubs his thumb along his fingertips, takes a sip of coffee. "I begged Nick. Haven't done that in a long time." He laughs bitterly. Emma doesn't like the sound. She likes when his laugh is surprised, bright. "It doesn't work. None of it worked."
"It just hurt you more." Emma looks away.
"I was trying to protect you."
"You can't."
"I know."
She reaches out a hand. He looks at it, resting palm up on the table. Then he takes it.
"Do you like it here?" Emma says.
"No." He says softly. Like saying it aloud is what makes it true.
"Ok. Me neither. You don't have to act like it's all normal. This is sh*t for us both."
"I couldn't keep fighting. The fire went out." It's unusually poetic for him, and she softens.
"Nobody could, not for six years. It's ok. But I'm here now, and I've still got some spark. And maybe there's still embers left in you, too." She smiles at him, small but real.
"Next time." Paul whispers, and Emma has to lean into hear him. "But it has to be sensible. You get the chance, and I'll help you. Together."
She squeezes his hand, then lets go to grab her coffee. She downs it in one. "Ok."
...
Sensible is not really in the realm of possible escape plans. They can't dig out, can't call for help, can't smash the skylight and can't crack the passcode for the door. It basically leaves jumping Nick and trying to overpower him, which is kind of crazy and has been proven, on separate occasions, to be difficult. He's a big guy, and frankly he acts like he might kill them at any given moment. But one day, Emma starts to think about weapons, and it starts to become less impossible. The lid from the cistern of the toilet is gone already (Paul tells her late one night about the time he'd cracked it over Nick's head, almost made it out). But there are other things in here. The bed, for one. The sheets? Could they disassemble the frame, or break the legs off of the plastic chairs? She suggests it to Paul one day, in a hushed tone.
"The sheets could work." He says breathlessly. "Brute force didn't, before. He has a thick skull, I guess."
"Ugh, shame there seems to be a brain in there somewhere too." She'd joked.
So the day comes where they stand either side of the door as the sun sets, with a bedsheet wrapped around Emma's hands and Paul's clutching a shard of plastic from the frame with shaking hands. They don't say anything, too afraid of missing their cue. Finally, after what feels like days, when Paul is about to suggest trying again tomorrow, they hear the beeps. The door whooshes open, and-
With all her strength, Emma flings the sheet around Nick's neck and pulls, tight. He roars with anger or pain, and the noise makes her scream back. Paul screams too, tries to hold the door open but Nick is ahead of him, kicks Paul's legs out from under him when he gets close. He throws himself back into the wall and crushes Emma, who's practically hanging off of his back, against it. She makes a soft noise of surprise before sliding to the ground. There's a crimson stain smeared down the wall where she falls. Paul thrusts the plastic shiv into Nick's shoulder, careful not to slice anything vital - in the tussle, the heavy door has swung closed, and if Nick dies they really will be stuck.
The jagged edge sticks and he cries out, punches Paul hard now that he's not being held back by the sheet around his neck. Emma still isn't moving.
"You little sh*t." He laughs, and it makes Paul want to throw up. He scrabbles for the sharp plastic but its too flimsy and he can't wrench it out of the soft flesh its now embedded in.
"Don't." He manages before Nick grabs him round the neck and doesn't let go, just squeezes tighter and tighter until Paul's vision goes dark. He hears shouting as he scratches blindly at his throat.
"Stop it, please!" It sounds like Emma. Is she ok? "I'm sorry, it was my idea, I'm sorry!" There's a crack and the pressure releases, but he can longer stand as he slips through Nick's grasp, so he just makes himself small as he drops to the floor and sucks in as much air as he can.
"Oh, you are going to pay for that, b*tch." Its Nick's voice again, and Paul wants Emma back, where'sEmmaissheok? But before he can answer any of those questions, his body finally gives out on him, and Paul passes out.
...
They don't see him after that for 2 weeks. Paul had woken to a dazed Emma sitting by his side, tear tracks dried on her cheeks.
"You ok?" She asks him in a hoarse whisper, but he finds he can't speak through the sensation of gravel filling his throat, so just nods instead. Nick really did a number on his vocal cords; it takes a couple of days before he can manage full sentences. He's just happy Emma is still here, given that the current options are here or dead.
The power shuts off too, the heating and the lights - they only have water, and cold water at that.
"He's trying to teach us a lesson." Paul says after the first week. "He's done it before." But never for this long, he thinks. It's a power play but what if its real this time? When Sunday comes and Nick doesn't, he does his best not to think about how the food is running out, how it's January and freezing cold at night.
"He wouldn't leave us here." Emma whispers. It's Wednesday and they're lying on the bed, with all their layers on and a towel to replace the bedsheets that disappeared along with Nick. "He went to so much effort to get us in the first place."
Paul isn't so sure, but he doesn't say a thing. He hugs her towards him and she doesn't pull away.
"Tell me he wouldn't."
"He wouldn't." Paul whispers. "He'll come back."
"It's so cold."
"I know." His teeth are chattering and so are hers. "It's gonna be ok, ok?"
"O-ok." Emma rolls over, leans her head on his chest.
"Ok."
...
On the two week mark (the best they can tell, with no calendar and no power for the TV or digital clock), the lights flicker back on. It's still colder than Emma has ever been, but at least they can see better now. Although she wishes she couldn't when Nick storms in that night - the icy rage on his face is enough to make her shiver.
"I'm disappointed in you, Paul." He shakes his head like he's scolding a school child. "I really thought we'd been over this. Was bringing Emma here a mistake?"
It feels like a trick question, so Paul doesn't say anything. Emma feels like she couldn't move a muscle even if she wanted to. But Nick takes a step towards him, and she panics: "I'm so sorry." She blurts out. "We understand - I understand now. Y-you look after us, and we shouldn't take that for granted." She swallows down bile at the thought of being grateful to her kidnapper, but she has to play the part now to save them both from whatever horror is about to happen next.
Time crawls by and Emma thinks about a girlfriend she once had. She'd been funny and bubbly, and not at all like her - but when Emma had been out all night at some bar or gotten drunk at a family dinner, she'd had this look that had seemed so... betrayed. Like she was realising someone she held so dear to her wasn't who she thought she was at all. That is the way Nick is looking at her now, and it makes her skin crawl.
Then he shatters the brittle silence. "You'll understand if I don't return the sheets to you." He says matter-of-factly. Emma nods. "And I'll do some proper shopping tomorrow, but in the meantime-" He plonks a bag of pasta on the table.
"Thank you." Emma breathes, and it feels genuine until she remembers her act with a jolt. "Sorry again."
"Don't grovel, girl." He rolls his eyes and she flushes red. "I'll see you tomorrow." Then he's gone.
Emma can hear Paul's heavy exhale from across the room. "Are you alright?" She rushes over to him. He looks at her with a blank expression.
"Just... remembering."
"I was only telling him what he wanted to hear, Paul." She feels strangely defensive.
"I know." He says quickly. "That was brave."
"I don't feel it." She leads him over to the kitchen table and they sit.
"Brave people never do." A ghost of a smile crosses his face. "Pasta for dinner?"
"Nothing better." Emma gives his hand a squeeze, then moves to boil some water.
Still alive.
...