Longest chapter so far coming up (or well, below) :P
Thanks for the reviews :P But MauraFan228, you'll have to wait a while to figure that out (the whole deal with Carter thing)... sorry
Anyways... ENJOY!!
Chapter 17 - But It Was Just A Bruise
Abby carefully closed the door as she walked into the dark apartment. She knew Richard was awaiting her, so she automatically went straight to living room, where he as usual was watching some stupid sports match on TV.
"I'm home." She didn't say it very loud, but she knew he would hear it. She bit her lip as he turned around and gave her one of those sly smiles that always scared her. She put down her backpack as he got up and walked towards her.
"Did you have fun tonight?" She could smell the alcohol on his breath, and she'd seen all the empty beer cans on the table. Closing her eyes she nodded slightly. "Did anyone suspect anything?" She slowly reopened her eyes and looked unsure into Richard's hostile face.
"I don't know." She accidentally bit her tongue as his big hand slapped painfully against her cheek. She could taste the blood in her mouth, but tried to ignore it. She started shaking her head, but it was barely noticeable. "I don't think so." He grabbed both of her upper arms so violently, that even Abby got surprised. He didn't say anything. They both knew he didn't have to. He had trained her well. She knew what he wanted from her, what he expected from her.
"I lied to them. Every time they asked me questions, I lied. I told them that we were a perfectly normal family. I even said that you were my real dad, not my step dad." He slightly loosened his grip on her arms, kind of like he believed her. But at the same time he gave her a look telling her to continue. She could feel the tears threatening to appear in her eyes, knowing that this wouldn't go well. "They noticed one of my bruises."
She barely finished the sentence before she felt a way tighter grip on her arms, shoving her body into the wall so that her head banged against it, creating a loud thud.
"What?!" She tried turning her head away, but he had her pinned too hard against the wall. She could feel the blood clotting together under his touch and the tone of his voice was penetrating her like sharp needles. It's not like she wasn't used to it though.
"I reached for something and..." She bit her lip, feeling very uncomfortable with Richard's stare. "My sleeve fell down." She winced in pain as he dug his knee into her, but tried not to show it too much. "I made up an excuse though, and I'm pretty sure they bought it." He slowly released his tight grip and Abby slit down along the wall to the cold, wooden floor.
"I guess you were just lucky." She folded her arms on top of her knees and leaned her head against them, trying to get the dizziness to stop. The whole room was spinning around and she felt like she was sitting in one of those 'merry-go-arounds' from the amusement parks, except it had been turned up to 20-times it's speed.
But it only took a few seconds before Richard grabbed her arm and pulled her up so she was facing him. "You know, I was thinking about leaving you alone tonight." He started tracing every little feature in her face with his fingers, looking at her scared eyes. She didn't mind when it was Luka doing it, but when it was Richard it made her want to skin her own face , just because he had touched it. A couple of months ago she didn't let these kind of things get to her, but being with Luka had changed everything for her. "But you screwed up!"
"Where's Eric and Maggie?" Richard let out a little laugh and shook his head.
"Oh don't worry about them, baby doll. They went to see some more than four hour long movie. They won't be back for at least another two to three hours." He punched her stomach with his fist, which caused her to bend forward, clutching her lower abdomen in pain.
Abby was sitting on her knees on the cold bathroom floor, her head still spinning around like crazy. Her hair had been taken out of the pigtails and was now hanging loose and messy down her back and around her face. She was clutching the towel tightly around her body, her grip so hard that her knuckles were turning completely white. Richard had given it to her after he'd made her undress. She wasn't sure why, it was so not like him. But then again, he always came up with ways of surprising her.
She closed her eyes as she heard Richard approaching her. She would always be able to recognize his foot steps, even if she had to pick them out from the entire planet's population. Noticing the sound of shoes against the floor had stopped, she carefully opened up her eyes again and saw a big, wide bucket of water, which he must have placed in front of her.
Before she even had a chance of imagining what it was supposed to be used for, Richard ripped the towel off her, causing her to shiver as the cold, air-conditioned air hit her.
He grabbed both of her hands and she bit her lip as he violently tied them tight together behind her back. After a couple of minutes passed, with him not having moved nor said one single sound, she started worrying. Trying to be brave she was about to turn around, but Richard took her by surprise. In what felt like a nanosecond, he'd grabbed a painful hold of the hair on the back of her head and pushed her head into the bowl of water.
Abby was shocked. She hadn't expected that. She started fighting Richard, trying to get out of the water. But she couldn't. She was on her knees so her legs couldn't be used, and her arms were tied up. Plus Richard was way too strong. She was panicking. She couldn't breathe. She had no idea how long she'd been there, but she could feel herself slowly loosing consciousness. She had swallowed quite a lot of water when her head was first pushed in, due to the shock.
When he finally pulled her back up, after what felt like an eternity, she fell to the floor, gasping for air, the same instant he let go of her hair. She closed her eyes as she started coughing up some of the water she'd accidentally swallowed. It didn't feel very good. At all.
"Sit back up again." Still gasping for air she tried doing as she was told, but it was as good as impossible since her hands were tied together. Grabbing her one arm really tight, Richard brought her back up to a sitting position, but even though she really tried staying like that, she fell back down onto the floor, feeling like she was going to pass out any second.
She let out an unpleasant moan as he kicked her hard in the back. "I told you to get up!" When she didn't react for a few seconds, Richard once again grabbed her and lifted her up. But this time he started pulling her after him into the bedroom. "Let that be a warning. Next time I'll do it twice, and hold your head down for longer." He leg go of her hair and pushed her onto the bed. "Understood?" Still trying to get over the shock, she nodded.
Richard laughed as he noticed Abby's facial expression. "Aww, am I hurting you?" She looked away, not wanting him to see anything. "You usually don't complain. Don't tell me you're about to start now." She looked back up at him, recognizing the warning tone in his voice. Biting her lip she started shaking her head, but knew he could see right through her. And she hated it.
"It's my arms. My hands." It hurt enough to lay on them while they were tied together, but to have someone lay on top of her at the same time, making her move around, only made it a whole lot more painful. Especially since Richard was so heavy and always really rough with her.
"Ahh. Well, too bad! Maybe if you're good, if you behave really well, I'll consider untying you when I'm done." Abby slightly nodded before turning her head. She hated having to reply to everything he said, but had learned with time that she was better off that way. If she didn't it would tick him off and he'd torture her until she did reply.
"Won't they be home soon?" She bit her lip the second the words had left her mouth. She wasn't sure how wise it had been to say it. To ask him. He might just see it as a way for her to get him to stop, but she'd never do that. She knew better than to do so. It was more for his own sake. He didn't want to get caught doing anything.
Even though she'd said it, she'd said it as quietly as she could. She closed her eyes expecting him to do something, to slap her or dig his nails into her thigh until it bled, but all that happened was that he stopped moving and sat up on top of her.
"It's not like you were under water for that long, but you might be right." Surprised, she opened her eyes and looked at him. "Looks like luck is on your side today." She sighed in relief as he jumped off of her. She wasn't really sure about his comment though, not thinking that she would ever consider herself lucky. She sat up and looked at him putting on his clothes, pretending this was the most normal thing in the world. But then again, of course it was. For them.
"What are you starring at? Get up and get dressed!" He pulled her out of her thoughts and she noticed he was standing by the now open door. Biting her lip she looked down.
"Nothing, sir. And I can't." She waited for a few seconds before looking back up, seeing Richard starring annoyed at her. "Not with my hands still tied together:" As he walked towards her, she could feel herself tensing up. It didn't surprise her at all when he pushed her violently with his elbow so that she landed face down on the bed. Taking his Swiss-knife out of his pocket, he cut off the tight, thin thread, which had cut through the skin all the way around both of her wrists.
With that he left the room, leaving Abby to slide off the bed. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she looked at her hands. She could barely feel them. The thread had cut off all the blood circulation, and she was now trying to move her fingers, attempting to bring back the blood supply and feelings. The thin red marks around her wrists were stained with blood. The kind of threat he'd used had been so thin and so rough that it had cut through and burned her skin every time she'd moved or touched her arms just the smallest bit.
Taking a deep breath she slowly got up, still trying to recover from the hit in the head and the deprivation of oxygen. She felt like passing out right here and then, but knew that Maggie and Eric would be home soon. So she needed to go find her clothes and get herself cleaned up pretty fast if she didn't want to get caught.
