We're jumping back in time a little bit to see Blanche's side of the story.

Blanche struggled to pull her hands free from the rope that fastened them tightly to one another behind her back. It was getting harder to breathe as she grew more and more impatient and tired, and also because of the strip of tape across her mouth. She'd been certain she would never have to relive this feeling now that Jane had been put away.

No matter how scared she'd been when Jane had held her captive, this was even worse. She'd lived with Jane all her life—it was easier to know that her life was in the hands of someone she knew and loved. Looking ahead to the driver's seat, Blanche shuddered. She'd only met this man once before. She'd known Jane's motives, but she had no possible idea what his might be. And even though she knew Jane was a killer, it was much more frightening to not know what he was.

Blanche fought to stay upright when the car stopped at the traffic lights and started again. He hadn't exactly placed her in a comfortable position in the back seat. As she watched the houses and streets, signs and posters pass the car window, she silently prayed someone would look her way.

When they stopped at another red light, there was a tall middle-aged man standing quite close to the car, facing the other way and reading something in a paper in his shaky hands. Blanche considered banging her head against the glass, but decided against it in fear of attracting the driver's attention instead of the man's outside. The traffic would have been too loud for it to have been heard by him anyway. And so as the car sped down the street, Blanche lost the man with the paper.

At the next stop there was no one nearby. But she thought she might have seen someone's face in the window of a shop.

They were quite far from Blanche's home now. She had given up on her hands, her wrists were sore and she could feel the blood draining from her fingers. There was nothing she could do about the tape either—she had learned that when Jane had still been around.

They made another stop at a red light and this time Blanche could see a mother and a child—no more than five years old—looking at a shop's window just there on the sidewalk, right next to the car. The little girl was turning her head every way possible—a sign of pure adorable childlike curiosity.

Blanche decided it was now or never. She leaned in closer to the car door and nodded her head against the glass hard enough to make a sound. But whether to her luck or misfortune, somewhere a car honked at the same moment. At least the driver didn't hear her. But unfortunately, neither did the mother and child.

This feeling of near accomplishment was so familiar to Blanche that she felt like crying. Why did people always notice things when it was not their business to and when someone needed their help, they hovered around in complete obliviousness?

Life was not completely unfair, Blanche was reminded when the girl suddenly turned her head her way and started to stare at her. Blanche leaned in close to the window again, hoping there was still some acting talent left in her, so the child would see that she was in dire need of help.

She was rewarded when the girl started pulling at her mother's sleeve, pointing her other hand towards the car Blanche was in. Oh God, make her look this way! she thought desperately.

But the light had turned green, and Blanche could feel the car starting to move. She kept her eyes decisively on the pair on the sidewalk, and just before the car took off, the woman turned. She followed her daughter's hand quickly, and fixed her look on the car window and on the face in it. The last thing Blanche could see before the pair was out of her sight was the mother's eyes widening in terror.

She let out a small cry of discomfort when the man picked her up; it was muffled by the relentless tape. He carried her over to the old garage door he'd opened and sat her down on the ground in the doorway, so that if the door were to fall closed, she would surely have been crushed underneath it.

He walked on into the garage while Blanche took the time to study her surroundings. Outside the garage there were only the car they'd arrived in and an endless corridor of garages exactly like this one. Blanche felt completely helpless. How could anyone find her in this place?

She hadn't really had the time to consider what was going to happen to her as she'd been too busy memorizing what they had passed on their way. Blanche didn't know this part of town. It now struck her that if the man hadn't bothered to prevent her from seeing where they were heading, he might have a fairly certain notion that she would not be returning anyway. This prospect made her feel slightly light-headed.

Suddenly the lights were turned on inside the garage, and Blanche turned to look inside. The first thing that caught her eye and also made a terrible knot appear in the pit of her stomach was an old iron barred bed standing menacingly in the middle of the room. Blanche swallowed the pained yelp she had nearly emitted, and stared wide-eyed and horrified at the approaching man. As if of their own accord her tied and stiff hands started pulling her farther away across the ground. Never before, she thought, had she wished she could use her legs like she did now.

"Where are you going?" the man asked softly as he bent down and picked up the struggling woman. Blanche shook her head desperately when he carried her over to the bed and laid her down on it. If she hadn't been so blinded by her fear of what he was going to do to her, she might have noticed how unnaturally strong he was for a young man of his build.

As he returned to close the door, Blanche tried with all her might to turn over enough to fall off the bed, which seemed to be the only thing she could do at the moment. But with her hands tied behind her back and half of her body paralysed as usual, she could not even manage that.

The young man returned to the bed and the distraught woman lying on it, took her by the shoulders and lifted her to a sitting position against the headboard bars. He then went on to pull a chair close to the bedside, but then decided to sit on the edge of the bed instead.

Although Blanche hadn't thought she could bear to look at her captor, her fear of missing out on an important chance to escape was stronger than her detestation for the man. And so she fixed her eyes upon the young man's lovely and innocent face. He looked a lot more contented than when she'd last seen him, and she could naturally guess why. She wondered if that encounter was when he'd decided to take her like this. To Blanche's heartfelt relief his looks didn't have anything in common with his sister's.

He reached out towards Blanche's face and although she had a strong desire to pull away from his disgusting touch, she had an idea what he might have been trying to do, and for once she wasn't going to fight him. His fingers carefully peeled off the tape on her mouth as he whispered, "Now, don't scream, okay? I don't like that."

As he removed the tape he let his thumb trace Blanche's lips gently. Blanche shuddered with disgust and discomfort at the touch as his lips curved into a small delighted smile.

He let his hand drop from her face but continued to study her face closely. Blanche watched on anxiously. At least she could breathe properly now. She didn't like the smell of this place; it smelled of oily motorcar parts and mould.

"Dan," she breathed carefully when the man remained silent and thoughtful.

Now he frowned in perplexity. "Who's that? I'm Danny," he said candidly. "Mommy calls me Danny."

Blanche nodded her head in obedient agreement. "A-All right," she said shakily, "Danny." She searched his face for a sign of him wanting her to stop talking. "Why are you doing this to me?"

She'd thought she'd asked rather nicely, considering the circumstances. But instead of answering, the young man grabbed her by her shoulder and yanked her forward, so that he could access Blanche's hands.

Blanche let out a relieved sigh when she felt the rope around her wrists loosen and then fall off completely. Although she was still far from safe, it was an improvement and a very pleasant one at that.

Once he'd untied her, Danny stood and walked over to a closet in the farther end of the room behind Blanche's back. Still unsure of what would come next, Blanche sat up again, bringing her stiff and cold hands into her lap. She couldn't move her fingers at all, and that was an awfully familiar sensation.

Blanche rested her back against the bars of the bed and measured the distance of the door from the bed with her eyes. She could never get there on her own without her captor noticing. And it did nothing but unsettle her to know that the man was currently lurking somewhere behind her back. Blanche had an uneasy feeling that the worst was yet to come.

After a minute of unsettling, brooding silence, Danny returned to Blanche's side, bearing something completely different from what Blanche had feared. And yet it frightened her all the same. If he'd brought her a cake and flowers, she still wouldn't have felt secure. The scene was just too peculiar to be reassuring.

Danny brought with him and sat down next to Blanche three dolls. Two of them were rag dolls, one made of porcelain. There was a blonde, a brunette, and the smallest of them was a redhead. Danny brushed their hair out of their faces fondly and then gestured towards each of them, introducing them. "This is Betty, that's Millie, and this little one is Margo," he said and looked up at Blanche contentedly.

Blanche managed a shaky smile. "That's lovely," she said with an air of timid restraint. She didn't have the slightest idea where he was going with this.

"And you're Blanche," Danny said merrily, pointing at Blanche's chest. He gave her a smile, and if circumstances had been different, she'd have considered it charming. Now, however, it was just dreadfully suggestive. "Now we all know each other," Danny beamed, and it struck Blanche again how much he resembled Jane at this moment. She had been just as excited about her games and just as oblivious towards reality as Danny was being now. Knowing this, Blanche couldn't help but wonder if the young man even knew that he'd done something wrong. But even so, and even if he was as deluded as Jane had been, Blanche was far from safe where she was sitting.

"What do we play first?" As inviting as that question may have been meant to sound, Blanche didn't feel any of the warmth, only the threat in there. She bit her lip to stop herself from succumbing to a sudden urge to weep at her miserable situation. "Oh! I know," Danny said and jumped up.

Blanche turned her head, so that she wouldn't have to see what the man was doing. Instead she concentrated on the dark green walls and the grey ceiling of her prison, pondering thoughts of escape.

She couldn't get to the door because Danny hadn't brought in her wheel chair, although she knew he'd taken it with them from Blanche's house. She couldn't call for help because, unlike the last time, there was no telephone to take away, no paper and no typing machine, and certainly no buzzer. Even if she'd had a strong voice, which Blanche, regretfully, did not, she doubted anyone would have heard her here. And there was no way she could simply make Danny let her go. If she had learned one thing from her life with Jane, it was that psychopaths were very stubborn.

He made her shudder with spontaneous disgust when he touched her shoulder in order to capture her attention. Blanche turned reluctantly to look at his beaming face. There was a terribly unsettling look in his glowing eyes.

Blanche tore her eyes with extreme difficulty from his and apprehensively let them travel to his hands. He was holding a lovely porcelain cup and saucer in his hands. There was a matching tea set sitting on top of a small table next to the bed.

If the scene had seemed highly unusual before, now it was downright confusing, not to mention frightening. Although he hadn't actually threatened her in any way, the way he had treated her up to this point was enough to prove to Blanche he couldn't possibly have anything pleasant in mind for her.

"We're going to play tea party," Danny announced in an excited and utterly pleased tone. Blanche had a hard time trying to guess if he was acting or if the young man really did see this as a game. If so, he was even worse than Jane had been. At least she'd eventually acknowledged it when she'd gone too far.

Oblivious to Blanche's thoughts, Danny raised the cup and saucer for Blanche to take. Distrustfully Blanche leaned farther slightly; her nose caught the pleasant, comforting aroma of peppermint tea. She eyed first the cup and then the man holding it with a sceptical look. She had no way of knowing what he might be offering to her in that tea. Although he seemed sincere enough, Blanche could not trust Danny—not, as long as she was still in her right mind, in this scenario.

And since she was not exactly on the verge of dying of thirst just yet, she shook her head in refusal. "No, thank you," she managed to say without even the slightest tremor in her voice.

"But you have to," Danny replied passionately. "It's the game."

As he lifted the cup closer to Blanche's face, she raised her left hand to stop it on its way. The earlier numbness caused by the twine Danny had used to tie her wrists together had nearly disappeared; however, she could still hardly move her hands like anything but a pair of stiff claws. Unyielding to Blanche's protest, Danny pushed on. But neither was Blanche going to give up, and so as she pushed the cup away from her face rather vigorously, it resulted in the tea spilling over the edge of the cup.

Danny looked down at the damp spot on the bedclothes with bitter disappointment in his features. "Why would you do that?" he asked in an offended tone, looking sorrowfully at the apprehensive-looking woman hunched against the bed's cold headboard bars.

Blanche watched him in anxious anticipation, fearful of the young man's reaction to her move. His tone of voice had nearly lit up a spark of guilt in Blanche. He reminded her so much of a child at the current moment.

"I want to play," he muttered sadly.

"But I want to go home!" Blanche retorted, unexpectedly, in that same childlike manner.

She watched with bated breath as Danny's face contorted with a rapid change of emotions. His eyes took on a terrifying, furious glint as he fixed her with a suspicious glare; his mouth became a thin line. Blanche sank back even farther in cold fear. There was a glowering moment of silence.

And then a hand lashed out and struck Blanche across the face with frenzied vigour. Blanche was thrown sideways onto the mattress as a slicing pain swept through her head and the side she'd so ungracefully fallen on. Danny's sharp, "You can't!" muffled her choked cry of agony.

Blanche covered her face when she saw Danny's hand reach out again. She knew this situation all too well, and how little use it was trying to protect herself from another livid blow. "Oh, no, please!" she sobbed, and felt his hands grab her painfully by the arms and pull her up into a sitting position again.

She didn't dare uncover her face in fear of another strike. Danny seized her wrists roughly and pulled her hands away. Blanche, in response, squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away. Her breathing was shaky from fright and she could hear her own heartbeat drumming rapidly in her ears.

"You know," Danny whispered, and Blanche could feel his breath on her face, "you are even prettier when you're scared."

The quiet words sent a cool shiver through Blanche. Even if it had been meant as a compliment on Danny's bizarre part, it only sounded like a threat to her. So Blanche kept her face turned away.

"But you're not obedient," Danny added in a moment, and Blanche could feel his fingers entwining around her right wrist again, this time dragging it upwards. Once the cold bar at the head of the bed came into contact with her skin, her eyes shot open, for she realized what the man was about to do.

"No, don't!" she reacted quickly to the rope she could see in Danny's hands. "Please-" A twitch of Danny's hand quieted her down as it nearly slapped Blanche across the face again.

A familiar dreadful feeling of helplessness filled Blanche as the rope was tightened around her wrist and bound to the headboard. "Not so tightly," she pleaded, looking up into Danny's determined face.

He didn't even blink. "I have to be sure you won't go anywhere."

"I can give you my word."

"People lie," Danny replied automatically. "You lie, too."

Blanche's thoughts unwillingly travelled to her sister and the one terrible lie she'd told and had to live with for the better part of her life. As absurd as it seemed in the current situation, there was truth in Danny's words.

Yes, I named Danny's dolls after Bette, Joan's character in "Autumn Leaves" and Margo Channing.