It hadn't taken long for Blanche's eyes to get used to the little light provided by the lamp Danny had left on in the garage for her. He'd laid off Blanche after she'd taken a few forced sips of tea and a small bite of a sandwich. Blanche didn't actually feel up to eating at all. This whole situation had her insides turned.
She tried now perhaps for the twentieth time since Danny had left to yank her hands free, and once again the only thing she gained from it was a hot, stinging pain in her wrists. She sighed in forlorn hopelessness and sank back against the bed frame in resignation.
As she let her head roll from one side to the other, Blanche thought bitterly of her bad fortune. What had she done to constantly capture the fascination of psychopaths? Most people didn't meet one in their entire life. It was as if fate had decided she wasn't meant to find peace. Or maybe it was punishment for her mistreatment of Jane? Blanche had always done everything she possibly could to try and make up for the lie she'd made them live with for so long. But that couldn't erase the nagging feeling in Blanche's heart that maybe she deserved all this suffering.
The room was depressing. The increasing numbness in her fingers forced Blanche to search for something to occupy her mind. She'd long before come to the conclusion that she could not get out of these ropes nor the garage. The walls were a dark shade of green, half-covered with shelves hidden under what Blanche could only guess were automobile parts. Other than that, there were only a small table and a chair next to the bed she was confined to.
Blanche's eyes travelled to the dolls Danny had set next to her on the bed. They watched her with their lifeless eyes, as motionless as Blanche's legs that lay next to them. Had she had a choice, Blanche definitely wouldn't have preferred their company to no company at all. They stared at her from every side, their still and peaceful expressions mocking Blanche's dire situation. And the scariest one of them all—in fact, the most beautiful one as well—was sitting at her feet, a gleeful glint in her big blue eyes. Blanche had a familiar eerie feeling in her stomach. The doll's pretty blonde locks covered her shoulders elegantly and the dress she was wearing was slightly ruffled. It was uncanny how Jane managed to follow and haunt her everywhere.
Blanche shivered. The electric radiator Danny had left her had only just started to emit heat towards the bed. It was definitely not one of humankind's safest inventions, but at least Danny had had enough common sense in him to not leave her to catch her death in here. In fact, he had been delightfully understanding after his game had ended.
He'd brought in her wheel chair and taken her to the small restroom at the back of the garage. Later he'd laid a blanket over her in the bed, and Blanche had felt a blissful spark of hope lit up in her. But just as quickly as it had appeared, it had left her again when Danny bound her hands to the headboard.
Blanche eyed the wheel chair standing in the shadows next to the bed. She wondered idly if all the Whites were stronger than they looked. She thought of how effortlessly Lynn always seemed to lift her into and out of her chair.
"Be careful not to throw out your back," Blanche had told her the first few times. But Lynn had only laughed and said that she was as light as a feather. Oh, how Blanche wished to hear that sweet laughter and see that beautiful happy face again!
She wondered how the poor girl was holding up. Blanche was tired, and from that she concluded that it must be late. Lynn must have noticed her absence long ago. She had probably already called the police and they'd started looking for her. Maybe they'd even found some clue about who had taken her, and where. But Danny didn't seem stupid enough to leave a trail.
Looking at the dolls around her and stopping on the old blonde porcelain doll at her feet, Blanche couldn't help wondering what was going to happen next; what would become of her when Danny tired of his games. The doll's eyes gleamed with malice.
Danny returned in the morning, and in a way Blanche was even relieved to see him. Things wouldn't have looked so bright for her if Danny had simply forgotten about her.
But as soon as he'd sat down next to her on the bed and Blanche had, once again, become achingly aware of the numbness in her hands, the pressing need for freedom returned. She'd woken up with a feeling that she could get along with Danny just well enough to gain a certain amount of trust from the young man, which would hopefully result in him not tying her up when he left her again. However, looking at the bright innocent-looking face now, Blanche felt restless anger building up inside her. Even at her worst Blanche hadn't felt so hostile towards Jane.
Danny smiled cheerfully and set on the table a large bag that didn't look very promising to Blanche. He had a childlike excitement about him—one that Blanche, regretfully, was already quite familiar with. His closeness brought back the faint sting in her cheek, and she leaned farther from him instinctively. A dull increasing pain had settled into the small of her back from spending the night in an uncomfortable reclining position.
Danny didn't seem to notice the restrained resentment in Blanche's look. He sat closer and reached his hand towards the silent reluctant woman. "You really are," he said gently, caressing the side of Blanche's face with his fingertips and speaking as if he was continuing some past conversation, "so very pretty."
His familiar manner made Blanche cringe and glance more desperately at the wheel chair beside the bed. It was so close, and still so far, she was reminded with acute disappointment as she became increasingly aware of Danny's hand now resting at her neckline. She made an attempt at an insecure, faltering smile, thinking fleetingly of her original plan.
Danny gazed at her thoughtfully for another long moment, and then pulled his hand away. Blanche sighed in instant relief at the loss of contact. Danny removed the dolls from her side, laying them next to the one at the foot of the bed. He proceeded to untie her hands, and Blanche held her breath in disbelieving anticipation.
Her numb, powerless arms fell to her sides, and she was appalled to find them every bit as useless as her other two limbs. Dismally she studied the red marks on her wrists until Danny covered them with his hands, making Blanche jump out of her brief musings of the last time she'd been in this state.
She tried to concentrate on moving her hands; success came slowly, and the daunting company didn't help any. She didn't quite dare raise her head, but from the corner of her eye she could see Danny gradually leaning closer to her. He was watching her in profound fascination that, in Blanche's opinion, was completely unfounded and more than a little bit creepy.
"You are so much more interesting than all my other dolls," Danny said ardently, stroking Blanche's hand with devoted tenderness. The latter clenched her teeth to escape a disgusted shiver as an unsettling silence fell upon them for a little while. Blanche could feel the blood slowly returning to her fingers, and her eyes flicked over to her chair again.
The silence was deafening as Blanche weighed her chances and Danny reached up to caress her hair fondly. Blanche clenched her hands into tight fists in sickened irritation. They were still not very strong but they would have to do, she decided. And as Danny turned his head to look towards his bag, Blanche pushed herself up from her half-slouched position and hit her fists against his chest with such vigour and unleashed fury that the man was thrown off the bed. He crashed against the table, and if Blanche had not been so eager to get away, she would have probably felt sorry for him. She was not at all fond of violence. She could have waited for a better moment, certainly, but panic was a much stronger emotion than wit. As it was, this seemed the only way for her to even attempt at escaping any time soon.
And so Blanche heaved herself forward, pressing her hands into the mattress to pull herself across the bed. There was a sound beside the bed—an irritated grunt—but Blanche wouldn't look back. If she could just reach that wheel chair… The rest would be so much easier once she was able to move. As she made her way arduously to the edge of the bed, Blanche felt, for the briefest of moments and for the first time since she'd arrived at the garage, a beautiful spark of hope in her heart. But just as her fingertips brushed against the armrest of the chair, firm and merciless hands grabbed her by the hair and hurled her back onto the bed. Her head hit the mattress just below the pillow, and before Blanche could cry out because of the strike of pain that ran through her spine, even before she could really comprehend what had happened, those same rough hands landed on her neck.
Her eyes widening from the sudden pressure on this fragile part of her body, Blanche looked up at the unhappy and displeased face of the young man. He had climbed on top of her, she now realized through muddled thoughts, her own hands joining Danny's on her neck. She tried unsuccessfully to pry them away, clawing and tearing at them, all the while feeling a terrible ache building up in her head as the air quickly left her body. Blanche tried to turn herself away from his iron grip but Danny's knee on either side of her kept her in place as he pressed down even harder on the writing woman.
"Don't do that!" Danny yelled. His face held an expression of indignant hurt. "I don't like it when you do that!"
Blanche coughed and struggled against his strong hold, her eyes repeatedly losing and finding their focus on his face as her vision blurred rapidly. A dull drone made its way into her ears, drowning out Danny's voice and making way for the hushed sound of her own blood rushing through her head. She was barely aware of her hands losing their grasp on Danny's and of the pain growing yet in her chest and head.