When I open my eyes, everything is dark. Everything is dark, humid, and scratchy because I've got a burlap bag tied over my eyes. Trying to move my fists, I realize that they, too, are tied behind my back, looped around the posts of the hard, wooden chair I am sitting on.

"Is—Is anyone there?" I call out, my voice parched at first but at least still functioning. With the state I'm in, I'm relieved that anything still works at all.

Ah Si? I tentatively whisper, wanting to know whether this is just another elaborate prank being played by my on-and-off (but mostly on) boyfriend of two years for our two and a half year anniversary.

It's not like he hasn't pulled anything like this before —see: us being kidnapped and whisked away to Xiao Zi's private island for two days (although, to be fair, that was mostly Xiao Zi's doing) and him literally prank kidnapping me for his proposal to me! I start fuming just thinking about it. Oh, if this is just one of his pranks he's going to be in soooo much trouble, I think to myself.

Except, in this case, deep down, I don't think it is. I keep waiting for that bastard to pop out, to whip off the blindfold from my face and plant a big, sloppy kiss on my forehead like the lovable golden-retriever-of-a-boy he is. I want him to, actually. To tell me that it's okay. Because the alternative would be far, far worse.

"Well, well, well, look what we have here."

I gulp. Speaking of far, far worse. I strain to make out the voice, and I don't think I've heard it before. But the dialect he speaks is the same as the one spoken by the street clan that captured me before. That beat up my Ah Si while I helplessly watched from the side. Because him lifting a finger would have meant injury or death for me. And he cared too much about me, even at the time, to risk that happening.

I try not to cry thinking of that experience.

"So, you're soon going to be the new Mrs. Si, eh?" The man jeers at me. I can hear his footsteps circling me now, soft enough that I hadn't heard him approaching me earlier, but close enough that I can hear their light thuds moving around me now. I feel like prey being circled by a great white shark that is about to devour it. Scared.

And yet, I know that Dao Ming women don't show fear. I have never seen it in Ah Si's sister, nor can I even imagine it occupying so much as the same air as his absolutely fearless and ruthlessly cruel mother.

"Why didn't you visit your son?" I wanted to yell at her, my mind taken back to her no-show at his nearly fatal hospitalization.

"All he wanted was to receive love from you, and approval and affection. Don't you get it?" And the anger is enough in me that I jut out my chin and spit at my great white shark captor the next time he is in my range of aim.

"Dao Ming Si will never bow to you," I say defiantly, half speaking to him, half speaking to my future mother-in-law in my head.

"Because he is stronger than you and more motivated than you and nothing in this entire world could stop him from achieving what he wants."

Slap.

I barely finish my sentence as I feel the sting of the man's palm sink in. His calloused hands on my baby-soft skin —I can already feel the bruise begin to swell.

"Still think your man is stronger than me?" The man shouts, sneering in contempt. He revels in my shocked silence, I just know it.

"And I can do that a thousand times before he even comes for you, if you'd like." I hear him pick up his pacing again.

Arghghhh. I want to scream at him, to curse him out, to bring the same fiery energy I once directed at F4 to this man right now except a thousand times worse. He is absolute swine for hurting others and wanting to hurt others and wanting to hurt the man I love.

But that is also precisely why I don't say anything. Because of the man I love. Because I know my captors will make it that much worse for him if I do. And I'm tired of my big mouth leading to that much more trouble for him.

So I take a deep breath and stay silent. Listening to the man's circling footsteps continue around me, I count the seconds as he goes.

1, 2, 3, 4…

Just 10,000 more until Ah Si gets here, I tell myself. I can play the damsel in distress for 10,000 more seconds.

So I sit in the stillness, not saying a word. I sit, I keep still, and I wait.