"I'm calling him Kevin." Emily may not be able to leave her cell, but her voice can, and it laps at Jason's back in semi-hysterical waves as he departs after lunch one day. She wants him to stop and turn around. She really doesn't want him to stop and turn around. Instead, his stride falters, a tiny, almost imperceptible flicker, but enough for her to know he heard her. Heard her and did not gainsay her statement. Since he's already on the other side of the bars, he doesn't bother to return and exact a toll for the irritation caused, keeping walking instead. Emily relaxes, hugging her baby close and curling into a ball on the bed, hot tears dropping onto the child's strawberry blond head. She'd decided on a name a few days ago, and secretly baptised the boy when Jason had gone out, another great big fuck you to him, even though he'll never find out. Any evil lesson he teaches the boy, she's going to try and counter it.
Kevin, her dead brother, older brother, killed in a car accident, she didn't add that part because she didn't want to give Jason that bit of herself. He'd only use it against her somehow. Murder some boy named Kevin and leave the news clippings lying around. That sort of thing. Her brother wasn't perfect, but he wasn't the worst brother either. In thinking of him, she lavishes kisses on her son, who makes devastatingly cute faces in response, gurgling happily. "Your name means handsome and beloved, and you are both. You came from a scary place, on a bad boat, and maybe we won't have much time together, but Mommy loves you very much, my little munchkin."
The father may not respond to her, but his son does, giggling at his mother and kicking his little legs.
Just beyond the corner, Jason stands in the dark, his malefic eyes flickering from side to side, a muscle in his jaw jumping.
The cool days down in the mine remain routine, blending in one to another, but instead of measuring time by Jason and his whims, Emily now measures it by Kevin and his needs, but instinctively hides this fact. If she were to be rescued today and questioned about her experiences, she would not assert that her abuser has a jealous bone in his body, but of course he does, it simply isn't obvious because there's was previously no other person around to make it evident, but locking one's woman and child away in a secret section of one's secret lair, is not the behaviour of a man who feels secure in his, urgh, 'relationship'. Upon coming to an understanding of this, along with understanding that he's a gigantic dickhead hypocrite, Emily attempts a tactic, a risky one, for her anyway. She attempts to show him affection. She can't make herself kiss him unless prompted by her fear, but she can make herself hug.
After a long hard day prowling the breadth and depth of his kingdom, Jason's sitting on the bed, pulling his shoes off after having already placed his weapons out of reach, when she hugs him from behind, touching his deeply scarred skin extremely tentatively, lest she misjudged and he reacts with brutality. She made sure to signal her approach by sitting beside him and acting the silly girl by playfully placing one of her delicate little feet next to his bear paws, miming being shocked by the gargantuan size difference. A sharky eye swung up to stare at her briefly, before returning to its former position, the iris constantly shifting size in the inadequate light.
The hug that followed is the saddest, tamest, most awkward hug imaginable, and Jason does little more than lift his head and look down at her with the same sleepy expression in his eyes which is his default. She calls that the 'psycho in repose' expression, one down from the wide eyed 'psycho in action' look. Still, he doesn't shrug her off or apply violence. She'd never really paid any attention to his body as a body and not an implement, before, but he's built like a guard dog, one owned by criminals. Very massive, but very lean, positively skinny in some places. Scratch that, he's built like a starving wolf. Moves like one too, a silent snarl perpetually on his lips. Makes sense, as she chooses, intensely, to believe much of their food comes from the rodents who wander into his traps, and she heard somewhere that you can starve to death on rabbit even if you eat as much of it as you can. His rib cage is extremely prominent, and his skin reminds her of a burn victim. He's not healthy looking, yet she'd be hard pressed to point to a more choice example of lethal physicality.
Jason continues to observe her clinging to him like a very soft and weak limpet, before he slowly looks back down at his feet.
Whether due to that hug or due to something completely unrelated, Jason decides one day that some of his property requires aeration, but because he refuses to speak, Emily believes for about five minutes while he's winding his way with her out of the mine, that she and her baby are being taken outside to be shot.
Dumping her on her feet on the warm earth just beyond a trapdoor, Jason takes a deep breath of balmy summer air, before dropping the door, covering it with dead leaves, soil, and accumulated wooden junk. They're at the edge of what looks like the remains of Camp Crystal Lake, near to a tumbledown storage shed, standing within a broken down pole fence, the type teenagers like to perch on to show how cool they are. A whuff, as from a horse, tells Emily that she ought to move, so she does, only for Jason to lope past. Not by much, but enough that unless he has eyes in the back of his head, he can no longer see her. Emily continues to follow.
Dappled sunlight falls on mother and child's skin, warming their beings, the air filling their lungs with healthful gold. Summer air dries and begins healing the area of Emily's wrist where the manacle usually is, and her feet delight in the soft give of the earth, her ears discovering the singing of insects and the rustling of leaves to be more stirring listening than Mozart. She'd never appreciated how wonderful the world is before. It's paradise. Beautiful beyond her wildest dreams.
Jason appears not to realise that he lives in Eden, moving with his usual focused intensity towards a target range. Ah, maybe that's why his dreadful bow is slung across his back. Maybe this is not Emily's last few minutes alive. A potential stay of execution doesn't dampen her incredible enjoyment one bit.
No it's not her date with death, Jason is keeping up his aim. He doesn't even use the other two as live targets. Jerking his head at a spot to the right of him, he effectively commands Emily to sit down, which she does, destined to be witness to four hours of expert marksmanship. It's frightening as all heck, but as before when he's acting the weed whacker, it's also fascinating. It's a pity he's a diabolical hell spawn, because he's very talented. Oh, and that's another thing checked off the list. Can't run away when he has his bow, as zigzagging will not work, his reactions and precision are too honed. She understands the lesson. And feels a little better. Watching him land bullseyes a bit more, she wonders if he can drive. The answer is yes. Invaders on his turf often arrive with cars, but neither bodies nor car are ever found. She wonders if he can use a gun. The answer is yes, but he detests excessive noise. She stops wondering.
Four hours he spends practising nailing imaginary people with bow and knife and axe and rock, but more time is spent at the range than that, as Jason often stops to listen and look. Listening and looking at nothing, so it seems to Emily, with her much less attuned senses. In this he is less like predator, and more like prey. A leaf fluttering or branch creaking can be enough to make him spin and aim his arrow away into the camp or woods. An old door slams somewhere and then he shoots a quick 'run and you die' look at Emily before vanishing. She doesn't get up, or move at all, hoping the National Guard will see she's no threat, sitting in the dirt in her fading dress with a big baby in her lap. Surely Jason's twitchiness indicates that he is not in fact invulnerable. There's no need to be wary, careful, and anxious if one is untouchable. There must be forces he fears, and that and the sun and fresh air recharge Emily's hope batteries a little bit more. He can be hurt, she's seen it. He's just a man. An exceedingly dangerous man, but a man.
Jason returns, barely glancing at his captives, tossing a bit of hay on the ground. It flutters in the breeze, skidding towards Emily, who picks it up and dangles it like a cat toy for Kevin. He gurgles and coos, and she almost dies of cuteness overload, laughing very gently. While he doesn't have his father's facial deformities, like he has his nose and hair, he does have an unusual characteristic that might not be entirely pleasant if viewed through an unloving lens. One of his eyes is a pale blue, while the other is a rusty reddish brown, almost black, dark enough to startle when seen beside its twin. He may be a product of rape, but the four month old baby defeats the dishonourable legacy his father left with his mother, with a single heavenly smile.
Six feet away Jason draws his bow, the string creaking, the black fibreglass curving back elegantly, his sinewy body forming an extension of the weapon, rather than the other way around. A simple weapon, and devastating, defeater of knights and other smug entities. He holds his position like that for a moment, aiming. A blue eye rolls away from the red centre of the target, to pin mother and baby, before slowly rolling back.
The next morning Emily wakes to find he has not replaced the manacle around her wrist.
She uses her new freedom well, never approaching the bars unless called over, never touching the lock, never getting up until after Jason has got his glad rags on, never otherwise behaving as if living in an underground cell is not totally, perfectly, completely normal. After his unexpected acceptance of the first, she bestows more tentative hugs, which Jason still doesn't reciprocate or reward with verbal communication, but which at least doesn't result in any negative effects. At least not any visible negative effects, as Emily certainly hates herself for resorting to such behaviour. It feels like a betrayal, of her, of Sarah, of the others, and it feels like consent, especially as she never actively resists him. She'd like to, she'd like to be the perfect victim, the good girl, but she's not sure such a thing ever existed. It sounds like something Jason would make up to torture her with.
He himself does reward her, primarily for disdaining to cause him inconvenience, rewarding her by allowing her to accompany him whenever he has daytime business in or very near to the house and camp. Much of this business consists of looting the cabins and other buildings, practising his aim, checking his traps, watching for human spoor, gathering materials from nature, and hunting. By careful observation Rambo ensures she neither has opportunity to use anything in the environment against him, or to step in traps, indicating by pointing and wide eyes that she is to step where he steps and where he steps only, and if she is clumsy and falls down, well, death or injury will surely follow. Accordingly, Emily walks even more carefully than he does, trailing along behind him with her growing baby boy strapped to her front in a makeshift carrier contraption, stopping to meekly watch Jason eviscerate deer (he especially likes the heart and brain), gather from his patches of weed (handling the stuff like an expert), and set bear traps for the unwary and unlucky (pointedly demonstrating for her the crushing force via deer leg). The image would be funny, were it not so deranged.
With great freedom comes great responsibility, and Jason sets her to work bundling that weed. This surprises her. Not that he delegates a task to her, but that he is selling or exchanging the stuff with someone…how? In his hockey mask? In his potato sack? Bare faced? The face he knows is not exactly pretty? And she thought he murdered anyone he encountered…wait, no, he doesn't, because she's alive.
Confusion is cleared up when he takes her to the edge of the woods, where shivering trees meet rippling fields, to a hidden cache in a fallen log, where she watches him pull heavy black gym bags out of the hollowed interior, replacing them with his bags of valuable plant material, packed with feminine care. What lesson this trip is teaching is not a question she needs answering. Because he's always teaching, always teaching the same bloody lesson. Don't mess with him. Although the younger residents don't like to talk about it, people around here know he's not a dead boy in a lake, but a very real adult, and a very real threat, and while they may have dealings with him, the smart ones aren't going to pry into his business. Certainly not to rescue you, little miss. Absorbing this nugget of deep red information as intended, Emily skips past it to glory in the feel of a delicious breeze lifting hair off her sweaty neck.
Far too soon the leaves begin turning again, flaring into yellow and orange and red, harmless fire breaking out all over the woods, with the difference that this year Emily is able to witness this brief explosion of majesty. She more or less becomes a lap dog on a very long chain, her entire world confined to one small part of Jason's domain, still not allowed to wander without him, but more or less trusted not to do something stupid when she is allowed out. Her physical fitness improves as a result, but only a madman would suppose a little extra cardio could enable a five foot tall girl to put up some sort of meaningful resistance against a long legged aurochs like Jason. Now and then he reminds her that while he may often look rather like the remains of the camp he haunts, he is by far the most formidable threat she could ever encounter, bolting away after something she never even saw, almost horizontal, before returning with a small fuzzy carcass hanging from his belt. Yeah, can't outrun that.
It's not just humans that are stupid enough to put themselves on his Shit List. One magical evening, as they're returning home while the sun sets in a watercolour spectacle, he demonstrates his outrageous strength, as if she needs a demonstration, when a stray Alsatian that had been sniffing around the area for a couple days, decides to dispute a territorial claim with the big man. A dog is also food, but when the animal turns away from a particularly interesting bush, and bristles, Jason initially only pulls out his machete, half turning his head and flicking his eyes at Emily over his shoulder. She moves to stand at a distance. Something about his smell enrages the animal, that and his refusal to back down. It charges, elongated jaws lined with teeth ready and able to tear and rip and pull muscle away from bone. From her position Emily sees nothing, until Jason's right arm swings in a wide, dirty silver arc and the canine goes flying away from him, in two pieces. Threat neutralised, Jason stares for a bit in case the animal had backup, before turning towards her, his machete dripping blood across fallen leaves. How much blood soaks this soil, she wonders. More than enough to curse it, that's for sure.