Held (21 page)

I stuck the tooth of the comb into the key hole on the handcuff. I wiggled it around, poking here and there. I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never picked a lock before. I didn’t even know anyone who had picked a lock.
I just assumed it would be as easy as it was in the movies where you could just stick something in the hole, jiggle it a little, and voila, it would open. But that wasn’t the case. Or maybe I just did it wrong. Whatever the case, the cuff wasn’t opening.

And then the tooth snapped in half.

Shit.

I looked at the short piece of plastic, grasped desperately between my thumb and forefinger. Had I really thought this would work? I put what was left of the tooth back in my pocket and sighed.

That had been my only plan. Now what was I going to do? Well, the only thing I could do at the moment was more crosswords. So I did.

I was still doing them when Ron came in to make us lunch. He stood at the counter
and made sandwiches as I finished up a puzzle. As I put the crayon in the book and closed it, it hit me.

Where was the other piece of the tooth? What if Ron stuck the key in, realized something was wrong, and found the rest of the comb tooth? I think it would be safe to say that what had happened to Crystal was nothing compared to what he would do to me.

I made sure Ron’s back was turned and looked into the hole on the cuff. It was hard to see. I had to bend down and get closer, turn my wrist so more light could get into the key hole, and squint to look into the small dark space. I saw nothing. Looking up at Ron to make sure he still wasn’t looking, I shook my wrist, thinking maybe if I shook the cuff, the tooth would fall out. It didn’t. I looked around on the floor but saw nothing.

Ron brought my sandwich and I ate, but all I could think of was the tooth. Where was it? If I couldn’t see it on the floor, it had to still be in the hole. That meant the next time he unlocked the cuff, I was screwed.

When Ron had returned to his room to write the great American novel, I shook the cuff, trying to free the piece of plastic from the keyhole with no success. Frustrated, I finally decided to ignore it. I didn’t see it anywhere, and worrying myself to death over it was doing me no good. I put it out of my mind and tried to finish the crossword puzzle. Unable to concentrate, I switched to word searches.

We ate dinner that evening in silence. That was fine with me. I had images in my head that took all my strength to push away, and the broken comb tooth kept popping into my mind. There was quite a wrestling match going on in my head, and that left little room for forming sentences and holding a conversation.

As Ron washed our dinner dishes, I asked about Crystal.

“You want to know how she is? Let’s go find out.”

He released the cuff from the table and I breathed a sigh of relief that the tooth wasn’t in the keyhole. He led me down the hallway, down the stairs, and into the basement where he sat me in the chair and cuffed my hands around me behind the beam.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Crystal.
She looked bad. And that was an understatement.

As I assessed the damage Ron had done to her, he walked over to her and nudged her with the toe of his shoe. She didn’t move. While my eyes travelled down to the mess between her legs, Ron kicked her in the ribs. She still didn’t move.
As I noticed the amount of blood that had came from her and found its way across the floor to the drain, now mostly dry, Ron drew back his lower leg and kicked her with all his strength. She still didn’t move.

While Ron stood over her, head tilted in confusion, I held my breath and stared intently at her chest, looking for the signs of life that I prayed were there.

I saw nothing. Her chest wasn’t rising and falling as it should’ve been. She was dead.

Ron squatted beside her and felt her neck for a pulse. Apparently feeling nothing, he stood and placed his hands on his hips.

“Damn,” he said.

“What?” I asked, as if I didn’t know.

“She’s dead.” He sighed.

I looked at Crystal. It was probably better for her that she wasn’t still alive. The psychological trauma of her situation would’ve been hard enough to live with, but even if she could’ve gotten past that, the physical damage would’ve been a painful reminder
of what she’d lived through. Yes, death was a kind escape for Crystal.

But it didn’t mean
that I didn’t cry for her. Two young lives lost, one before it even started. It was sad.

I hid my tears from Ron. I didn’t think it would be good for me if he knew that her death had affected me in any way. So I sat there in the chair, hands cuffed behind me, and watched as he chopped her up just a couple feet away.

I jumped every time the axe found its way through her body and connected with the concrete floor beneath her. The sound of the metal hitting the cold, hard floor would be one that would haunt me for the rest of my days. And nights.

As Ron removed Crystal’s arms and legs and put them in trash bags, I knew I had to get out of here. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t watch him hack up another body and keep my sanity. I couldn’t watch him torture another woman. I just couldn’t.

After Ron hauled Crystal’s body up the stairs two bags at a time, he led me up the stairs.

He led me to the bathroom door
and removed the cuff from my wrist.

I thought of running, barging past him and out the door. After all, he was probably tired from all the hacking and hauling of the body, and I just might be able to get away. But when I glanced at him, I knew that wouldn’t happen. It would, however, cause him more hacking and hauling because I had no doubt that he’d kill me.

I turned and went into the bathroom.

I peed. I flushed. I washed my hands, scrubbing all the way to the elbow until my
skin was red. I splashed cold water on my face. I looked at my reflection in the mirror above the sink, but I didn’t see me. Instead I saw Crystal’s lifeless, mangled body lying in the basement.

I
rushed over to the toilet and threw up my dinner. After emptying the contents of my stomach, I flushed, stood, and went through the routine again of washing my hands, splashing my face with cold water, and brushing my teeth.

Having done all that, I opened the door and faced Ron, who filled the doorway.

He quickly slapped the cuff around my right wrist and led me to the bedroom. He undressed me, pushed me onto the bed, and cuffed me to the headboard as always.

When Ron left
to dispose of Crystal’s body, I cried.

The next morning, I woke to the sound of a slamming door. I opened my eyes and focused them just in time to see Ron barging into my room.

He stood in the doorway, chest heaving with angry breaths, eyes wide, hair disheveled.
The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to the elbow which meant he’d been cleaning. I couldn’t imagine what could’ve angered him while he was going through his cleaning routine, but he was obviously furious. Suddenly, I was very awake.

“You,” he said. And that was all he said. Then, he rushed across the room and slapped me across the face.

“What the hell?” I yelled at him.

“What the hell? What the hell? I’ll tell you what the hell,” he yelled back as he angrily unlocked the cuff from the headboard.

He jerked me from the bed. Unable to get my feet under me in time, I crashed to the floor, knees first. I gasped and cursed at the sudden pain. This was no way to wake up. He continued pulling me along behind him, not giving me enough time to stand. I had to struggle to get to my feet as we rushed along down the hall toward the kitchen.

When he finally stopped and tu
rned to me, I was suddenly aware that I was naked. He had a tight grip on my right wrist, but my left arm was free and I used it to cover myself as best as I could. I had little other than my dignity. And at this point, I was clinging to scraps of that.

He was only a couple feet from me.
I could feel the angry heat coming off him.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Nicole?” he asked, his voice booming.

My mind raced to think of what he could be talking about. Unable to think of anything, I shook my head. “No.”

“Really? There’s nothing you want to say to me? Nothing you want to tell me about?”

I shook my head.

He nodded. “Alright then.” And in a flash, he was jerking me down the hallway. He opened the door to the basement and
pulled me down the steps. Immediately, my body tensed and I began to pull back, trying to remain upstairs. He responded by pulling harder on my wrist, leaving me no choice but to follow him.

“What are you doing?” I asked, not caring that even I could detect the panic in my voice. I hated the basement. Nothing good ever happened in the basement.

“Teaching you a lesson. Apparently, you like learning the hard way.”

When he dragged me off the bottom step, I was sure he’d take me to the mattress. But he didn’t. Instead, he pulled me away from the mattress, across the room, toward the shackles that were secured to the concrete floor.
My heart froze in my chest.

As he pulled me
past the beam that I normally sat against with my arms bound behind me, I reached out with my left hand and grabbed it. I held on with all my strength, which compared to Ron’s, wasn’t much. Barely noticing that I was using the beam as an anchor point, Ron gave me a tug and kept walking, unaware that my hand now contained several splinters of wood that stung my palm from the inside. How I longed for the days when a handful of splinters was the biggest worry I had.

When we reached the place I dreaded the most, Ron turned to me and said, “Get down on the floor.”

“No way.” I folded my arms across my bare chest, both in defiance and modesty.

“Get down, Nicole. Don’t make me tell you again.”

“I’m not getting down there. I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

“Stop lying,” he screamed. I’d never heard his voice this loud or heard this tone come from him before. Clearly, he was beyond angry.
And I think it was safe to say that I had crossed that line I’d been tightrope walking for so long.

“What do you think I’m lying about?”

“Shut up and get down on the floor.”

“No,” I said defiantly.
What did I have to lose? He was hell bent on shackling me to the floor. I couldn’t do much to resist, but I was going to do what I could. No sense making this easy on him.

“Nicole, you can do this the easy way or you can it the hard way. No matter which you choose, you’re getting on the floor.”

“Why?” I asked.

Then, everything got real dark real fast.

When I woke, I was alone. Still naked, I was cold. The left side of my face throbbed furiously with each beat of my heart. I couldn’t believe Ron had punched me. All this time, I’d thought his liking me, or as he’d put it lately, his loving me would protect me from his wrath. Looking back now, that was a stupid assumption to make. I’d been a fool to assume anything would protect me from a psychopathic serial killer who suffered from mood swings.

Fully awake now, I realized that I was lying on the cold, unforgiving concrete of the basement floor. It was the same place where many women had died before me. Would I be next?

I tested my restraints. There was no getting out. The chains that were secured to the floor were thick. The shackles around my wrists and ankles were tight. Too tight. There was absolutely no way I’d be able to slip free of them. I was going to be here until Ron decided otherwise. And usually when Ron decided to let you go, you left via trash bags.

I tried not to think of that. If he really loved me, he wouldn’t chop me up and dispose of me.
Of course, even as I thought that, I realized it was silly. I couldn’t depend on the love of a madman to save me. Madmen didn’t know what love was. They didn’t understand that you never, ever hurt the people you cared about.

I realized
now how stupid I’d been. Shackled in the basement in the same place he’d tortured and killed numerous women, I still thought I could figure him out. I still thought his emotions were like those of normal people, and his affection for me would save me. Ron was right. I hadn’t learned a damn thing.

With no choice, I waited for Ron to come to the basement. I kept myself occupied by thinking of Mason and Wade and all the things we’d do when I got out of this madhouse. I had so much to catch up on. They’d spent about five months without me. I wanted to hear all the details of their lives. All of Mason’s firsts that I’d missed. I knew that Wade would want to hear all about what I’d been through, but I didn’t want to tell him. And if I could help it, I wouldn’t. He didn’t need to hear this. I’d seen things that would curl the toes of hardened police officers and make their skin crawl. I couldn’t put that on him.

At some point, I dozed off while thinking of Wade and Mason. I dreamt of them. The dream was so real I could feel them, smell them, and I could clearly hear them. I sat on the couch beside Wade, Mason on my lap. I smiled broadly at Wade as he leaned in to kiss me. Just before his lips touched mine, his mouth opened, revealing long, sharp teeth. Instead of kissing me, he sank those teeth into the soft flesh of my neck.