Page 16 of Pushed

Chapter Four

Imperial

––––––––

Darkness, that wasall I had.

I wasn't ready to pull the blindfold off, to allow my eyes to see what was around me. Laying on my back, I rested my hands on my stomach and just sat in a daze.

How can this be real? How could a place like this exist in a world that had laws, rules, boundaries that you just don't cross?

The silence in my head was eating me alive. It was taunting me with pictures of my home, my friends, of everything that seemed so far behind me.

I wasn't sure if I was ever going to see any of it again.

The locks on the door clicked open, metal on metal pierced my eardrums. Slipping my arms around my rib cage, I hugged myself. But I didn't move, I stayed still, pretending I was asleep.

Heavy feet echoed over the hard floor, heel after heel clicking closer to my bed. Was it the same man from the night before?

Does it really matter?

The heat off his body hovered over me, casting a weighted shadow onto my chest. There was no touch, no force, nothing. It was just a man standing over me, and that was enough to turn my skin cold.

Shivering, I twisted my head to the side, away from the presence holding me still. Swallowing hard, I dug my nails into the skin on my ribs just to keep myself from screaming.

My throat gurgled with white noise, ready to thrash and tear whoever was there apart. But I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of knowing I was breaking down.

They deserved nothing.

Fingers swiped over my cheek, brushing across my chin and circling back up over my ear. “You're still wearing that? What's wrong, afraid the boogie man will find you?” Chuckling, his hand worked over my shoulder, softly touching my neck.

Sucking in a hot gulp of air, I forced the lump in my throat down into my stomach.

It is him, it's Machi.

The pads of his fingers painted my forehead and walked over the fabric binding my sight. “This isn't going to help you, you know that, right?”

I didn't answer.

“You want it to, but it won't.” Tapping my eyeballs gently with two fingers, he hummed a beat. “I never was much of a singer. What about you? You sing at all?”

You're getting nothing from me. Nothing!

His body pressed down, grazing the outside of my arm as he crouched beside me. “What? Suddenly you don't talk? You had a lot to say last night, what changed?”

Everything changed, Asshole.

Pursing my lips, my breathing slowed down. That man, that man was not going to stand next to me and pretend like we could have any type of conversation.

What the hell was he trying to do?

Was this a ploy, a way to befriend his captive and ease me into what was coming next?

It wasn't going to work.

“Okay then, you don't have to talk, I will.” Placing something at the foot of the bed, Machi stroked my hair. “On the bed, right beside your left leg, there's a plate. It has a sandwich on it, eat it.”

Everything inside me was screaming at him to just let me go, to send me on my way, blindfolded as I was. And I would, I would leave without question. He wouldn't see me again, I wouldn't know where he had taken me. I would forget his name if he asked me to.