Oh, mother fucker.
“I divorced you ten years ago, Damian,” I reminded him. It was a day I celebrated alone each year, eating a ton of cookie dough ice cream and going to the shooting range, like I did the day I was finally free of him.
“I never agreed to that.”
That was true. He never did. But, then again, that really didn't matter. Contested divorces were granted all the time. No matter what your spouse wanted, you had a right to get shot of their sorry asses. “And yet somehow, I still don't belong to you.”
His eyes lowered, hating being wrong, hating having his property taken from him. “You belonged to me from the second I got into that pussy of yours for the first time,” he growled, stalking over to me and slamming me backward so I fell back onto the steps, cursing as the edge of one caught me in my lower back, and making the cuff bite into the skin of my wrist as it pulled tight. He was on me before I could try to kick out a leg, grabbing my ankle and slapping the cuff on. The weight immediately made my leg slam down onto the step. “And I got all the time in the world to remind you of that again,” he said, kneeling down next to me, grabbing my chin and forcing it up. “It won't be a pleasant process for you.”
“What else is new? From the second I accepted your ring, you brought me nothing but fucking misery you useless piece of shit.”
He clucked his tongue, letting go of my chin, but only to cock his arm and backhand me across the face. He stood up, releasing my wrist from the cuff, then taking off up the steps. “Oh and don't get up any hopes of escape. That chain will let you get a third the way up the steps and there's no way you'd fit through the windows, not even with the weight you've lost. You're going to be here for a good long time, Wills.”
The door at the landing slammed and I pushed myself up, wincing at the pain in my back, trying to will away the tears I felt stinging my eyes. I could do a lot of things: yell, scream, fight, spit fire. But I would not, under any circumstances, waste any more tears on him.
I looked around, taking deep breaths to calm the hysterical anxiety building inside. Because, I noticed as I looked around, he was right- there was no escape. There was no way I could get away. My only hope was for rescue and given that I hadn't been able to figure out Damian owned the store, no one else was going to be able to either.
Suddenly, I had the memory of my father visiting the apartment one afternoon when Damian was at work. It had been a week since the last time he beat me, but the emotional impact of it had lasted longer than the bruises and seeing my father, a man who had kept me in his own kind of prison my whole life, had somehow seemed like a chance for rescue.
“Dad... he beats me,” I said, my voice a quiver and his head snapped to me, eyes wide.
“What?”
“He... beats me. With his hands. With a belt...”
It was one of the few times in my life I remembered him looking stricken. His gaze quickly fell to the floor, looking at his boots. “Why?”
“Because he thinks I need to be punished.”
“For?”
It was that moment that I felt hope die. I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Any little thing,” I admitted though I knew it was pointless; he wasn't going to save me.
“Can't say it's not his place. He's your husband. Your behavior is a reflection of him. He needs to find ways to make sure you stay in line. As your father, I don't like hearing that. But you aren't a little girl anymore. You're a married woman and it's your job to follow your husbands rules and deal with the consequences of breaking them.”
“Okay.”
I never asked for help again. Not even from the sheriff who raised a brow at the bruises on my wrists while we were in line at the check-out at the grocery store. Not even when he caught my eye afterward and asked me if I was alright. There was simply no spirit, no fight left in me at that point.
It was pointless, hopeless.
That was exactly the feeling I had in that moment, sitting on the stairs in my new prison, seeing no escape, knowing there was no one coming to save me. I guess thirteen years of freedom was all that I was going to get. I had some good times. I took out some bad guys. I saved some good ones. I'd had sex. I'd drank. I'd made friends. I'd traveled. All in all, it wasn't bad. I fit into thirteen years what most people didn't manage in a lifetime. And thank god, because those memories were going to be the only thing that got me through.
I knew that some day, some time, he would screw up. He would get comfortable. He would think he had succeeded in breaking my spirit. Then I would have a chance. The lock on my ankle, big and ugly as it was, it was absolutely pick-able. I could get it off with enough attempts. And, well, I had nothing but time. Then I just needed to wait for a time he stumbled, he turned his back on me when I was too close. I could take him down if he didn't see me coming. Get him unconscious and then, well, do whatever the hell was necessary to make sure he didn't come after me again.
I got up off the stairs and made the rest of the way down, cringing at the weight of the shackle. It was going to rip apart the skin underneath, no matter how thick a layer of clothing I wore. It was going to rub and weigh and make it raw.