Her arms were sore, and her legs were shaky from being shackled together for hours on end, and she had to pee like a son of a bitch. Now that she was upright, she could see that they were in some sort of ancient ruin of what used to be a trailer. Sure, the walls were mostly intact, as was the roof, but holy hell, the place had definitely seen better days.
The kitchen cupboards were slanted on the walls and hanging on for dear life. The dirty linoleum flooring was shredded in most spots, with patches of subflooring showing under the bare patches. Hideous rotting wallpaper hung off the walls in large sheets and dipped onto the floor.
When they finally made their way back to the bathroom, Joy gagged when she entered the rot-covered room. There wasn’t a clean patch of surface to be found. There was no way she was sitting on that toilet to do her business. She prayed her legs were strong enough to do a high hover.
“Sorry, princess, the maid has the week off.”
“More like the whole decade.” She turned her nose up at the pure filth surrounding her.
Donovan stood there and watched every move she made.
“A little privacy. I get stage fright.” Not entirely a lie. There was no way she was going to be able to do her business in front of him. No way she was going to pull her pants down with him standing there staring at her.
“Fine, but the door is staying open.” He stepped outside of the room.
“Can you take these cuffs off, just for a few minutes?” she asked.
“No. I can’t trust that you won’t attack me or try to run, and you have no one to blame but your own damn self.”
Ugh!she thought. It was a pain in the ass, but she managed to yank her pants down enough to hover as high as possible for fear of a bacterial infection or an STD, jumping off the toilet and reaching her. The handcuffs and subsequent chain made the task a thousand times harder than it needed to be, but somehow she had managed.
“Are you done in there yet?” he asked.
“Just about. It would be quicker if you freed me,” she replied.
“Not likely, princess.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked as she turned on the water and ran her hands under the ice-cold spray.
“Because you have that uppity bitch thing going on,” he said with a shrug as she stepped out of the bathroom and into the hallway.
“You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me,” she fired back.
“Actually, princess. I know all about you. I’ve been watching you for years. I know your daily habits, what your favorite food is, and who your friends are. You threw me off when you packed up and moved to Alaska, but it didn’t take long for you to come running back here. I kind of lucked out that you came back when you did.” He gloated as he picked up her chain and pushed her back toward the front of the trailer.
A chill ran down Joy’s spine. She didn’t know how to respond to what Donovan had said. Surely, it couldn’t have been true.
“You’re lying!” she growled, turning to face him.
“Am I?” he asked, taunting her.
“Yes! You don’t know shit about me.”
“I know your favorite food is steak tacos. Hold the tomatoes with a side of rice and beans. You always order a sweet tea and then a margarita after dinner. I know that your favorite show is Grey’s Anatomy. You rock out to classic rock in your car, and you always look over your shoulder before you start dancing around your apartment during your Saturday morning cleaning sprees.” He grunted, pushing her down the hallway. “You think I don’t know shit about you, princess? Hell, I probably know more about you than you know about you.”
Joy grabbed the chain and yanked as hard as she could before quickly spinning around and smacking Donovan in the face, knocking him off his balance.
“Fucking bitch!”
That was the last thing Joy heard as the blackness washed over her.