I opened my eyes, squinting in the sudden jab of sunlight that poured over me as he opened the trunk.
"How ya doing in there? Did you have a nice little rest?"
I couldn't answer him with the gag in my mouth, and I wouldn't have anyway. I remembered how I had wanted him to die while he was raping me that Valentine's Day eve, and I wanted him to die now as he took the knife from his belt and sliced through the ropes tying my wrists to my ankles. My body was so cramped by now...how long had we been driving?...that I wasn't even sure that I could move. Nor did I want to really; the slightest shift of my body caused my head to pound so hard it felt like someone was beating on it with a brick.
I had been more than happy to pass out again what seemed like hours earlier, and maybe it had been. Crying had only made my head hurt worse, and thoughts of Lucky only made me cry more, which only made the pain of my head unbearable...a vicious cycle I could only escape by going unconscious.
Only now awareness was back, harsh and glaring reality reflected in the dark eyes that looked down at me, filled with hate and anger and some twisted kind of lust I could never hope to understand. I tried to think of Lucky, to imagine that it was him standing there coming to rescue me, but my brain moved so sluggishly that I could barely form his name in my mind. Any panic I had felt before was replaced by a heavy lethargy I wasn't even sure I wanted to shake. I knew that I was going to die anyway, and God knew what would happen to me before I did, so perhaps it was just the best thing to go numb, stop thinking, stop feeling...just remove myself from it all and it would be over soon...
Any resolve I made was destroyed as he pulled the gag from my mouth and grabbed my arm, wrenching me with a jerk out of the trunk, banging the top of my head against the lid as he brought me to my feet. I opened my mouth to cry out, but only a soft moan escaped my lips as my legs buckled and I fell to my hands and knees, stinging the cuts on my palms, unable to control the nausea that swept through me. My face burned with humiliation and shame as I coughed and spit into the dirt, but I couldn't stop, not until there was nothing inside of me, nothing but harsh, wracking dry sobs that seemed to tear their way from the very bottom of my soul..
"Enough. God, you're pathetic." There was pure disgust in his voice as he dragged me upwards again, but I couldn't stand and only sagged limply in his grip. He cursed in exasperation and lifted me into his arms. "You puke on me and you're dead a second later," he growled.
I tucked my head down as close to my chest as I could and tried not to breathe through my nose so that I wouldn't have to smell him. He was not wearing the spicy soap that had filled my head during the rape, but even so I fancied that I could smell it, clogging my nostrils so that I wanted to be sick again. I couldn't even really see where we were; I had the impression of being surrounded by trees and green things, the woods, and then he was unlocking a door and we passed into the dark interior of a room, then another door and he was dropping me down onto a pile of dirty blankets against a wall.
"Sleep tight, little one," he said, and turned away.
I watched his retreating back through clouding eyes, too weak to even look around me. I could feel myself slipping away again, and I did not fight it.
It came back to me with a vengeance, the dream that wasn't really a dream but a replaying of the worst memory of my entire life. Me sitting young and innocent upon the park bench in my red Valentine's dress, hands reaching from behind me in the darkness to choke off my breath. I tried to fight him but there was nothing I could do, no way I had any chance against him as he pulled me backwards into the bushes. It had been a long, long time since I'd had the dream, so long that I could almost forget about it. Almost.
Usually I awoke from it gasping and fighting, but this time I only awoke with a little sob, my eyes opening wet and staring into the dim light through the small window that was too high for me to reach. I started to roll over but stopped at a warning from my splitting head. Shadows seemed to shift and move around me, drifting into the corners like dust. There was no furniture for them to hide behind, nothing but me and the blankets, the window, and a door on each end. I wondered dimly where the other one led to but made no move to find out.
"Lucky, what are you doing now?" I whispered. "Do you think that I'm dead? Or do you know? Do you know that he has me? Do you know that he took me? Are you trying to find me? I don't know how you will because I don't know where I am. But Lucky I wish...I wish you could find me. I wish this was just another bad dream and that when I woke up I'd see you there and I'd know I was okay. That's what I really wish."