I
The moment before I turned the dark corner, I felt a hand grasp my shoulder. I knew this hand. It was the hand I had been running from all night. I felt the needle jab into my back, as I knew it would. The world began to spin as the syringe of doxylamine worked its way into my system. Then, everything went black, and I faded into unconsciousness, knowing that there was no hope for escape, no hope for life, no hope to ever be had.

I woke up back in the warehouse, in the massive room lit by those few bare bulbs, giving the immense space a dark, shadowy quality. I knew he was there, somewhere. I couldn’t see him, but he was there somewhere.

He had taken away my paperclips, the precious little paperclips that I had used to pick the padlock on the door of this warehouse. He had seen me writing, so he had given me the paperclips so that I wouldn’t lose my writing. It had been a gesture of kindness. He didn’t think I was competent enough to escape. He started leaving me alone at nights, thinking that I was secured. Well, he thought wrong. I had gotten so close. I was no more than three blocks away from the police when he got me back.

Now, that glimmer of kindness he had shown me was gone. He had put me in a cage in this warehouse, as well as probably tripling the locks on the door. It had taken me nearly an hour to pick that one lock. Now, I would have to pick at least four to escape this prison.

He came over to me, looking through the bars of my solid steel prison, seeming triumphant, holding a lit cigarette. He then, rather unexpectedly, opened the cage and let me out. As I looked around, analyzing my potential routes of escape, he grabbed me and started dragging me across the warehouse.

I didn’t scream. I learned long ago that screaming would do nothing, that nobody could hear me, and that I would receive no rescue. But when I saw the bed, with the shackles and other unspeakable things, a scream escaped my lips. There was no stopping it. I knew what was going to happen.

He quickly slapped a strip of tape on my mouth, halting any further screams. There would be no more screams that night. Only tears.





II

As the man walked closer, the sounds became louder. He turned the corner and saw me there on that bed. He saw my captor doing unspeakable things to me, things that cannot possibly be described. I felt a faint glimmer of hope, that maybe whoever this man was could help me. Maybe he could get me out of this horrible ritual that had been continuing for a year, ever since he took me on that cold January night. He had never sent out a ransom note, indeed, he never seemed to want monetary gain. He just seemed to want a teenage girl for a sex doll.

My captor still had not seen the man, as he slowly started to walk towards the bed. I fought to control my facial expression, seeing as to how if he saw him, my potential rescuer would be very easily overpowered, and probably killed. I don’t know what the man was doing here, I had never seen him before. All I did know was that he might just be able to help me.

When he finally reached the bed, he gently tapped my captor on the shoulder. He whipped around, seeing the new man. I was hoping that this would be followed by a swift punch to the face, with the man on top of me on the receiving end. Unfortunately, I was greatly, tragically mistaken.

My captor slid off of me, standing at the side of the bed, and I wondered what was going on. Then, the new man climbed on, and I realized that he was an accomplice. There truly was no hope, and he was here to violate me as well. Tears silently flowed down my face as he continued on, and I lost consciousness, sliding gratefully into the inky nothingness.

My captor released the shackles on the bed, allowing me to finally sit up. I felt hopeless. I knew that this was never going to end. I would be trapped here for years, imprisoned by this horrible man and his new accomplice, doomed to be a sex toy forever.

He grabbed me, carried me back across the warehouse, and flung me back into the cage, locking the door, and leaving. I heard several locks click on the main door as he left, signaling that I could release my pent-up emotions.

I ripped the tape off of my mouth, and I started to sob uncontrollably. This man had taken away my freedom, and any last vestige of self-respect that I had. He had crossed an irrevocable barrier tonight. Soon, I will avenge this. Soon.









III
He opened the door, and I could see the triumph in his eyes. He thought he had conquered me. He thought that I had finally submitted to his games, his sick, twisted games. But no. Tonight was going to be the night where I would avenge the violations he’s caused for the last year and a half.
I had been planning this for the last six months, ever since that first, awful night when the man I thought was my savior ended up being yet another aggressor. Shortly after that, the second man got into an argument with the first about who had full dominance over me. My first captor got angry and shot him in the head, giving me one less force to fight off.
He also made the shortsighted decision of allowing me to work out, which would help me overpower the man I was completely helpless against eighteen months ago. The time was now. As he opened the door, I knew that tonight, there would be no going back. If I resisted tonight and did not succeed, he would kill me and all would be lost.
I exited the cage and started walking over to the bed. He looked a little unsteady on his feet, as though he was drunk. Good. That would make my nearly impossible task a little bit easier.
When we got to the bed, he signaled toward the bed, as he always did. In the past, I had passively obeyed him in order to not be killed. But now, I shook my head, refusing his command.
He gestured again, only harder. I shook my head vehemently, trying to goad him into approaching me. It worked. He charged me, trying to slam me into the bed. I sidestepped him, sending him crashing onto the bed. I locked the chains that had been on my wrists and ankles so very many times around his, rendering him completely helpless and immobile.
Then, I stood there. My original plan had been to do unto him what he had done to me, but that seemed pointless. Where would I go from there? I wouldn’t be able to leave the warehouse, and he would eventually break free and kill me. So, I decided to do what he had been threatening to do for months: I pulled the gun out of the holster in his leg and shot him in the head.
I looked at the corpse of the man who had held me here for the last eighteen months, amazed that it had been so simple. I saw the key ring to the multiple padlocks on the main door on his belt loop. I grabbed it and starting walking towards the exit. Then, everything started to go fuzzy. The walls started to shake, and the world went black.
Then, the second man swam into focus on top of me. The first man commented that I hadn’t complained in a while. No hope. No hope. No hope.