Fic: "Girl In The Mirror", ch 2 cont...
Continued from part one, found here
***
It was harder than Veronica thought.
The plan was simple enough, ease into his comfort zone and play up the us-against-them pattern until he trusted her. The more he thought of her as a friend and less as a hostage, the better for her overall. It shouldn’t have been too hard; she had a talent for reading people and gauging the right persona to play in any given situation.
Well, nearly any.
Sylar was stubborn enough to prove her wrong on every point. He was unpredictable and vicious and part childlike, a spoiled boy whose mood flipped on a dime. Her bruises were growing each day and he acted both contrite and proud of them, depending on the minute.
She flexed the fingers of her hand and winced at the pulling of her bruised tendons.
He didn’t want to be coddled, to have her pretend to pander to his every need, but he didn’t want her to resist him either, he didn’t want her to remain sullen and obstinate and rude, but he didn’t want her to be false. At any given moment she was supposed to engage him in conversation or play the smitten ingénue, the wounded victim or the terrified prey. And if she played one wrong, the reaction was severe.
Veronica was long leached of any energy.
The constant need to read his moods wore her down. They’d driven all day, barely stopping to eat lunch in the early afternoon and not having stopped for dinner at all. It was already dark and it had been hours since they’d stopped, the entire day since she’d been able to stretch her legs. He hadn’t even let her go to the bathroom.
Her thighs crackled with lactose and unspent movement, aching and punishing her for their imprisonment as she followed him carefully to their allocated room. Her body wanted to limp, but she didn’t dare.
She should have made a fuss when he’d gone inside to book the room, there’d been several people passing close enough to the car for her to lean on the horn and attract attention to herself. She should have opened the door and run, run as far and as fast as she could, slipping into a corner of somewhere and hiding, curled up into a ball.
But she hadn’t.
Instead, she had sat still, not even daring to lift her hands up from her lap. Just as she’d done exactly as she’d been told the entire day, had sat in the passenger seat and leaned her head on her hand and watched with bored eyes as the landscape flew by, as each tree melted into the next.
Veronica had stopped paying attention to the landmarks. There was no need to constantly plan escape routes back home. The longer they drove, hours spent watching the line of the road dip and curve and bleed into the grass next to it, the more Veronica grew convinced of the futility of thinking or preparing for rescue or escape any time soon.
She’d thought about her dad and how, under different circumstances, he would have loved a road trip. She imagined the constant commentary he’d give the entire time, waxing lyrical about some overgrown giant ball of twine or the world’s largest kernel of corn, cracking silly jokes to bring a smile to her face. The things she didn’t imagine included all the trips he’d planned but never taken, busy trying to improve their situation, trying to make things better for her, the weight of his hand on her shoulder, the smell of his aftershave, the cadence of his voice when he used to read her stories at bedtime.
The sound of keys jangling as Sylar tossed them onto the table made her shake out of her fugue, a sudden reminder that she was there with him again.
She should hate him.
The room was small and bare, the same as any other motel room. A table, a television, a phone, a bathroom, a bed. She slid the toes of her shoes along the threadbare floor, slowly pushing them forward until she reached the table. The chair was uncomfortable, its back bent at an awkward angle.
Sylar pushed a container towards her and she looked at the box. He’d bought Chinese. She knew what he was doing, she could read it in the way he watched her when she ate, in the way he differed the choices every time. He was taking mental notes, trying to figure her out, remembering her likes and dislikes.
It scared her that one day he would know.
That, maybe, he would know what to order for her the same way Wallace would if they went out or watched a DVD at home. She had two DVDs sitting on the desk at home that belonged to Wallace and she wondered if he would ever get them back now, if her dad would know enough to hand them over or if Wallace would have the nerve to ask for them.
If, maybe one day, when Sylar knew every last thing there was to know about her, her father and her best friend and Logan would strip down her room and pack away her belongings, place them in carefully labelled boxes. She wondered who would take down the photos that lined her pegboard, what her father would do if he found the case files he didn’t know she’d taken, if Logan would ever really know the truth about how she felt.
After they’d finished, Sylar cleared away the boxes and went to shower.
She fingered the silver bracelet around her wrist, an absent gesture whenever she thought about Logan. He’d given it to her for Christmas one year and she’d loved it so much she hadn’t been game enough to wear it. It was obviously expensive and way out of her price range. When they’d gone out that night, Veronica had worn it just for him, a gesture of honesty on her part that she’d hoped would say more than her unspoken words never could.
Her reluctance to talk to him galled her now.
If only she could speak to him, to Wallace or Mac or her dad, she wouldn’t waste time telling them all she loved them. Even as she thought it, she clenched her teeth in annoyance. She was being overdramatic. She knew it. She had said the same words before, in that fridge with smoke curling in her lungs, on that rooftop with electricity coursing through her veins, being dragged across the floor by Mercer, she had said it all then and she had not changed.
She never changed.
Maybe they didn’t even know. Maybe Wallace would eventually fall back into his life and remember her sadly as a good friend and never know for sure how much she appreciated everything he did. Maybe Logan would rage and fight and mourn her forever, but eventually assign her to the one that got away, that he never had in the first place, that he never measured up to. She’d never really assured him otherwise, despite the fact he’d asked her to, she’d never actually looked him in the face and told him he was the one, more than Duncan had ever been. And her dad... her dad knew how much she cared, he had to, he absolutely had to, because he was the one person she had said it to, but there was no way he could realize the depths, the way she understood and appreciated everything he’d given up for her, the way she admired him for the hits he took and the morals he held and...
Veronica shook her head, trying to dislodge the thoughts the second she realized how pessimistic she was sounding inside her own head. She was already envisioning years with Sylar, perhaps never getting back, her brain automatically and without permission giving up.
She could not, would not go down that path.
The walls were covered in cheap, ugly artwork that matched the cheap, ugly carpet at her feet, but she could make out the poorly hidden stains, a few small cracks, the patch of carpet that had begun to lift up at the corner near the door.
“Your turn.”
Veronica jumped as Sylar returned from the small bathroom, towel around his waist. His sudden appearance threw her and she blinked, staring blankly for several seconds before the words kicked in and she scurried to move. She was not going to give up and she was not going to give in, but she didn’t need to unnecessarily provoke him when she didn’t have to.
It was all about picking the fights she could win.
Somehow they had both agreed on a routine that suited them both for long car journeys. They rose quickly in the mornings, dressed and left, spent the entire day in the car and then used the evening to settle down. She was vaguely grateful for the night showers, the day left the hours driving on her skin, a film of grimy air she needed to shuck as quickly as she could.
She moved slowly as she stepped inside the bathroom, a towel and a few necessities gathered in her arms, and she shut the door without thought, an offhand gesture that sent it softly clicking into place. It clicked open a second later and Veronica didn’t think twice given the barely above board maintenance she had already noted. She merely put down her things and went back to close it again, jostling the handle so that the latch clicked properly.
When she stepped back again, however, the door flew open, violent enough to hit the opposite wall with a loud slam and she jumped, raising her eyes with a low, cold dread sinking in her abdomen.
He stood in the middle of the room facing her, several feet from the bathroom, and he had seemed up until this moment quite unremarkable in stature, covered and cowed in his clothes. But framed by the doorway, standing bare-chested in nothing but a towel, Veronica did not think she had seen anything more imposing or threatening.
She met his eyes and shivered.
The urge to run was overpowering for a second, her brain instantly measuring the distance between herself and the outer door, the spaces around his body she would need to manoeuvre, even as she knew it was hopeless. Saliva deserted her, leaving the inside of her mouth dry and tacky.
His eyebrows rose in a slight challenge and Veronica swallowed as she nodded slightly, the barest movement of her chin up and down.
She turned away from him to face the mirror, silently waiting for any sign. A low growled order, her body thrown across the room into splintering shards of glass, something, but he didn’t move and she was left to meet her own eyes as she slowly lifted her top over her head.
Her shoulders prickled in the air, skin already hypersensitive to being watched and the woman who looked back at her was not recognisable in any sense of the word. Misshapen features that were slowly morphing back into a dulled, mottled bruised version of her face, shadows deep under her eyes, water bright eyes that looked ready to flood over with the slightest provocation.
Makeup would cover the worst of it, she was sure, but the thought of asking him for anything made her grind her teeth, let alone something as everyday and casual as makeup. He wasn’t a trusted companion and she wasn’t going to do anything extra to make things easier for him if he couldn’t think of them for himself.
Do it quickly. Her brain supplied, ever helpful as she blinked a little too slowly, breathed in on the closed lids, savoured the darkness for several seconds too long. Like a bandaid, don’t prolong it...
The words Don’t tease him floated and threatened to break through, but she pushed them down and forced herself to think clinically. It was nothing, just an act, he’d seen her dress before on that first night, even if he had given her privacy since.
She toed off her shoes and socks, slipping her pants down quickly. Her fingers twitched and she forced herself to watch her own eyes in the mirror without searching behind her, without looking for him. If she caught sight of him watching, his eyes darkened to near black, she would not be able to go through with it.
Her bra released in an awkward fumbling of clasps and she let it fall to the side, unable to stop the shuffle of her arms to cover as much of herself as possible. Lastly, her underwear fell to the floor and she stepped quickly into the actual shower, reached for the taps and pretended he wasn’t there.
It didn’t matter if he watched, she told herself, not at all. It meant nothing.
The water pressure and heat in the shower was better than the last motel they’d stayed at and she couldn’t suppress the soft moan of appreciation as her head fell back and she let the water wash over her throat and down her neck. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was alone.
A quick spin and duck got her head wet and she let the water soak into her hair, could almost imagine it soaking the moisture up like a sponge. Her hands found the bottles of shampoo and conditioner by feel alone and she spared the briefest little eye flicker to see which one was which before closing them again.
The heat felt good on her abused, spasm ridden muscles, the soap cleansed skin and hair refreshing her in ways she’d nearly forgotten, and all she wanted was to stay there, hide under the torrent of the shower, the water that cut her off from reality.
But reality was never far away and she could feel it hovering, lurking in every movement.
She did not stay long under the water, twisting the taps closed with desperate viciousness. It was all she could do not to grab the towel and wrap herself up as quickly as possible, she used all her energy to keep her movement fluid and natural.
She towelled herself dry, slipped into the night shirt and came to stand in front of the mirror to brush her hair, tie it back, curse it for its resemblance to another. With quick, rapid movements she rinsed the bra under the tap and wrung it out, hanging it on the towel rack to dry.
They had only a few days worth of clothes left, if that, and she wondered what they would do when they ran out, whether he would stop long enough for them to use a Laundromat or whether he would use his seemingly unending supply of ready cash to just purchase new ones. She only had the bra she’d worn when he’d taken her. He’d bought her clothes and underwear, but not bras and she would swallow her own tongue before pointing that out.
She did not even want to think about what would happen in two weeks time when she would need something else.
Eventually, after a prolonged session with the toothbrush, there was nothing left to keep her in there without being too obvious and she breathed in, ready to face him.
The doorway was empty when she turned around and she blinked, instantly confused. Her nerves mounted with every step towards the door, half expecting him to be waiting on the other side, ready to pounce. The silence in the other room only added to the tension.
When she finally saw him, though, he was sitting in the bed with a roadmap spread out over his knees, intently studying its surface, seemingly unconcerned about her whereabouts if he remembered she was there at all.
A brief, inexplicable fury rose in her chest, a need to yell at him, demand to know why he had done that, why he had put her through that for nothing. But it died early and aborted, she stifled it quickly. She’d just be giving him exactly what he wanted.
It wasn’t new. He wasn’t doing anything that wasn’t already documented in a thousand psychology dissertations the world over. She had to keep remembering that; had to keep telling herself that she had the upper hand because she was prepared. She could fake her reactions.
Apparently she’d gone too far suggesting a change of appearance, or possibly it was when she’d let him stroke her hand, she’d gone too far and now he felt the need to remind her who had all the power.
As if she wasn’t painfully aware of it already.
Her brain skipped over the map, like the needle of a record she was trying to forget. She didn’t wan t to know, didn’t want to remember the conversation in the car earlier. Sylar was a quiet man, he could spend hours not speaking at all, but his need to control and terrorize was far greater.
He’d taken great delight in spelling out exactly what was happening. They were two days away from his next victim. Her stomach twisted when she thought about the fact that there was someone out there already targeted for death, that she couldn’t and probably wouldn’t do anything to stop it even though she knew.
The fact did not escape her that he already knew where he was going, so the map he was looking at just then was little more than another twisted game, a further reminder of who he was and what he was going to do.
Her body shrivelled, limbs curled in a little closer to her torso as she hovered in the middle of the room.
She was tired, bone weary, exhaustion heavy tired. She hadn’t relaxed in a week, always on constant alert, body humming with dread and expectation every second. Bruised and battered, shifted from one place to another, she’d barely been able to follow let alone keep up.
In her head, she knew what she should do, what she was supposed to do, what was expected of her. She knew if she ever got out of here what she wanted to be able to tell people, what they’d want her to say.
She was supposed to resist, supposed to put up a fight, stay strong until the end.
He wasn’t looking at her, hadn’t even glanced up once since she’d left the bathroom. It would be easy enough to make her little protest, to go to the little arm chair to the side of the room and curl up in that instead. Show him she wouldn’t submit that easily, especially when he didn’t care.
But she wouldn’t.
She knew it before she even thought about it. The feel of flying through the air was still stark in her memory, the loss of control of her own body as he threw it without thinking, the feel of cruel fingers and restrained violence, the threat that lingered under the surface even in his calmer moments.
She was too tired to fight tonight.
And so she walked to her side of the bed, pulled the cover down and slipped in under the sheet, rolling away from him. Her eyes closed and she lay as still as she could, wrists curled under her chin and knees pulled up close to her chest.
It swamped her, then, the finality of it, the inevitability of all of it. She wouldn’t get out, not in time, and it didn’t matter how much she knew going in, how text book the entire thing was, eyes wide open she would still fall under. Already she was dependant on him for food and shelter and survival, her ability to bend to his wishes decided her existence. After one week she was already catching herself choosing her actions based on his approval.
Her shoulders jerked once, a tightly held movement and she choked on a bulbous sob in her throat, struggled with it for several seconds before she began to shake, trembling shoulders and quiet, muffled sniffling. She bit down on it, tried to stay as still as possible, didn’t want him to know, to see, to feel it. To get that satisfaction.
She felt the fall of his hand on her arm.
She should hate him.
The mattress dipped with the roll of his body and she heard the rustle of the map fall away to the side. Her skin shrivelled under his, tendons pulled in tight, but she kept herself still, as still as the trembles of her body would allow.
He was going to kill her or break her and she knew it.
She should hate him.
But damn her, the bed was still the only place she felt safe anymore.
***
End.
to be continued...
Questions? Comments?
Sacrifices to my altar?
***
It was harder than Veronica thought.
The plan was simple enough, ease into his comfort zone and play up the us-against-them pattern until he trusted her. The more he thought of her as a friend and less as a hostage, the better for her overall. It shouldn’t have been too hard; she had a talent for reading people and gauging the right persona to play in any given situation.
Well, nearly any.
Sylar was stubborn enough to prove her wrong on every point. He was unpredictable and vicious and part childlike, a spoiled boy whose mood flipped on a dime. Her bruises were growing each day and he acted both contrite and proud of them, depending on the minute.
She flexed the fingers of her hand and winced at the pulling of her bruised tendons.
He didn’t want to be coddled, to have her pretend to pander to his every need, but he didn’t want her to resist him either, he didn’t want her to remain sullen and obstinate and rude, but he didn’t want her to be false. At any given moment she was supposed to engage him in conversation or play the smitten ingénue, the wounded victim or the terrified prey. And if she played one wrong, the reaction was severe.
Veronica was long leached of any energy.
The constant need to read his moods wore her down. They’d driven all day, barely stopping to eat lunch in the early afternoon and not having stopped for dinner at all. It was already dark and it had been hours since they’d stopped, the entire day since she’d been able to stretch her legs. He hadn’t even let her go to the bathroom.
Her thighs crackled with lactose and unspent movement, aching and punishing her for their imprisonment as she followed him carefully to their allocated room. Her body wanted to limp, but she didn’t dare.
She should have made a fuss when he’d gone inside to book the room, there’d been several people passing close enough to the car for her to lean on the horn and attract attention to herself. She should have opened the door and run, run as far and as fast as she could, slipping into a corner of somewhere and hiding, curled up into a ball.
But she hadn’t.
Instead, she had sat still, not even daring to lift her hands up from her lap. Just as she’d done exactly as she’d been told the entire day, had sat in the passenger seat and leaned her head on her hand and watched with bored eyes as the landscape flew by, as each tree melted into the next.
Veronica had stopped paying attention to the landmarks. There was no need to constantly plan escape routes back home. The longer they drove, hours spent watching the line of the road dip and curve and bleed into the grass next to it, the more Veronica grew convinced of the futility of thinking or preparing for rescue or escape any time soon.
She’d thought about her dad and how, under different circumstances, he would have loved a road trip. She imagined the constant commentary he’d give the entire time, waxing lyrical about some overgrown giant ball of twine or the world’s largest kernel of corn, cracking silly jokes to bring a smile to her face. The things she didn’t imagine included all the trips he’d planned but never taken, busy trying to improve their situation, trying to make things better for her, the weight of his hand on her shoulder, the smell of his aftershave, the cadence of his voice when he used to read her stories at bedtime.
The sound of keys jangling as Sylar tossed them onto the table made her shake out of her fugue, a sudden reminder that she was there with him again.
She should hate him.
The room was small and bare, the same as any other motel room. A table, a television, a phone, a bathroom, a bed. She slid the toes of her shoes along the threadbare floor, slowly pushing them forward until she reached the table. The chair was uncomfortable, its back bent at an awkward angle.
Sylar pushed a container towards her and she looked at the box. He’d bought Chinese. She knew what he was doing, she could read it in the way he watched her when she ate, in the way he differed the choices every time. He was taking mental notes, trying to figure her out, remembering her likes and dislikes.
It scared her that one day he would know.
That, maybe, he would know what to order for her the same way Wallace would if they went out or watched a DVD at home. She had two DVDs sitting on the desk at home that belonged to Wallace and she wondered if he would ever get them back now, if her dad would know enough to hand them over or if Wallace would have the nerve to ask for them.
If, maybe one day, when Sylar knew every last thing there was to know about her, her father and her best friend and Logan would strip down her room and pack away her belongings, place them in carefully labelled boxes. She wondered who would take down the photos that lined her pegboard, what her father would do if he found the case files he didn’t know she’d taken, if Logan would ever really know the truth about how she felt.
After they’d finished, Sylar cleared away the boxes and went to shower.
She fingered the silver bracelet around her wrist, an absent gesture whenever she thought about Logan. He’d given it to her for Christmas one year and she’d loved it so much she hadn’t been game enough to wear it. It was obviously expensive and way out of her price range. When they’d gone out that night, Veronica had worn it just for him, a gesture of honesty on her part that she’d hoped would say more than her unspoken words never could.
Her reluctance to talk to him galled her now.
If only she could speak to him, to Wallace or Mac or her dad, she wouldn’t waste time telling them all she loved them. Even as she thought it, she clenched her teeth in annoyance. She was being overdramatic. She knew it. She had said the same words before, in that fridge with smoke curling in her lungs, on that rooftop with electricity coursing through her veins, being dragged across the floor by Mercer, she had said it all then and she had not changed.
She never changed.
Maybe they didn’t even know. Maybe Wallace would eventually fall back into his life and remember her sadly as a good friend and never know for sure how much she appreciated everything he did. Maybe Logan would rage and fight and mourn her forever, but eventually assign her to the one that got away, that he never had in the first place, that he never measured up to. She’d never really assured him otherwise, despite the fact he’d asked her to, she’d never actually looked him in the face and told him he was the one, more than Duncan had ever been. And her dad... her dad knew how much she cared, he had to, he absolutely had to, because he was the one person she had said it to, but there was no way he could realize the depths, the way she understood and appreciated everything he’d given up for her, the way she admired him for the hits he took and the morals he held and...
Veronica shook her head, trying to dislodge the thoughts the second she realized how pessimistic she was sounding inside her own head. She was already envisioning years with Sylar, perhaps never getting back, her brain automatically and without permission giving up.
She could not, would not go down that path.
The walls were covered in cheap, ugly artwork that matched the cheap, ugly carpet at her feet, but she could make out the poorly hidden stains, a few small cracks, the patch of carpet that had begun to lift up at the corner near the door.
“Your turn.”
Veronica jumped as Sylar returned from the small bathroom, towel around his waist. His sudden appearance threw her and she blinked, staring blankly for several seconds before the words kicked in and she scurried to move. She was not going to give up and she was not going to give in, but she didn’t need to unnecessarily provoke him when she didn’t have to.
It was all about picking the fights she could win.
Somehow they had both agreed on a routine that suited them both for long car journeys. They rose quickly in the mornings, dressed and left, spent the entire day in the car and then used the evening to settle down. She was vaguely grateful for the night showers, the day left the hours driving on her skin, a film of grimy air she needed to shuck as quickly as she could.
She moved slowly as she stepped inside the bathroom, a towel and a few necessities gathered in her arms, and she shut the door without thought, an offhand gesture that sent it softly clicking into place. It clicked open a second later and Veronica didn’t think twice given the barely above board maintenance she had already noted. She merely put down her things and went back to close it again, jostling the handle so that the latch clicked properly.
When she stepped back again, however, the door flew open, violent enough to hit the opposite wall with a loud slam and she jumped, raising her eyes with a low, cold dread sinking in her abdomen.
He stood in the middle of the room facing her, several feet from the bathroom, and he had seemed up until this moment quite unremarkable in stature, covered and cowed in his clothes. But framed by the doorway, standing bare-chested in nothing but a towel, Veronica did not think she had seen anything more imposing or threatening.
She met his eyes and shivered.
The urge to run was overpowering for a second, her brain instantly measuring the distance between herself and the outer door, the spaces around his body she would need to manoeuvre, even as she knew it was hopeless. Saliva deserted her, leaving the inside of her mouth dry and tacky.
His eyebrows rose in a slight challenge and Veronica swallowed as she nodded slightly, the barest movement of her chin up and down.
She turned away from him to face the mirror, silently waiting for any sign. A low growled order, her body thrown across the room into splintering shards of glass, something, but he didn’t move and she was left to meet her own eyes as she slowly lifted her top over her head.
Her shoulders prickled in the air, skin already hypersensitive to being watched and the woman who looked back at her was not recognisable in any sense of the word. Misshapen features that were slowly morphing back into a dulled, mottled bruised version of her face, shadows deep under her eyes, water bright eyes that looked ready to flood over with the slightest provocation.
Makeup would cover the worst of it, she was sure, but the thought of asking him for anything made her grind her teeth, let alone something as everyday and casual as makeup. He wasn’t a trusted companion and she wasn’t going to do anything extra to make things easier for him if he couldn’t think of them for himself.
Do it quickly. Her brain supplied, ever helpful as she blinked a little too slowly, breathed in on the closed lids, savoured the darkness for several seconds too long. Like a bandaid, don’t prolong it...
The words Don’t tease him floated and threatened to break through, but she pushed them down and forced herself to think clinically. It was nothing, just an act, he’d seen her dress before on that first night, even if he had given her privacy since.
She toed off her shoes and socks, slipping her pants down quickly. Her fingers twitched and she forced herself to watch her own eyes in the mirror without searching behind her, without looking for him. If she caught sight of him watching, his eyes darkened to near black, she would not be able to go through with it.
Her bra released in an awkward fumbling of clasps and she let it fall to the side, unable to stop the shuffle of her arms to cover as much of herself as possible. Lastly, her underwear fell to the floor and she stepped quickly into the actual shower, reached for the taps and pretended he wasn’t there.
It didn’t matter if he watched, she told herself, not at all. It meant nothing.
The water pressure and heat in the shower was better than the last motel they’d stayed at and she couldn’t suppress the soft moan of appreciation as her head fell back and she let the water wash over her throat and down her neck. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was alone.
A quick spin and duck got her head wet and she let the water soak into her hair, could almost imagine it soaking the moisture up like a sponge. Her hands found the bottles of shampoo and conditioner by feel alone and she spared the briefest little eye flicker to see which one was which before closing them again.
The heat felt good on her abused, spasm ridden muscles, the soap cleansed skin and hair refreshing her in ways she’d nearly forgotten, and all she wanted was to stay there, hide under the torrent of the shower, the water that cut her off from reality.
But reality was never far away and she could feel it hovering, lurking in every movement.
She did not stay long under the water, twisting the taps closed with desperate viciousness. It was all she could do not to grab the towel and wrap herself up as quickly as possible, she used all her energy to keep her movement fluid and natural.
She towelled herself dry, slipped into the night shirt and came to stand in front of the mirror to brush her hair, tie it back, curse it for its resemblance to another. With quick, rapid movements she rinsed the bra under the tap and wrung it out, hanging it on the towel rack to dry.
They had only a few days worth of clothes left, if that, and she wondered what they would do when they ran out, whether he would stop long enough for them to use a Laundromat or whether he would use his seemingly unending supply of ready cash to just purchase new ones. She only had the bra she’d worn when he’d taken her. He’d bought her clothes and underwear, but not bras and she would swallow her own tongue before pointing that out.
She did not even want to think about what would happen in two weeks time when she would need something else.
Eventually, after a prolonged session with the toothbrush, there was nothing left to keep her in there without being too obvious and she breathed in, ready to face him.
The doorway was empty when she turned around and she blinked, instantly confused. Her nerves mounted with every step towards the door, half expecting him to be waiting on the other side, ready to pounce. The silence in the other room only added to the tension.
When she finally saw him, though, he was sitting in the bed with a roadmap spread out over his knees, intently studying its surface, seemingly unconcerned about her whereabouts if he remembered she was there at all.
A brief, inexplicable fury rose in her chest, a need to yell at him, demand to know why he had done that, why he had put her through that for nothing. But it died early and aborted, she stifled it quickly. She’d just be giving him exactly what he wanted.
It wasn’t new. He wasn’t doing anything that wasn’t already documented in a thousand psychology dissertations the world over. She had to keep remembering that; had to keep telling herself that she had the upper hand because she was prepared. She could fake her reactions.
Apparently she’d gone too far suggesting a change of appearance, or possibly it was when she’d let him stroke her hand, she’d gone too far and now he felt the need to remind her who had all the power.
As if she wasn’t painfully aware of it already.
Her brain skipped over the map, like the needle of a record she was trying to forget. She didn’t wan t to know, didn’t want to remember the conversation in the car earlier. Sylar was a quiet man, he could spend hours not speaking at all, but his need to control and terrorize was far greater.
He’d taken great delight in spelling out exactly what was happening. They were two days away from his next victim. Her stomach twisted when she thought about the fact that there was someone out there already targeted for death, that she couldn’t and probably wouldn’t do anything to stop it even though she knew.
The fact did not escape her that he already knew where he was going, so the map he was looking at just then was little more than another twisted game, a further reminder of who he was and what he was going to do.
Her body shrivelled, limbs curled in a little closer to her torso as she hovered in the middle of the room.
She was tired, bone weary, exhaustion heavy tired. She hadn’t relaxed in a week, always on constant alert, body humming with dread and expectation every second. Bruised and battered, shifted from one place to another, she’d barely been able to follow let alone keep up.
In her head, she knew what she should do, what she was supposed to do, what was expected of her. She knew if she ever got out of here what she wanted to be able to tell people, what they’d want her to say.
She was supposed to resist, supposed to put up a fight, stay strong until the end.
He wasn’t looking at her, hadn’t even glanced up once since she’d left the bathroom. It would be easy enough to make her little protest, to go to the little arm chair to the side of the room and curl up in that instead. Show him she wouldn’t submit that easily, especially when he didn’t care.
But she wouldn’t.
She knew it before she even thought about it. The feel of flying through the air was still stark in her memory, the loss of control of her own body as he threw it without thinking, the feel of cruel fingers and restrained violence, the threat that lingered under the surface even in his calmer moments.
She was too tired to fight tonight.
And so she walked to her side of the bed, pulled the cover down and slipped in under the sheet, rolling away from him. Her eyes closed and she lay as still as she could, wrists curled under her chin and knees pulled up close to her chest.
It swamped her, then, the finality of it, the inevitability of all of it. She wouldn’t get out, not in time, and it didn’t matter how much she knew going in, how text book the entire thing was, eyes wide open she would still fall under. Already she was dependant on him for food and shelter and survival, her ability to bend to his wishes decided her existence. After one week she was already catching herself choosing her actions based on his approval.
Her shoulders jerked once, a tightly held movement and she choked on a bulbous sob in her throat, struggled with it for several seconds before she began to shake, trembling shoulders and quiet, muffled sniffling. She bit down on it, tried to stay as still as possible, didn’t want him to know, to see, to feel it. To get that satisfaction.
She felt the fall of his hand on her arm.
She should hate him.
The mattress dipped with the roll of his body and she heard the rustle of the map fall away to the side. Her skin shrivelled under his, tendons pulled in tight, but she kept herself still, as still as the trembles of her body would allow.
He was going to kill her or break her and she knew it.
She should hate him.
But damn her, the bed was still the only place she felt safe anymore.
***
End.
to be continued...
Questions? Comments?
Sacrifices to my altar?