Cellmates

10

Naomi awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright so fast her head was spinning for a long time afterward. When her eyes finally refocused on the world around her, it took her a very long moment to even remember where she was, let alone how she'd gotten there and what the heck had happened. I'm still here? Once the memories began to refill themselves, it made sense that she was still here. She had absolutely no memory of an escape. Thinking about it, there were a lot of missing memories. In attempting to recall the night before, there was nothing. Locked in a tiny room with no daylight to discern the passage of time, it was impossible to know.

She ducked under her cot and pulled out her phone. The battery was nearly dead, but the date and time were still clearly displayed. The date of her kidnapping stuck well, thankfully. But then – that didn't add up. She carefully counted the tallies etched into the stone. There was more than a week's worth of time unaccounted for. How is that possible? Even after a double and a triple check – she couldn't place all the days she had missed. What the heck had happened? After a moment or two, a few things filtered back. Sweet nothings of boredom and strong words. And pain. Oh my god. A vision – a vivid nightmare – of two guards. Oh my god. I was – I was – and all this time – I can't remember. She felt suddenly sick, imagining all that could have gone on. An entire week.

Her eyes darted around the room. Nothing new. Nothing new. And then her eyes locked on a very large bloodstain on the floor across the cell. The glass had drips, dark and dry like the aged pool on the floor. Oh my god. Oh my god. What happened? What happened!

Stumbling terribly, she charged into the bathroom, bracing the rim of the sink. She heaved into it, very quickly losing the contents of her stomach. Once her nauseated innards had calmed, she rinsed out her mouth and splashed the cool water on her face. Her reflection stared back at her with empty eyes as the beads of water rolled down her face, catching in her eyebrows and stinging her eyes along with the familiar laceration beneath it. Her skin was so pale from the lack of sun and she felt almost skeletal after so many long days without food. Naomi frowned, peering into the watered down contents of the sink. There was most certainly food in there. She could taste it on her tongue, despite the rinse.

She wandered back out of the bathroom, still toweling off her face. She had absolutely no memory of eating and yet her stomach didn't ache with hunger. Of course, her appetite had completely disappeared in the last few minutes. What the heck had happened? Loki. The thought slipped into her mind and she felt instantly better, though she had no idea why. Last she recalled, he stood by and let her be raped. Glancing into his cell, she was greeted with another unfamiliar sight. Her unusually stoic prison companion was laid out on the floor as if he'd collapsed there, halfway between the pane of glass and his bed. What the heck had happened?

All of the sudden he stirred, waking nearly as suddenly as she had, startled awake by something she hadn't heard or seen. He sat up, his entire spine creaking with pain. Before he looked even coherent enough to form logical thought, his gaze focused into her cell, first toward her empty cot and then on her. He was panicked and completely relieved within the span of a few seconds. She saw exhaustion in his beautiful green eyes – a deeply ingrained weariness that hadn't been there before. "Are you all right?" he finally asked, his voice cracking to match his haggard exterior. The sincerity was a new one too. She nodded, her expression barely shifting from her usual guarded curiosity. "I wasn't sure you'd be up and about so soon." Naomi only continued to stare. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes. Why wouldn't I be?"

What smile he had slowly vanished. "You were sick," he said quietly. "You were starving – dying." She could barely recall. The last thing she remembered was just another day in this cell – hungry, but to what degree she wasn't sure. Had it really gotten so bad? Several weeks was a long time to not eat. Her hands touched her stomach and she could easily outline each of her ribs in detail. She could actually identify where a few of them had cracked in her horrible encounter. The fracture to her elbow just as evident. Her fingers traced her collarbones and sternum. The ridges of the bones. Loki spoke the truth. And if he did, her body would have gone into survival mode – it would've shut down and slowly turned upon itself. And yet, she was alive now, feeling better than she had in days.