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Jack stares at that camera, absolutely pleading. He's dead inside and I can see it. It's in his posture, it's in the way that his eyes are bare of any sort of emotion, while his voice is pleading, it's begging, it's desperate.
My Jack is wrecked and it's because of me. I did this to him. 
"Please...It's been nearly three months. The police are looking for a body at this point, and I'm looking for my boyfriend. Please. If anyone knows anything about Alex's whereabouts, anything at all, even the slightest glance, let the police know! Let me know! Please." 

This is heartbreaking. 
I can't stand to watch it, but the news is all Chris leaves on.
Why is he doing this to me? Is it funny to him? Is this a sick game? He knows they're looking for me. He knows they're looking for him. Maybe he keeps it on to keep tabs of the situation, but what are they going to do? Announce that they know where we are and let the world know that they're going to come get me? No. Of course not. That would give him every chance to run. To either kill me and run, or take me with him.

My thoughts are shaken by a sharp blow to my stomach, "Your boyfriend?!" He shouts at me.
I close my eyes tight, prepared for whatever comes next.
"You didn't tell me you have a boyfriend!" He sounds like he's crying. Good. Cry, fucker.
"TALK TO ME! TELL ME!" Now he's screaming. He's been doing that more often. 
"I don't know what to say to you! What did you expect me to do?! Come here and tell you I have a boyfriend just so you can hurt me more, or kill me faster?!" I'm breaking, and I know I'll regret screaming at him like this, but I can't help it. I've been here for three months and it feels like three years. I don't know what day it is. I don't know what time it is. All I know is that it's December, or somewhere in the beginning of January since I was taken October 29th. 
Which means my birthday passed and I spent it here. My anniversary with Jack would've been December 19th. Happy anniversary Jack. I love you. I miss you. 
Will it still count if I ever make it home? I've been apart from him for three months. What if it doesn't count? 
I spent the most important day to me here being tortured. 
"If you're going to kill me, just do it already! I can't do this anymore!" I sob, I'm broken. I don't want to live but each time I beg my body to just give out, it doesn't. It betrays me just like all hope that I once had betrayed me too.

I feel another snap, and I let out another blood curdling scream. This time it's coming from my leg, and I can't look down to see. I pass out before I even get the chance. Did he drug me? Did the pain make me pass out?
I sit up and god knows how much later it is. I have no idea.
I'm dizzy, my leg hurts like hell but now it's splinted with thick cardboard and Ace bandaging. As if that'll help. Just like my pillowcase arm sling.
I try to scoot away from the wall, but ropes around my waist and unbroken arm hold me back.
I look down to see them, glancing back at the wall behind me.
"You're not leaving this spot. Ever. You stay here. You stay here where I can watch you, where you can and you WILL be mine." That's all I hear before it goes black again.

I wonder if that lady ever called the police. Did she not take me seriously?
I don't know how many days it's been, but I'm filthy again. Covered in my own mess, his mess, reminders of what he does to me awake and unconscious.
He hates me. He's been nothing but angry with me.
He doesn't feed me and when he does, it's minimal and I throw it right back up afterwards.
I think he might be putting something in my food, keeping me down. I can hardly see straight. My arm is killing me and my leg is even worse. It's swollen, angry and blue. Whatever he did to it isn't healing right, just like my swollen, angry arm isn't healing right. That one hurts less though. I broke my arm before, once. I was snowboarding and it slipped from under me. It snapped clean in half. It hurt, and this pain feels similar, just slightly more intense. Maybe my arm isn't completely fucked. As for my leg, I have no idea what's happening. What if they find me and it's too late and they have to cut it off? What if they don't find me and it's too late to even attempt to do anything about it and Chris tries to cut the fucking thing off?
Either way, I lose.

I made him mad again. I think it's been three days. I think. 
I never know anymore. Chris took the news away from me. He listens on his phone in his pocket with headphones in.
He doesn't want me to see Jack on TV anymore. The only way I could see my love has been ripped away from me. I don't try to fight him anymore.
Not that I fought much in the first place, but after I screamed at him, I learned my place and I learned it fast.
He still hurts me though.
He keeps me so sick. He showed me that he's putting things in my food. He wouldn't say what.
I tried to refuse it, and he crammed it down my throat, holding his hand over my mouth until I chewed and swallowed.
Not long after, my body was rejecting it all over again.
I definitely have an infection of some sort. I know I have a fever. Chris told me. He tries to play nurse to me after he tortures me. He hates me now, he's livid with me, but there's some part of his delusional self that's still so obsessed with me that he has to take care of me. He has to try to make me want him. I think half of him realizes I never will, that I'd rather drop dead, slit my own throat, poison myself, anything than want him. The other half thinks that there's a chance if maybe the news will die down and they officially declare me dead. That takes a long time though, so I've heard on the few true crime podcasts I've listened to. Five years, I believe it is. Maybe less. Maybe it depends.


Today he left something inside of me. Or maybe it's not even a new day.
Either way, it hurts and I can't see it. Everything hurts so badly. My body is covered in bruises now. I made him angry again. I was too sick to indulge his fantasies. That's his own fault, but I'm coughing up mucus and blood, I can't stop vomiting each time he forces food down my throat, my head is pounding and my ass is so raw I have to angle myself on my side just to find any sort of mild comfort. He doesn't care anymore. He's cruel and he knows it. He's sadistic and he likes it. Any form of actual desire to be with me is done. His desire is to hurt me. To punish me for not wanting him. Punish me for having a boyfriend. Punish me for not entertaining him well enough, though I tried so damn hard in the beginning.
Somewhere along the lines, I gave up and I know that he knows that, and he's known it for a long time. So he gave up too.
He's in too deep though.
I get to stare at the bed that I once used to be able to lay in, and I didn't appreciate it at first. Now, I want it so badly. Something other than this cold concrete basement floor. I haven't seen daylight since the day that woman saw me through the window.
He hoses me off to clean my mess off of me, dumping cold water on me. It doesn't clean any part of me at all, but it washes my mess away from me and he cleans up the rest, leaving me filthy and disgusting. I am filthy and disgusting. Maybe I deserve this. Jack wanted so badly for me to stop doing OnlyFans and I was so selfish that I didn't want to because I enjoyed it too much. In reality, the money is what I enjoyed the most, but in being completely honest, the attention was great too. The constant ego boost was exhilarating. Look where it got me, though?
I should've listened to him. Been a better boyfriend. Respected our relationship more.
Maybe then I wouldn't be here.
Maybe then it wouldn't hurt so bad. I hurt so bad. I'm bruised and I'm broken, and I think I hurt mentally more than physically. I don't know how to process it but I want to be done. More than anything, I want to be done.


Again, I don't know how long it's been and I don't think I'll ever know. Chris doesn't say a word to me anymore. He uses me and throws me away like garbage.
The only time I'm cleaned is when he wants to rape me. After that, I'm left to my filth again. 
I feel like an abused animal. So I sleep instead. He hasn't tried to feed me yet, and my stomach hurts so badly, my entire body hurts and I think he broke another bone but the drugs he gives me when he's done with me hardly let me feel anything. 
I'm disoriented and I feel like I'm trapped in my own head. I can think. I can breathe. I know I'm alive, but I can hardly move. I think it's my knee on the same leg he broke however long ago now.
I can't bend my leg at all without pain, so I gave up. The pain is minimal though, I still credit that to the drugs he gives me to keep me down. That, or it's my body finally agreeing with me that we should just be done. Maybe it's mental. Maybe this should hurt like hell, but my brain refuses to accept it. I don't know anymore. Maybe I'm losing it, and I am dead after all, but my spirit is trapped here in this hell. 


I wake up to the sounds of loud banging. I nearly jump, but Chris holds me down. I feel something sharp poking at my throat.
I glance down towards his hand, there's a knife in it.
So he's going to slit my throat.
Not my ideal way to die, but if I get to die at all, I'll take it.
What is the banging though? It's making my migraine worse. 

I hear so many screams, so many yells, mainly from Chris.
I hear someone, I can't see straight. I see a lot of people now.
They're blurry, but they're all dressed in black.
I squeeze my eyes tight and reopen them, begging them to focus. 
Police officers. Their vests say SWAT. The swat team is here for me? They came?
I see their guns, and they're all pointed at Chris. Except for one officer, who's hands are out, trying to talk peacefully to him.
These guns are pointed at me as well, since Chris has me in a chokehold, knife to my throat.
One wrong move, and those guns go off and I'm done for. He's done for.
I don't want to die by the people who are here to rescue me.

"Please..." My voice is so weak. I haven't spoken in...I don't know.
The officer trying to talk Chris down glances at me for a moment, but immediately returns to Chris, watching his every move.
"Please don't kill him." I choke out, and it's not because I want him alive. I just don't want his brains splattered all over me. There isn't much more I can take, and I think if that happened, I'd be permanently living in an institution with a straightjacket as my only friend. 
"Please....Arrest him...Please." I beg, and my pleas go ignored.
How they can they arrest him when he's got a knife to my throat? They make a move, and I die.
Then he dies.

The officer trying to diffuse the situation slowly steps forward as Chris begins to lower the knife.
"Stay away from me." Chris hisses, "I'll do it." 
I squeeze my eyes closed. I can't do this. I can't. I want to go home. I want to go anywhere but here. He's speaking now and it's like I forgot how cold his voice can go.
I tense up, and I let out a loud cry as I feel something searing on my arm.
He cut me.
He actually cut me.
Then, everything is wet.
It's all wet and it's gooey.
I don't know what's going on around me and I can't focus. I just know that I'm scared. 

I didn't hear anything but a tiny pop.
I don't want to open my eyes. I'm let go though, and immediately I fall to the floor, landing on my bad arm. I scream, I finally allow myself to feel it and I scream.
I hear people moving all around me, I hear "The suspect is dead. Confirmed, the suspect is dead. Victim severely injured but alive. I repeat, victim severely injured but alive. Send paramedics."

He's dead? Chris is dead?
I open my eyes and the warm liquid and goo I feel on me is blood splatter and a bit of brain matter, I think. It's kind of pink.
I jump at people touching me. It's scary and I have to remind myself that I've got Chris's blood and brain matter on my head. It's not him touching me. It's the people here to save me. 
I'm getting saved. I'm getting saved. I'm getting saved. The thought repeats over and over inside of my exhausted head.
I pass out again. I had to have, because everything went blank. 


It's too bright when I wake up. The pain is gone, though which is nice. 
I'm weighed down with plaster, the beeping is annoying and it smells too clean in here. I've grown used to the scent of filth, usually my own, and the smell of the disgusting basement I've been trapped in. I'm used to the dark and this light is really giving me a migraine. Is it bad that I wish for the dark again? I just want the lights shut off. 


_____


"Alex?" Jack's voice is quiet, it's almost too quiet. 
Alex opens his eyes, facing the bright light. Is this what death feels like? Is Jack finally here with him?
He turns his head to the sound, and there he is.
Alex knows that he can't be dead, because Jack doesn't look the same.
In his afterlife, Jack would look the same with that freshly done, obnoxiously blonde chunk in his hair. Jack wouldn't look dead inside. Jack wouldn't look exhausted, like he hasn't slept in ages.
Then again, maybe this is hell, and Alex is in a hospital trapped forever. Saved, but can't wake up. Saved, but forced to see this dead boyfriend of his forever.
"Alex...Please say something." Jack pleads.
Alex stares at him, what is he supposed to say?
"Hi." He finally whispers. 
Then the waterworks begin.
Jack is a sobbing nightmare, and there's really nothing Alex can do to soothe him.
In a way, Alex forgot what soothing is supposed to even look or feel like.
So he settles for silence, letting Jack hold his hand. 
Letting his visitors come and go. Not many people came, though. Apparently, according to the doctor, too many visitors will overwhelm him. He did at least get asked who can stay. Alex said Jack andJenna can stay.
It offended his mother a little bit, but his mother doesn't matter. Alex matters. Everything is up to Alex, and only Alex.


Time continues to pass, and Alex finally discovers that it's February 19th. He got rescued on January 30th. So, three months and one day officially that he'd been gone. He'd seen the date before, since he got into the hospital and woke up, but it never registered.
He gets to finish recovering at home though, and that news clicked in his head.
He recalled psych coming in, and he talked to them. He was okay being open about it, as much as he could be right now. He didn't go into excruciating detail. He hardly remembered a lot of it. Blocking out trauma is so much easier than trying to accept it and think about it.
He recalled talking to the police. They'd gotten pretty much all of the evidence they needed from the house itself and Alex's body.
Not only had he been beaten black and blue, bones broken, but he'd been raped, he'd been tortured and when they found him, he was sicker than sick. Infection in his lungs from choking on his vomit, infection in his rectum from all of the tearing and damage to his colon, his fever was way higher than it should've been, which Alex then realized explained the fact that he could hardly feel anything, but consciously think about it. Like an out of body experience. He knew it was happening, but he couldn't exactly feel it all the time. 

The fact that he had the OnlyFans account still up hit him like a ton of bricks, "Delete it." He tells Jack and Jenna, "Delete it right the fuck now. Now." He demands. 
He very quickly gives Jack the log in information the second that Jack is on the website, and he stares at the screen, watching Jack go through all of the motions to delete it all. Unlinking it from his bank account, deleting all of the photos and information on it, to finally completely deactivating the profile. 
"Okay, it's done." Jack says softly to him, always keeping his tone calm and gentle.
Alex nods, "Okay." He settles down again, going right back to mindlessly staring at the wall in front of him. What else can he do? He hasn't seen another person apart from his monster in months, he hasn't seen the sun in lord knows how long. Nothing is coming easily to him. Everything is confusing and he is absolutely terrified. The dark sounds peaceful.

"Okay...Welcome home." Jack says nervously, wheeling his boyfriend in through their front door.
His entire right leg is casted above the knee. Alex had been right. Chris did break his knee the last time he broke a bone.
The rest of his leg was hard to put together. It had started to fuse a bit, so it had to be re-broken in order to set it right, with plates and screws to hold it all together.
His arm too, but his arm wasn't nearly as bad off as his leg was. 
The media was a nightmare. They'd been at the hospital from the moment Alex got there, asking for any sort of update, which no one gave, apart from police saying that he is safe, he is healing and he survived the ordeal.
They're outside of their home now, watching the door close as Jack closes it behind them.
Jenna closes the blinds and locks every door, peeking out long enough to see the police that she had called turning the corner. Good. They'll get the media to go away.
This is the last thing Alex needs.

Alex looks around, and it looks exactly the same as when he left it. That's comforting at least.
He had the option of getting psychiatric treatment inpatient, and that was the only time he ever freaked out during this entire recovery process at the hospital. He was screaming, screaming that he'd been trapped inside of one place with zero freedom for months on end, screaming that he'd been tortured enough without having to follow anyone else's rules, screaming that he just wanted to go home.
And so he went home. 
He wasn't giving them another option. To stay, would to be captured all over again.
He did however agree to a psychiatrist coming to see him at his home, though. He also said he wouldn't be leaving his home anytime soon either. That was the last thing he wanted to do. Ever again, maybe.

Jenna gives Jack and Alex their moment, going into their bedroom to make sure it's all set up for Alex. She's fluffing pillows, adding more onto the bed for Alex's leg, making sure he's got his phone and phone charger near the bed, if he even wants it. He probably won't, but just in case.
Jack takes that time to kneel down in front of Alex's wheelchair, "I missed you." He says quietly.
Alex has hardly spoken unless it was necessary, and Jack can't blame him, but god the lack of life Alex has in his eyes, his body, his everything, it's devastating.
"I missed you too." Alex responds, and Jack knows he means it, "I saw you on the news." 
"You did?" That fact surprises the hell out of Jack. This asshole really let Alex watch the news?
Alex nods, "Yeah...H-." He shakes his head, he can't say he. He can't say Chris. He can't. "It got left on....Probably to monitor the situation. Or torture me further. I don't know. Still, I saw you...And I thought about you every single time, and I hoped that if I thought hard enough, maybe, just maybe you'd feel it. You'd just know...And I think maybe you did...The last thing I was allowed to see was you saying that the police are looking for a body...And you're looking for your boyfriend. You didn't give up on me."
Alex's voice is near silent, but his words are genuine. As much as he for a while believed that maybe everyone would eventually give up on him, Jack didn't. He knew that each time he saw his boyfriend on TV begging for him to come home, usually speaking directly to him, rather than about him like he was already dead, Jack hadn't given up on him. He knew that each time Jack would pop into his thoughts randomly, as if he really ever left, Jack may have been thinking about him in that moment too. To him, it felt like a connection of the mildest type, but a connection nonetheless.

"I couldn't ever give up on you, Lex." Jack says, a small smile playing on his face.
Alex doesn't return the smile, but the nickname has his stomach fluttering.
"Come on, let's get you into bed okay?" 
Alex just nods.
Jack wheels him into their bedroom, which also looks the same. Down to Alex's choice of bedding and all. Either Jack never changed it or if he did, he made the bed exactly how Alex did.
"Can I help lift you?" Jack asks. Consent is the most important thing right now, and Alex had let Jack know that he doesn't have to ask, but he does anyway.
Alex nods.
Still, he flinches when Jack and Jenna help him out of the chair and into the bed. Being touched at all, anywhere on his body just feels wrong. It makes him feel nauseous and quite frankly, he doesn't know if he'll want anyone to ever touch him ever again. 
"Can you lay with me?" Alex asks, looking at Jack. If he asks, Jack doesn't have to worry about being rejected, or thinking that Alex is just saying yes because he feels bad or something. That happened once. Jack tried to hold his hand and Alex yanked it away. It hurt, and when Alex reached for his hand after he'd realized that it was just Jack and that he was safe, Jack felt like Alex was only doing it because he felt bad for yanking it away earlier.
Jack nods, "Of course I can." He smiles at him again, happy to just have him back at all. He gets into bed next to Alex, letting him decide what to do next.
Taking a big breath in, Alex makes the first move in weeks of trying to actually cuddle. Until now, it was hand holding only. He lays his head down on Jack's chest, closing his eyes as he focuses on counting his heartbeats. He taps Jack's arm. 
Hoping that he's getting it right, Jack puts his arm around him, holding him close.
He was right.
Alex smiles the tiniest bit, the first one in days. 
"One...Two...Three...Four..." He whispers, counting.
"What are you counting?" Jack asks curiously, hoping they can spark any sort of conversation.
"Your heart beats." Alex whispers, mouthing the numbers as he counts.
"Why?" Jack rubs his back a little.
"Because it's nice to know that you're real, that this is real and I'm home. Because it's comforting to be with someone who feels safe. Because I just like listening to them." 
"Can I kiss you?" Jack asks, and he doesn't mean on the lips, doesn't mean anywhere inappropriate for the situation they're in, and Alex knows that, so he nods.
Jack presses a very soft, gentle kiss to his head before going back to rubbing his back, "I love you."
"I love you too." Alex looks up at him, earning him a small kiss to the forehead. It makes him smile a little bit bigger. He's home.