Pins and Needles

Chapter 29

I was in the middle of threading a needle when Maeve woke up. It took her about 30 minutes to regain consciousness which was quite surprising. I thought it would have taken her longer since I did hit her twice; once in the stomach and another in the back of the head.

I leant on the workbench behind me and watched Maeve realize the situation she was in. I had put her hands on the arms of the chair and wrapped them up with duct tape. I did the same with her legs, taping them down to the chair so she could barely move her extremities. There was also a tarp below her to help catch the mess that I was about to create.

Maeve's head hung for a bit and she mumbled groggily when she first woke up. Then, as she became more and more aware of her surroundings, she panicked. She was wiggling around and panned her head around erratically.

"Good morning, sunshine. You weren't out for long, which is quite a shame, but alas, the world still goes 'round," I jeered.

"What's happening, w-what is this? What kind of sick joke are you playing on me?" she seethed.

"Joke? You think this is a joke? Honey, if this was a joke, it'd be a terribly unfunny one."

Maeve threw her head back, "Yeah, right. Okay, then, what are you gonna do to me?"

I turned away from her and placed the now threaded needle onto the workbench, looking at her out of the corner of my eye, "That's for me to know and you to find out."

At first, Maeve brushed me off, but after she noticed all of the tools and trinkets sitting on the table in front of me, I think it clicked for her. She looked down at herself and started thrashing around, but quickly stopped when her wrists turned red.

"HELP! HELP!" Maeve screamed violently over and over again.

I shook my head and laughed, then walked towards her. She stopped yelling after I placed my hand over her mouth and gripped her cheeks.

I made sure not to dig my nails into her skin before speaking, "There's no point in doing that. No one's here; everyone's out of town. So, you can keep yipping and yapping, but the only thing it'll do for you is hurt your throat," I threw her cheek away and continued. "I have coordinated this very meticulously and would be a fool to let something as silly as neighbors get in the way of my plans."

Maeve's eyebrows creased and her chapped lips parted as she asked again, "What are you going to do to me?"

I took chapstick from the table and applied it to her lips before grinning maliciously, "Do you really wanna know?"

Maeve swallowed hard and darted her eyes around the room, assumedly looking for an escape. There was something about having her at my mercy that just... got me excited.

The restrained girl nodded slowly and glared at me, so I picked up the scalpel and poked the tip of the blade as I twisted it in my hand, "I've always wanted to be pretty. When I was younger, I saw girls all the time who were cute or stunning, and I wanted to look like them. The only issue is, I don't. I don't have a face that is deemed pretty, and I didn't even know it until people started pointing it out to me. I want to see what they see, to understand the issue, but I can't. I can't fix anything because I can't see what needs to be fixed; the person I recognize when I look at myself isn't me. It's frustrating. I refuse to be called ugly when I'm at the disadvantage. I didn't ask to look like this, so why should I stay this way? I eventually decided that I deserved the face I desired and started looking for it. I needed the face that would prove to others that I was not ugly; I needed the face that was meant for me. I began documenting girls' faces and what stood out on them, but none had what I was looking for," I stopped twirling the scalpel and pointed it at Maeve. "That was until I met you."