The New P.D. Member ↠ will halstead

Just Let Me Go

It had been three days since Teresa decided to help a stranger and was repaid by being knocked-out and tied to a bed. In that time, she had barely any food and water. At first she didn't even take the little Daniel had offered her, but by Tuesday night she couldn't help it anymore.

"I don't belong here," Teresa tells Daniel as he sits in the corner of the dark room.

There was no electricity around the house. Apart from a few old flashlights, only daylight filled the walls of the house, so it was very dark, especially at night.

"You do. The world doesn't deserve you. I will save you from it."

"So I deserve to be tied up to a bed, in an apartment with no electricity, no hot water, no heating... nothing?"

"This is only temporary, until you see that this is the best for you and accept it as it is."

"I will never see this for something else than what it is: abducting."

"You will, I promise you that."

"I helped you. I helped you and you are keeping me incarcerated."

"It's only until you see how much better your life can be, if only you accept that this is where you belong."

Teresa stays quiet this time and then Daniel leaves.

When she's alone, she starts pulling from the wrist that has the handcuffs in, trying to break them somehow, even though she, as a cop who used them regularly, knew it wasn't going to happen.

As she keeps trying, bruising, and slightly cutting her wrist, a tear falls from her eye. A tear of anger, and frustration and, the one feeling she hated the most, fear.

Teresa knew she wasn't going to survive like this much longer. Worse than that, she didn't want to survive like this, to wait for what else Daniel had in store for her. She couldn't imagine what his twisted mind wanted to do to her.

After a couple of hours of looking up to the ceiling and feeling insane, Daniel joined Teresa again. He had a bowl in hand and was eating something with a spoon.

"Hungry?" he asks with his mouth full.

"What do you think, asshole?" Teresa asks.

He looks down at his food while he nods and then takes another spoonful of it.

"This is really good," Daniel says as he steps forward and stops by her bed.

He sits down on the bed and puts the bowl on the bedside table. Then, gets one of the pillows Teresa wasn't using and puts it behind her head on top of another pillow, elevating her head a bit more.

"It's healthy as well," Daniel affirms as he picks up the bowl again. "Open up," he motions with a spoonful to Teresa's mouth.

She hadn't eaten since leaving Will's apartment. She couldn't afford to waste it. To not eat, or to pretend to eat and then spit it in Daniel's face. So Teresa opened her mouth just enough for the spoon and ate.

She closed her eyes, appreciating having that food and tasted like the best thing she'd ever eaten before. Teresa had never been that hungry before, and she did have to skip a few meals when she was younger as she and Toby had no money and good-for-nothing parents.

Teresa ate another spoon and another and another. Daniel fed her everything, then went away and got her a glass of water. Teresa drank only a little bit. Daniel said nothing. After a few seconds, Teresa's vision starts getting blurry and she feels weird.

"What did you..." she starts saying.

"Just a little something in the water for you to sleep better."

"Why..."

She couldn't finish her thoughts as she passed out.

When she woke up it was night, and surprisingly she was sleeping on her side, which had been impossible the days before as she was tied up to the bed.

That left her alert straight away, even though it was still hard for her to see and to move with whatever drug was in the water Daniel gave her.

Teresa sat up, holding her upper body weight with her hands.

The exhilaration of realizing she was somewhat free couldn't beat how tired she was. Only very slowly could she move, and even then, it was like she was about to pass out.

Slowly standing up, she had to hold her weight up by the wall at the head of the bed. Teresa moves with one hand always on the wall.

"Hello?" her voice comes out hoarse for some reason, as she tries to assess if Daniel is there or not. "Hey?" she speaks again when there's no answer.

Teresa stops at the door frame and looks to her left, to the door out of the apartment. Then she looks right, to the rest of the house. One foot in front of the other she leaves the room. There's no one in the kitchen, no one in the living room, no one at the entrance. There is, however, a locked door. Teresa tried to opened and then knocked, but if Daniel was in there, he didn't hear her or was ignoring her.

Moving away from that locked door she goes into another. She was sweating with anticipation as she reached the door. She looked through the peephole and saw no one. Obviously as it was an abandoned building. But she wanted to she if Daniel was on the other side.

It wasn't just locked either.

In the middle and at the top it had two metal locks, that went from one side to the other of the door, being a strong reinforcement to the lock. Maybe, with luck, she could break the normal lock, but those two, thick, metal strips would be impossible to open without the key.

And Daniel was not stupid to have a key hanging around the house, and they were locked, so he took his key with him.

Finally, Teresa had time alone, free and able to try to find a way out. But the door was unbreachable. And it hit her, that she might never be able to leave unless he lets her go.

No one is going to find her there, that's for sure.

And so she breaks down. She starts crying and sobbing, turning her back to the door, sliding down and pulling her knees to her chest. Teresa cried with her head on her knees for a while and then she shook it off.

"Toby wouldn't want me to die," she thinks out loud. "Not like this."

And so, Teresa stands up and walks back to the room. The windows weren't ones that could open, but they could be broken. Same in the leaving room, same in the kitchen. She just had to get something to break them with.

In the kitchen she gets one of the two chairs. That could work. She grabbed it and checked the weigh, trying it out, studying the bets way to use it to break the glass of the window.

The one it the room had a view to the street so that was the best one to get someone's attention.

Picking the chair with two hands she swings it and then throws it. The glass shatters and Teresa chuckles once. But then she notices it. That one window did break, but there was another glass behind that one.

Teresa steps forward, stepping on the glass barefoot and ignoring the pain as she touches the other window's glass. Strong, thick glass. It would be impossible to break. It seemed bulletproof even.

"Holy shit..." Teresa whispers.

Moving to the kitchen she throws the chair again and the same happens. The living room is the same. All the windows had two sets of lawyers. The second one was unbreakable.

There was no way out.

Teresa stayed by the window of the bedroom, since it had a view to the street, standing on the broken glass. But no matter how hard she screamed or how hard she hit the window, no one looked her way.