Dark Secret

Captive

Sarah? Sarah?

I didn't feel like a Sarah.

The name sounded so odd when he would say it.

Whispering it in my ear as he would grunt and moan.

If I ever got out of this hell hole I would definitely change my name.

To something much softer and prettier, maybe Ava. It sounded bad ass and strong.

As I lay in the sad ass cot they called a bed, I rolled onto my side with the chains around my hands clinking against one another. They learned to put the chains on me after the last time I tried to scratch a lab assistants eyes out.

So they would come in and change me, make sure after he was done that I would get a hot bath and a fresh set of clothing.

Most of the time he would rip my clothes off, like an animal on a rampage.

Sure I would be sore and exhausted, but after being down here for a year, it was a dull pain I would endure.

For the life of me, I could not remember how I even got here or who I was before this.

I couldn't even remember what I looked like.

The first couple months here I had my own mirror, I would look into my scared brown eyes and my dark hair would be plastered against my face from the sweat.

One day I lost it.

I broke the mirror and tried to end it all.

I remember drifting in and out, like a light bulb going out.

When I woke again I was resting in a comfortable hospital bed, my wrists bandaged up and my ankles shackled to the bed. And there he stood at the corner of the bed.

"I was scared I almost lost you. But that will never happen, because you belong to me. Even death can't take you away from me."

After that, I began just to tune everything out. Was I even human anymore?

Sometimes I would sit on the concrete floor and just smack my hand into it, over and over again. Trying to feel anything, but it wouldn't be until I felt a bone break that I would stop.

Sometimes lab assistants would come clean me up, other times it would be him.

"I don't know why you do this to yourself. You are a very lucky girl. You have your own room, no responsibilities. You get to be my partner. What more could you ask for?" He would wipe away the dry blood, wrapping my hand in gauze and tape. Tears would stream down my face but absolutely no emotion to follow it.

I grabbed the small, circular brush they had left me to tend to myself. I began to brush my long, dark hair as I counted to 346. Why that number? I had no idea.

I could hear my roomie next door. Groaning and hitting the wall with his fist.

They were trying to keep him alive by pumping more and more super soldier serum in him each day, but his body was rejecting it.

He would talk to me about it sometimes after we were done, like casual bedroom talk. The man was his friend and he wasn't ready to let him go.

Just as I was going to reach 345, the heavy steel door opened up.

There he was.

Steve Roger's.

America's Hero.