Behind Closed Doors

Untitled Part 23

Going through the drawers, I found an extra shirt, and I thought about it coming in handy. I took off the one I was wearing, covered in blood, and slipped it on, then proceeded to tear the other up into strips. Each strip I gingerly wrapped around my ankle, praying it would help support it, and allow me to walk.

When I was finally finished, I sat back into the chair, exhausted. I knew I had to keep moving, but I was so tired. I looked around the room, searching for an escape route, anything to avoid going out the door id come in, when finally, I spotted it.

The panels in the ceiling could be my way out. Staying up there without busting or cracking them would be difficult, but I weighed so little now, and it was the only other option. Standing on the desk, I could reach the panels, and I pushed on them with my fingers. They were only a little heavy, so I pushed harder, and to the side. It slid away, and to my joy, there was a pipe that was just out of my reach. I looked down, praying I could grab it so I wouldn't hurt my ankle by landing hard back on the desk, and I bounded straight up.

My fingers wrapped around the pipe and I hung there. I had little upper body strength, and I bit my lip in concentration as I worked to bring my legs up to the pipe before I lost my grip. I had barely gotten my body up into the hole, before I heard more voices in the hall. I scrambled, in the tiny space I was given, to slide the paneling back into its slot before I heard the door click open.

Men yelled, one took off down the hallway. I held my breath and didn't dare move. The first wrongly placed limb, the first time the ceiling cracked or shook, or they heard something that sounded wrong, and they would find me. I didn't dare.

It was probably hours before I could move. In the darkness around me, a second felt like an eternity. I started moving, and my body screamed at me to stay still. All of my muscles ached and burned, but I couldn't stay there forever. I put one hand over the other and crawled through the ceiling. The tiny space made it hard not to hit my head, and I was fearful every second that I would fall through the panels and reveal myself, but they never even cracked.

I found a pathway that seemed to be as good as any other, and followed it as far as I could, until I heard screaming. I felt chills go down my body and my hair stood on end again. The pain in my ankle was blurred slightly by my fear of what the screaming was for. I crawled faster, towards it, and I looked down.

There was a crack in the paneling, ever so small, but enough to see. The little room below me was shabby, there was no furniture, there was no warmth or any other thing to make one feel better. The floors were dirty and the walls were riddles with holes, and in the center of it, I saw Sam.

Her doe like eyes were nearly black, and she seemed so small, sitting crumpled in the center like that. She was crying, and it dawned on me that I should help her. It was my fault she was in that situation in the first place, I had to help her. Just as I moved to slide the paneling to the side, I heard the door slam open, and two men stormed in. One grabbed her by her hair, causing her to scream, but it was cut short when the other man punched her squarely in the stomach. I bit my lip, afraid for her, but too scared to move. The man holding her hair dropped her, and kicked her over and over again, in the side, the head, the stomach, the back, anywhere he could reach. She tried frantically to cover her face and stomach. She curled into a ball and screamed, begged for them to stop. She said she'd do anything, and I couldnt watch anymore.

I put my head down on the paneling and started to cry. It was my fault she was being beaten down there, and I couldn't do anything to save her. If I jumped down, not only would I break my ankle and be no use to her anyway, but they would no doubt kill the both of us.

I looked back up, only to see that shed stopped screaming, and the men weren't kicking her anymore. They were having their way with her now, and she was too tired and hurt to do or say anything to stop them. Both men were rough and loud, and she closed her eyes in defeat. No more than little whimpers escaped from her, but i knew it was hurting more than she was letting on. It was torturous to watch, and I can only imagine the pain she was in.

When they finished, they left the room, and she heaved for every breath. I watched her, throat constricted, and prayed that she would be ok. I wondered if she was breathing so hard because they had broken her ribs. I had gotten my hopes up, praying, when another man walked in. perhaps they had blamed her for the death of Damen, because instead of asking anything of her, or doing anything with her, he reached down, supported the back of her head, and took a knife across her throat.

Her eyes widened and she began fighting him, struggling for air but watching her own blood gurgle out of her mouth and down her neck. Tears stung my eyes and it took all I could not to yell out to her, tell her it would be ok, anything, but I couldn't. The man eased her head back to the floor and quietly left the room as she sputtered in the center. Her hands would reach up to her neck and frantically grab at the large gash, causing blood to splatter accross her arms and hands.

I sat there until she was gone. It didn't take long, she was gone in minutes. It felt like forever that I sat there, watching the life drain out of the fragile little figure in the middle of the floor. I felt like I should try to climb down, show some type of sentiment, that someone had cared for her even in the end, but I knew I couldn't. There was no way I could jump, and it would probably just wind up getting myself caught.