Everything Comes With A Price (The Grabber Fanfiction)

Victim

Albert

"All clean." Albert shoved the mop back into the bucket. He looked down at the basement floor. He wanted her to be comfortable again. To not have to sit there in the smell of her vomit, and piss. Albert had put the mattress back on the bed. Susanna was sitting on it now, shivering.

Susanna was wrapped in two large towels. Her hair was dripping wet. He bathed her for at least an hour. It was in complete silence. She kept her eyes shut the entire time. She didn't speak. There were times he couldn't even tell if she was breathing. Image that? Someone hating you so much that they voluntarily stop breathing in your presence.

"I said ...All clean," he repeated himself again. Hoping this time, she'd answer. Albert reached out for her shoulder.

Susanna gasped loudly when he made contact. He yanked his hand back. Her screech startled him. Susanna didn't jolt away to avoid his touch. No, it was more than that. Susanna sounded as if her soul was reentering her body.  She gasped, as if a paramedic just hollered 'clear' and gave her a hefty 1,000 volts to the chest.

Susanna took a minute trying to catch her breath. The one that she lost just sitting here. It didn't  matter that she was sedentary. This basement had the way of sucking the life right out of you. And the bright, snarky girl who entered so many weeks prior... was nowhere to be found. That spirit got away, but it left Susanna's corpse behind.

"I didn't mean to scare you." Albert whispered.

He held his hand out to her. She shook her head slowly. Albert knew it wasn't out of defiance. Susanna just couldn't. Her mind was empty. Or occupied. She wasn't here. She was high up in the air far away from here. Her eyes were too empty. Her jaw was slack. She was broken. Like he planned she would be.

"Ok," she whispered, "that's ok," her voice was like the wind whistling on the sea in the night. Getting drowned out by waves crashing violently to the shore. The kind of waves that make even the best of sailors nervous.

"Ok?" Albert tilted his head at her. "That's all? That's all you're going to say?"

Susanna wet her dry cracked lips. She nodded her head slightly.

"Nothing to say?" Albert crossed his arms. He shifted his weight between his feet. "Nothing at all?"

"No," Susanna tightened her arms around herself.

"I'm surprised at you. I'd a thought you had about hundred and one questions by now."

Susanna swallowed. Albert took notice of how painful it looked. Breathing, speaking, even just living looked like it physically hurt her.

"N-no." 

"No?" Albert took a heavy foot towards her.

Susanna shrunk down and shook her head again. "N-no. No, Sir."

"Sir," Albert's mouth curled up at the ends. He scoffed. "What...the..."

"I'm sorry Sir," her voice was soft, and weak.

"What the hell is the matter with you? Susanna, drop it."

"D-drop it," She repeated him unconsciously. Like she was hypnotized to do so. She nodded. "Sorry Sir."

"Susanna," He shouted. "Come on knock it off, would you?"

"I'm sorry Sir," she whispered again.

"What the hell is the matter with you?"

Susanna looked up at him teary eyed. Her lips were red, and raw, but she kept biting them. A nervous habit. Albert knew he was to blame for all those nerve ticks. Because he made her like this. He made her weak. He created the scared, sniveling little girl sitting here in front of him. That's what Martha would never understand. This is what Albert meant when he said he was a bad man. Of course, he could never show Martha all this. But leave it to him to make a Labrador out of a Mastiff.