Come Back to Me

Chapter 50

****Trigger Warning***** 

Pain.

Cold.

Wet.

Those were the first three sensations that registered in my foggy and heavy mind.

My eyes would not open.

My body would not move.

Where am I? Dreaming?

Mal.

He had been with me. It was at the brownstone. What had we been doing? Something had been happening, and he was ... he was ... goddamn it. I couldn't remember what was going on.

Think. Concentrate.

My mind was dense.

I forced my thoughts to try and focus on one detail at a time, to try putting them together in a semblance of order so I could emerge from this cloudy shroud my brain was being smothered under. It was like pulling myself through the mud.

You can't move. Why?

The surface under me was rough. Maybe carpet. It was scratchy and barely cushioned my knees. My bare knees. My legs were bare, and the jeans I thought I had been wearing were missing. A gust of freezing air blew over my body, helping me realize that my jeans weren't the only thing absent from my body.

I was completely naked.

Don't panic.

I could feel some kind of binding around the back of my knees. It was thick and sticky. Duct tape. My upper body was bent forward with something digging into my chest. The same scratchy material pressed into me.

My mouth felt like I had been chewing on cotton balls, my skull throbbing with the erratic beat of my panicking heart, my neck strained and unable to hold up my head. I couldn't feel my arms.

Where are my arms?

They were also bound, needles stabbing beneath the skin, any feeling draining quickly from them.

With great effort, I forced my eyes open. I immediately wish I hadn't.

It was indeed duct tape that was trapping me. I was positioned backward in some kind of tall office chair. My weight was resting on my knees, folded under me, and taped down to the bottom of the seat. My torso was bound to the top of the seat, arms crossed around the back and taped together at the wrists.

My breathing quickened as it sank in exactly how vulnerable my body was in a position like this.

Groaning, I lifted my head. I had to stay calm. I had to ignore the pain, discomfort, and fear. Focus on my surroundings. Figure out where I was. How would I be able to escape?

I whimpered as my prison became clearer around me.

The room was vast. My guess was some kind of long abandoned warehouse. The cement floors were wet, puddles collecting everywhere, some the result of slowly melting snow piles. Gusts of wind blew in from the random assortment of holes in the gaping steel ceiling, metal beams bent, and some fallen, crisscrossing each other in the deep shadows of the space. There were no lights, long ago burnt out and wrecked by the elements. The only reason I could see anything was the bright moonlight shining down and a source of warm, glowing light coming from behind me.

Behind me.

Someone shifted.

"How do you like your new home?"

I twisted, or at least tried to, but I couldn't see him. The height of the chair made it unsteady and top-heavy. It started to roll and tip from my jerky movement. I shrieked when the balance shifted.