Connection

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Charlotte

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Chapter Twenty-Nine: Charlotte

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She didn't know how she was still holding on. Charlotte was scraping by each day with barely any food and water left and low spirits. They were higher than they'd been this entire ordeal, but one still couldn't consider them high.

She found herself often reminiscing in her old life. It was so hard to connect the Charlotte Swiftless who lived then to what she had been diminished to now. She was usually happy, living without a care in the world. Sure, she had issues with her father. But now, that seemed like the smallest thing to worry about. She'd even gone so far as bullying other people.

It made her sick that she'd spent years in a rivalry with the person who was now her one hope at freedom. No matter what she felt, though, she was sure that if she was freed physically, she would never be that girl again. She would always bear the weight of what happened to her in these weeks no matter where she was in life.

Her captors came in once a day to give her food and water, but the amount seeming to decrease each day. For the first time since they'd kidnapped her, she'd been given new clothes, though never a bath or shower. She couldn't imagine how she smelled though the thought of them finding her putrid stench unbearable brought a smile to her face.

Torture had been threatened on her a few more times, but the worst she'd received were a few slaps and punches.

She realized, one day, as she lost herself in her own thoughts, that while they wrecked her and abated her to nothing, they'd made her stronger through methods that no person should ever experience. Still, that wasn't helping her survive when she lacked the strength to stand up.

A week passed her by. A week since she had seen Cliff and Jean and that man searching for her. She wondered where they were at that moment; what they were doing. Did they have any idea where she was? The world was huge and she wondered how they were picking their locations to search.

Through the haze that her life had become, she sent them thoughts of encouragement, begging them to continue looking; to know that it wasn't a lost cause. In fact, in retrospect, they were probably the thing that had kept her going when there was no other hope around.

Her captors remained cold, forcing her to suffer through each day but never making a move, as if they enjoyed the suspension and anxiety it wrapped around her. She knew she wasn't in safe waters in any way, but she couldn't allow herself to be suspended by apprehension and worry for what was to come. After the excruciating week, she began to let herself go. 

She played games in her head and forced sleep upon her restless mind so that she couldn't stew in her own thoughts and conspiracies until she exploded.

Though she couldn't keep precise track of the days, for she had no window to gauge time by, she estimated it had been around eight or nine days when she had another dream.

Brooklyn had just pulled her off the ground by her hair, only to punch her back down. She laid on the floor with her cheek throbbing and boiling blood, but she took a few deep breaths. She forced herself to relax, and after Brooklyn left, drifted into a deep sleep which she hadn't been able to snatch more than a few hours of for the past few days.

Charlotte knew immediately due to the familiar rumbling beneath her that she was in a car. She took in her surroundings, expecting for one terrifying moment to be back in the white van. But upon inspection, she found she wasn't at all sitting in the white van. She sat on worn leather seats and was surrounded by familiar people laughing as they conversed casually.