Killing Tink

Ch. 16

Tink waited for the sounds around her to quiet. She didn't want to deal with the nurses, the doctors, or John. She wanted to go somewhere dark and quiet and forget that she got rescued at all. She was angry that she felt like that. It wasn't like she enjoyed being in the room waiting for Stash to come and make her miserable, but she knew the routine in and out. She knew how to make him calm, most of the time; and it was predictable.

Safe. It was safe. No one looked at her with those stupid puppy eyes and crazy fake smiles. No one looked at her at all. It was time to go back. She could do what she wanted to Stash, no one would blame her, and live her life in the one place she knew she belonged.

She placed her feet on the floor and put her weight on them causing her legs to shake. She did it until she no longer could, wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead. It felt good, painful, her muscles twitched and jerked from overuse after such a long period, but her mind buzzed with the rush of knowing she could do start taking her own future in her hands. A few days of this and she'd be walking .

She pushed the button on the remote and almost instantly a girl in blue appeared in the doorway.

"Can I help you? Did you hit the call light?"

Tink couldn't help but notice the girl didn't cross into the room. A side show freak, that's what she was now. A bug under the glass, watched and studied. But not for long.

"I'd like to know.... I mean, I'm hungry."

The girl smiled, the kind of smile that comes when you're glad someone said something easy and held up her pointer finger.

"One second. She said. "I'll order you a tray. Anything you happen to be in the mood for?"

Tink didn't really care. She just needed to eat to get strong enough to leave this place once and for all. There was one thing that she could bring to mind.

"I'd like a cheeseburger."

The girl in blue giggled and gave her a thumbs up and headed back toward the hallways. She wasn't sure what the laughter was about, but sooner or later food would come, she was used to waiting.

When the tray arrived it was brought by an older woman with a kind smile and a soft voice who offered to set things up for her, and she declined.

The cheeseburger looked wrong, puffy and dry. She placed it on the tray and sat the plate on top of it smashing it down with her arms. She waited for the steam from the warm plate smashing down on the burger made it soggy before lifting it.

She placed the burger in her hand and smelled it. It wasn't greasy like the one's Stash brought, but it was as close as she could come. She ate greedily, shoving the food past her broken teeth and chewing as little as possible and washed the entire ball of bread sitting in her throat down with water.

Her stomach rolled and grumbled and she placed her hand across it. Muscles tightened and released and she smiled. Babies liked things to stay the same, comforting, and filling. This was something her baby knew. A warm feeling washed over her skin and she felt the urge to vomit. Slowly she lay back on the pillow, still and unmoving. She wouldn't give in to it. Her muscles and the baby needed it, and she'd do whatever it took to keep it in.

As she waited for the rolls of nausea to settle she heard the soft click and shuffle of Johns footsteps followed by the swoosh of the air being forced from the padding of the chair as his weight settled on it.

Her eyes stayed on the ceiling and her hand stayed on her stomach, she hoped he'd leave, at least until the saliva gathering in her mouth in response to her rolling stomach stilled, but she knew that wasn't going to happen. Like Stash, he came when he wanted things from her and left when she either gave it to him, or wasn't able to.

She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of speaking first or acknowledging his presence. He came to her, he could do the work. Her thoughts squirmed around beneath her skull, worming in and out of moments as she waited for him to speak. Perhaps she was programmed now, the sight and smell of him... of knowing what he wanted, made it rush to the surface. She didn't have the abilty to get mad or roll over, all she could think about was keeping the food down.

"Hope?"

She continued to stare ahead. Anger biting at her skin like fire ants. There wasn't enough left in her for this. She needed him to leave her alone. Slowly she exhaled the air in her lungs.

"I know it's hard Hope. It's opening wounds and it's a horrible feeling. But it's impossible to move on, or forward, holding on to all those feelings. They'll eat you alive."

Tink struggled to fight the nausea and the anger and the desire to shove the butter knife in his chest.  Just like before she knew. The only way to get rid of Stash, or John, was to give them what they wanted.

"The first nights in the pit I liked it. I was excited to be his. I wanted to be the girl he choose, and I thought about how much it would help me with my parents. They couldn't blame me for being away if I was kidnapped.  And I knew when I went home I'd have sympathy instead of anger. He beat me up the first time we had sex. To the point where I could barely move, and then he pounced. He lay on top of me, and I all I was thinking about why he had hit me. I would've had sex with him anyway. I'd been doing it for weeks with guys I didn't know. I was a whore."

Tink rubbed her stomach, remembering the smell of musk and mold mixed with beer and nicotine. Remembering the salty taste of skin covered in dust.  She remembered him holding her throat as he climaxed. And forcing her to look at him.  Every time.

"He liked to wrap his hands around my throat. Tight enough for things to be blurry and quiet but not tight enough to let me die. And every time I had to look into his eyes as he finished. If I blinked or blacked out he'd beat me again before he left."

Tink didn't need to look his way to know he was hanging on her words, she could feel it in the air - like one of those soul suckers in the Harry Potter movies, electric. She moved her hand from her stomach onto her breast.

"Truth is, in the beginning, I didn't mind so much about any of it. It was a punishment I knew I deserved."

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I'm assuming by now if you're super sensitive you wouldn't be here. For those of you sticking, buckle up. It's about to be a little ugly.