To Love a Spider

Chapter 9

The Green-man came at Elizabeth with such speed that she barely had time to register what was going on before he was on to of her. She scrambled away but in less than a second he tackled her to the ground again. Elizabeth was already tired but she remembered the promise that she made to herself before and knew that she would fight back.

Or at least try.

He reached out and struck Elizabeth on the side, forcing her to curl up in pain. The power of the blow made dark spots appear in the corners of her eyes. Before she knew what was happening, the Green-man smashed her head against the ground and Elizabeth stopped moving.

She quickly went unconscious.

* * *

When she woke up again Elizabeth's hands were tied firmly behind her back and a blindfold was blocking her vision. Her head was aching terribly, so much so that she wondered how bad her concussion was. Because she definitely had a concussion.

Elizabeth had never been this scared in her entire life. Not when she had been attacked the first time, or felt like she was going crazy. Not even during her night terrors.

Now her nightmares had come to life.

She hadn't been able to clearly see the Green-man's face but what she had seen was terrifying. His suit was an inky green, almost black color. His jaw looked dislocated to the point of very serious injury. And his eyes, his eyes were like the dark pits of Hell. When you looked into them you knew you were going to die, or get swallowed whole by the darkness.

Elizabeth wasn't sure that that wasn't what had happened to her.

She knew that if she ever wanted to get out of wherever she was alive, she would need to free herself. She moved her head back and forth until her blindfold came down enough so that she could see. When she finally got it around her neck, Elizabeth guessed that thirty minute had gone by.

She looked around the room. It seemed as though she was in an underground area, maybe the sewers. Elizabeth shook her head with disgust, she hated the sewers. Glancing behind her, Elizabeth could see that her hands were tightly bound to the chair.

"Maybe if I..." She pushed her feet off the ground as hard as she could and sent the chair, and herself, reeling backwards. With a loud Boom! the chair hit the ground and splintered into several pieces. Elizabeth kept herself from screaming in pain when her arms broke free. She was pretty sure that she had re-broken her left arm from the impact.

She quickly unknotted the rest of the rope holding her hands together and stood up. "Now how to get out of here?" Elizabeth surveyed the area and quickly found what seemed to be the only door. She started to run from the door when it suddenly opened and the Green-man entered the room.

Deciding that she was going to get the first word in this conversation she yelled, "What do you want with me?"

The Green-man's face distorted into an amused smile. It didn't look like a smile to Elizabeth, it looked more like a violent grimace. "Hello to you to, dear Miss Brun."

Elizabeth was terrified. Not only had he captured her, he knew her full name, which meant he knew where she lived.

It also meant that he knew who her family is.

She stared him straight in the eyes, refusing to look afraid. She had read somewhere that looking confident in situations like this made the other person doubt their actions. In other words, it could help her escape.

Right now, it wasn't working. The Green-man smirked back at her and started to take steps forward.

Elizabeth took steps back. For right now, she was done being brave, She just wanted to go home and live the life she had always known. Not this new, violent one where everything was unpredictable.

"Don't be afraid," the Green-man said. "I won't hurt you. In fact, I've been watching you for a while now and I think that you are exactly what I'm looking for. Don't you think that if I really wanted to keep you here that I would have made sure that you couldn't get free that easily?" He gestured at the ropes that were once holding Elizabeth's hand's together.

"Why me? I'm just a random girl." Elizabeth's words were barely a whisper.

"My dear Elizabeth, you are the perfect match. You have fight in you. Together we can do the impossible."

"But I'm not special."

"Not yet you aren't. But I can make you special. I can give you gifts that this world has never seen before. Together we can do anything." The Green-man's face was contorted into a sadistic grin.

Elizabeth knew that whatever this man wanted to do to her it wasn't going to be good. She had so many questions but she had a feeling that he wasn't going to tell her anything more. "No," she said. "I won't do it. Let me go home."

"Home? No. You won't be going home anytime soon. You will stand by me or you will die."

Elizabeth didn't want to die. But she also didn't want to be a villainous freak either. She knew that the Green-man was going to harm others, probably even kill them. She definitely didn't want to be a part of that. She had grown up her entire life reading books where good always won over evil. She wanted to be the good guy. She didn't want to go down in history as a murderer.

Elizabeth had come to her decision. She had always wanted to honorable. Now she was going to die an honorable death. It wasn't exactly what she had in mind but there was always room for improvising. As her dad used to say, "Life isn't perfect, but you have to make do with what you have." What she wouldn't give to be with her family now.

She took a deep breath and spoke. "I would rather die."

The Green-man took a step closer and laughed. "Well I wasn't really asking, was I?"

Elizabeth's expression turned into that of horror. "No, don't take me!" she yelled. "Don't take me!" She tried to run away but her back was against the wall.

The Green-man took out a syringe from his pocket and grabbed Elizabeth. She tried to wriggle free, but she wasn't strong enough.

He held her down and stuck the syringe in her neck. Soon enough she was so loopy that she couldn't move her body.

She couldn't do anything as he carried her away.