Isolated // H.S {ON HOLD}

ch 13: A Nice Girl

A.N/ UGH! i have exms all week :( but ill still update anyway!!

*Chapter 13: A Nice Girl*

I don’t remember being thirsty on that first morning in the camp. I don’t remember being hungry. During the first week, I don’t remember feeling anything at all. Well, that’s not quite true. I felt pain. And I felt fear. But those are the only feelings I remember during that time.

I hadn’t yet begun to accept what had happened to me. If fact, it took a long time to accept it. It was just too crazy. I mean, I had gone to bed just like every little kid, only to be wakened with a knife at my throat. I had been taken from my home, which was supposed to be the safest place on Earth. How did this happen? How had this young man been able to break into my impenetrable fortress and steal me?

I couldn’t quit thinking about my family. 

I couldn’t imagine how they were feeling. Were they okay? What was going on at home? I particularly worried about my mom. I pictured her driving around our neighborhood, looking for any clues. I loved my mom so much and couldn’t imagine how worried she must be. I thought back on the time when my little brother had dislocated his arm (it really wasn’t my fault, family legend aside) and my poor mom, who had just returned home from running errands, became almost overcome with worry and rushed him to the hospital. My brother was fine once the nurse popped his arm back into its socket. But thinking back on that, I knew she wasn’t going to handle my disappearance very well.

I felt deeply homesick. I tried to remember what our living room looked like, with its decorated walls and intricate rug. I knew my parents had been thinking of putting our house up for sale. What if they moved? How would I find them if they were gone?

But surely, I thought, my parents were looking for me by now. Others were probably looking too. Someone had to be close. Maybe they would rescue me! Surely they would find me. Eventually I would be found.

But they hadn’t found me yet.

And since they hadn’t, I had to find a way to live.

I looked at my surroundings inside the tent. Horrid flower-print sheets. A dirty plum-colored comforter with dark fabric on one side and a lighter shade on the other. (I decided then and there that I didn’t like the print one bit.) Two feathered, poufy pillows. Two hard cot pillows stuffed along the top of the tent.

This was my new home.

The thought made me feel sick.

It was getting very hot now, the tent holding in the sunlight like a greenhouse. Lifting up the cable to keep from tripping, I followed it out of the tent. My two captors were there. I looked around. No one spoke to me.

I examined the steel cable, looking for any means of escape.  Given the slightest chance, I was going to run. But the steel cable was now tight around my ankle. I examined it more closely. Wound steel. Tight. Strong. Thin as a pencil. The cable was tethered to another steel cable that had been bolted between two trees, allowing me a little bit of movement around the camp, just enough to stretch between the fire pit on the up-canyon side and the depressing dugout on the other. Maybe twenty feet of movement in any direction. In that space there was one tent. A couple of rubber basins. Buckets. A couple of coolers filled with food and containers filled with water. The cable wasn’t long enough to reach more than a few feet into the dugout. There was a hole in the ground on the other side of the fire pit that a bucket, used as a latrine, was dumped into.

Twenty feet. One tent. This was now my world.

My captors continued to ignore me. Moving carefully, I walked over to another upside-down bucket and sat down in the sun. I was crying again, huge tears running down my face. Neither of them tried to comfort me. I cried on.

So I sat on the bucket and cried all morning long.

Eventually, the brown, curley headed boy looked at me. “You will call me Harry,” he said. He then nodded to the other boy, not mearly a few feet away. “And you will call him, Louis.” I turned to look at him. He was tall, with side-swept brow hair and looked as if he was in his early twenties. They both did.

My name is Violet Harrington” I answered.

They both ignored me and started talking. Soon I was to learn a couple of things. First, my captor was extreemly self absorbed. Second, he liked to talk. A lot. About his job. About his life. About his purpose. Anything about himself. He and Louis had kept extensive records of “the path they had taken,” and it became obvious that I was going to hear it all.

Lunchtime approached. Louis got up and started fixing food to eat. I watched him for a moment through puffy eyes.

I knew that they could both kill me anytime they wanted. They both certainly had the physical capability. They could kill me with nothing but a twist of their hands. No one would ever know. Nobody was there to protect me. Nobody was there to take care of me. I had to watch out for myself.

My mind started turning. Okay, I thought to myself, I can’t fight them all the time. If I do, they’ll keep me cabled. I’ll never have a chance to escape.

I thought back on a girl I knew in junior high. She was a friend to the Polynesian kids, the Mexicans, the Caucasians. She was friends with everyone. She was just so nice. So I thought, Okay, I can be like her. I can make this situation the best that I can for myself. Nobody wants to be around a crybaby. Nobody wants to be around a sad sack. If I am miserable and whiny and don’t carry my weight, then he will be far more likely to kill me. What was there to stop him? If I’m going to survive this, then I have to step up. I have to try to help myself.

I continued thinking.

If I did as they told me, if I didn’t always fight him, then maybe it would be harder for him to hurt me. If I could get them to trust me just a little, maybe they would let me off the cable. Maybe they’d realize how much they were hurting me. Maybe they would come to like me, maybe even come to care about me. Then maybe they would let me go.

So I got up and walked over to where they were seated in the tarped area in front of the tent. They had set a tablecloth on some of the plastic containers. Louis had started to grate carrots and cut up onions.  Harry was just sitting there, waiting for his lunch.

“I can help,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”

Luois hesitated. I think he was surprised. Then he passed me a cutting board and grater, careful to keep the knife out of my reach. (Not that it mattered. I never could have hurt them, even in the most desperate times.) I started grating carrots, helping to prepare the food. They had onions, raisins, and carrots mixed with mayonnaise and rolled in tortillas for lunch. They ate like they were starving. I ate next to nothing at all.

When they were finished, I asked if they wanted me to help clean up.

“It’s okay,” Louis said. 

****

I don’t remember if we ate dinner. All I remember is sitting there, alone. Night fell, and it grew cool. The mountain was dark. I could hear coyotes and crickets, the wind blowing through the tops of the maples. But that is all I heard. No voices calling out my name. No airplanes or helicopters. Nothing good at all.

That night, we all slept in the tent. The cable wasn’t long enough and I couldn’t stretch out my leg. I curled in the fetal position against the side of the tent. Harry curled up next to me, his arm around my shoulder. I recoiled at his touch. I pulled away as far as I could. He moved against me again. I was pressing so hard against the tent that I thought it was going to tear. I curled tighter into a ball. My rejection didn’t bother him. In fact, it seemed to urge him on, being able to dominate me like that. Domination and power. That was always his intent.

The night wore on. I prayed as long and as hard as I had cried the day before. I was so scared and lonely.

Exhaustion finally overcame me, taking me to a place where my captors couldn’t hurt me anymore.