Captured!

       Heart racing, I walked silently as sweat trickled down my back. I closed the door softly and backed away, looking for the next exit. I couldn’t stay; he would find me. I had to leave. I had to run. 

       “Well, well, well.” I turned to ice. Unable to move, to think. Yet I was capable of feeling. Panic riddled my body as  I slowly turned to face him. 

       “Did you really think you could escape me?” William chuckled. For an abusive bastard, it was ironic that William was his name. He was supposed to be polished. Upstanding and regal. But that was all just a mask. He was a monster. A controlling, handsome monster. A monster that I allowed to get too close. A monster that I should have avoided but didn’t. 

       “Please,” I pleaded, “Just let me go.” 

       “Why would I do that?” He whispered sweetly, stalking closer. But I saw the danger in his eyes. “Why would I let you leave when here is where you belong?” 

       I flinched at his words. I didn’t belong here. I didn’t belong with him. I didn’t belong somewhere where I was abused. No one did. “William, you can’t keep me here. This is kidnapping! This is wrong!” I was hyperventilating at this point. Trying to reason with an irrational narcissist who believed that anything he wanted was automatically his. 

       William laughed. A booming, hearty laugh that rattled my already trembling body. My panic was a joke to him. My discomfort was his amusement. My pain was his pleasure. William grabbed my wrist and yanked me closer. “You need me, you just don’t know it yet. I’m what’s best for you! No one will love you like I will!” William hissed in my face as he squeezed my wrist. Tears blurred my vision as I tried to pull my hand away. 

       “You belong with me!” William shouted, bending my hand at a weird angle. I let out a strangled cry as the pain became unbearable. William released me, and I stumbled backwards, clutching my mangled wrist to my chest. “Look what you made me do!” William spat, looking down at me disappointingly with his hands on his hips. 

       “If you hadn’t tried to run, I wouldn’t have done that. If you had just been a good girl, you wouldn’t be in pain right now.”

       “I’m in pain because you can’t handle rejection!” I snapped. “I don’t want to be with you! I don’t even like you!”

       The blow that followed my words sent me to the ground. My jaw pulsed in pain. The metallic taste of blood drowned my mouth. I had unleashed his fury, and I knew what would come next. His powerful foot connected with my ribs. Before I could release the cries of agony that were stuck in my throat, I felt the next blow. Then came another, and another. Too weak to block the kicks. Too battered to restrain his fists. Agony so strong that I couldn’t pinpoint where it came from. But through the pain, I heard his words.

       “This is all your fault!” he yelled. “And don’t you dare cry. You made me do this! How dare you talk to me that way!” was the last thing I heard before his words began to fade. My body slumped on the floor, but the blows kept coming. I no longer felt the pain the impact inflicted. I no longer tasted the blood in my mouth. I saw blurred shadows moving around me, but nothing clear enough to identify.

        My eyes sprang open. It was dark and cold. My body was paralysed with agony. My head was throbbing intensely. How did I get here? How did I get trapped with this maniac? Was my kindness mistaken for interest or flirtation? Was my denial too subtle? Should I have made it louder? Harsher? Clearer? What did I do to make him think that this is what I wanted? That he was what I wanted. 

       “Hey, baby,” came his voice as light flooded into the room. He stood in the doorway with a gentle smile on his face and a glass in his hand. “How are you feeling?” he cooed, walking over. I flinched at his hand that reached out to stroke my hair. I wanted to tell him to get away from me. I wanted to tell him that he was a monster and I hated him. But I was too afraid that his abuse would resume. 

       “Don’t be afraid, baby,” he whispered, pulling me into his lap. “You’re safe with me. I would never hurt you.” That liar. All he did was hurt me. “What happened earlier was just… I had to teach you a lesson, okay? I love you, but I can’t allow you to believe that you’re disrespect will be tolerated. I only hit you because I wanted you to learn. I did it out of love.”

       I trembled as tears flooded my eyes. He was never going to let me leave, was he? He was never going to see the error of his ways. I was trapped with him forever, I realised that now. This was how it would be for the rest of my life. Walking on eggshells, constant abuse and manipulation. No freedom, no love, just obsession and pain. 

       It was never going to end.