Page 126 of Finding Noah

“Yes.”

He leaned over until his nose touched mine. “You think she's looking for you?”

My throat shifted with a hard, grated swallow. “Yes.”

“Then why the fuck do you think it matters to me who mourns you?”

The unmistakable sound of his jeans zipper being lowered hit my ears, and I closed my eyes, clenching my jaw and bracing myself. Praying I'd pass out this time, praying he’d make it quick.

“As long as there's someone out there who's gonna be sad once they use your fuckin' teeth to identify your body … that's all I ask for.”

***

I drifted in and out of restless sleep, the pain tearing through me in unpredictable intervals before my mind protected itself by losing consciousness.

The moments when I woke, I could only cry tearless sobs, writhing on the filthy mattress.

How much more could a body take before it gave up? I wasn’t sure, but it was coming. I sensed that much, and before there was relief, I could only feel guilt.

For being here. For not fighting harder, for not fighting at all. For leaving home in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice hoarse and broken.

God, I was surprised I could speak at all with how much I’d screamed.

I tried not to. Tried to bite it back. Tried not to give him the satisfaction.

Benjamin liked it when I screamed, loved when he knew how much it hurt me when he pinned my useless body to the bed, abusing it over and over against the binds that wouldn’t break. I bit back until my teeth lacerated my tongue, until I couldn’t anymore. I screamed as he pressed my face into the mattress, his hand curled around my neck. I screamed until my throat tore and my voice splintered, and then all that met my ears was his laugh, a wicked chorus of glee and horror that ended in his grotesque grunts of release and my soul-shattering tears.

And then he got up to leave, as he always did, tucking himself away and zipping his jeans.

“This time tomorrow?” he’d asked with a chuckle, heading to the door.

How strange was it that him leaving was almost as terrible as the rape?

“Please,” I had whimpered, so pathetic, as Benjamin turned off the flashlight, drowning me in darkness once more.

He’d stopped and asked, “Please what?”

“Don’t …” I hadn’t wanted to say it, hadn’t wanted the admission to pass through my lips and into this nightmarish world. But then I had. “D-don’t go. Please. I don’t …”

Want to be alone, I’d wanted to say, but I couldn’t.

Judging from the way his laughter rang through the small space and beyond, it was the funniest thing Ben had ever heard.

And then he had left, closing the door behind him.

Who knew how long it’d been since he’d been in here with me? Ten minutes, ten hours … did it matter anymore?

My legs ached from being in this position for too long, and I attempted to shift to alleviate the pain, the chains rubbing against the torn skin around my ankles, only to feel the stabbing, burning, throbbing sensation from where I’d been violated.

“Oh God!” I gritted my teeth as my eyes burned with tears. I gasped, struggling to breathe through wave after wave of agony, waiting for my body to acclimate once again.

A sound came from within the darkness.

I stopped breathing altogether.

“B-Ben?” I asked cautiously, scared to open my eyes and see him sitting there, watching me sleep.