I wasn't left alone for long. Shortly after Jake had left the room, he came back. I had been laying on the bed in a daze and his sudden presence startled me out of it. Instantly, my heart rate increased in fear of what he was going to do to me. However, when he reached the bed, he quietly began unchaining my legs and unlocking my wrist cuffs. When my limbs were free, he unclipped the leash from my collar and lifted me off the bed, carrying me out the door toward the bathroom. I held onto him and laid my head against his shoulder as he carried me, hating him, yet strangely comforted by him as well.
When we reached the bathroom, he set my feet on the cool floor but my knees instantly buckled beneath me from all the throbbing pain that was coursing through my body and the weakness from lack of food and water. I would have crumpled to a heap on the tile but Jake caught me and set me down on the toilet so I could go to the bathroom. While it was extremely painful to sit on my fresh wounds, I was too weak to care. Once I was finished, he picked me up and carried me downstairs.
It was dark and quiet downstairs, the only light emanating from the bulb above the kitchen sink. I didn't see Shay anywhere so I assumed he had gone to bed, which I was grateful for. At the bottom of the stairs, I noticed the dog bowl was on the floor again with another sandwich inside and a cup of water next to it. Jake set me down on the hard wood.
"Eat," was all he said.
He didn't have to tell me twice! It took all the strength I had left to pick up the food and chew it, but I was starving. When the sandwich was gone, I eagerly drank down the water before Jake picked it up and refilled it. I drank that down too, thankful for the extra cup. Slightly satiated, Jake picked me back up and carried me up the stairs once again.
Instead of taking me to my room, he took me back to his and laid me down on the side of the bed furthest from the door. He snapped the leash, which was still connected to the headboard, to my collar, chained both ankle cuffs together to the foot of the bed and locked my wrist cuffs together around the bar on the headboard. I rolled onto my left side to try to take some pressure off my throbbing wounds.
He went to shut the bedroom door and began undressing as he turned back toward the bed. When I glanced behind me and saw that he was naked, I whimpered slightly and turned away from him, hoping he wouldn't try anything more. I felt the bed shift as he climbed on and moved toward me. But instead of forcing himself on me again, he simply lay on his side next to me and put his arm around my waist before he drifted off to sleep. Though I was exhausted, I found it difficult to fall asleep with Jake lying next to me. My emotions were getting the best of me. I felt guilty that I was in bed with another man, even though I was being forced. I felt nervous that he might want to rape me again when he woke up. I felt scared that I might never get out of this house alive. And I felt sad that I might never see Ryan again.
The latter brought tears to my eyes once again this evening, and I lay there crying against my arm, the tears trickling down my skin to the sheets below. I sniffled a few times and my body shook with my ragged breaths as I quietly sobbed. In his shallow slumber, Jake seemed to notice I was crying and hugged me comfortingly with the arm he had wrapped around my waist. The gesture scared and confused me even more, and I cried into the night until I had no more tears to shed before finally falling into a deep sleep as the sun's first morning rays shone through the window.
When I awoke, Jake was no longer in the room and everything in the house was quiet. I wondered if they went off to do another drug deal or maybe to pick up some food. I hoped it was the latter for two reasons. First, I was starving and hoped they would let me eat. And second, a grocery-shopping trip probably wouldn't take as long as a drug deal. Hopefully that meant they'd be home soon, because I really had to go to the bathroom!
I had no idea what time it was, but I assumed it was early afternoon with how high the sun was in the sky. Jake had cracked the blinds enough to let some light in and I could feel its warmth on my cool skin.
To help pass the time, all I could do was think. I thought about how I had gotten here, if Ryan was trying to find me, the abuse I had been put through and the strange, confusing feelings coursing through me. I resolved that I would do everything I could to cooperate with their demands, hoping it would prevent any more punishment. After all, I obviously didn't have a choice and struggling was doing more harm than good.
