Forced to Change

We pulled off the highway just before dawn and I participated in my first real grand theft auto. It was so different than the game that I barely registered the fact I was committing a crime. I think my heart plummeted just a little watching Jared set my green monster on fire.

The new ride carried us to an off-the-beaten-path motel. Every time I thought of some way to escape it was as if Jared was one step ahead of me. When I looked at the phone too long, he unplugged it. When I watched the door, he started pacing in front of it. He even left the bathroom door cracked when I went in to shower. I couldn't crawl out because the window was so small.

Not that I really planned to go anywhere. I just felt like it was some weird game we played.

How to Prevent Katie's Grand Escape,

rated 'N' for no one.

After a long hot shower I sat on the bed closest to the wall and stared at the television. It watched me more than I watched it. There was a talk show on, but I didn't recognize the cast. They may have been doctors; everyone was wearing scrubs.

I was wide awake and restless. My body felt sore more than anything else. I wrapped the cheap white hotel towel tightly around me. Jared was mostly freaking me out and I'd tired of the game. I tucked my legs under me and tried to watch the TV. Did it bother me that in addition to the room being motel cheap, the flatscreen TV was experiencing bondage from a shiny thick metallic chain through the base bolted to the metal dresser?

"I need to run out for a bit. You need clothes and food. I need to get rid of the car." Jared turned and faced me, speaking in a monotone that sent a chill down my spine. His words were detached, just a list of what needed to be done. I felt numb in some areas and hot in others. I just wanted to go home.

"Okay," I said. "I'll be here." I smiled a moment before I noticed the phone cord in his hands. I flinched back onto the bed. "That's not necessary. Really."

"If there was another way. I'll be an hour. Probably less." He frowned. "I'm sorry, but I have to."

"No," I whispered. "You really don't. I get it. Bad men are after me. I swear, I won't leave. I can't go anywhere. I have nothing to wear. Please don't." I crawled back to the headboard while my heart raced.

"I'm not going to gag you. I just...You...Just give me your hands." He seemed sad but determined.

"Please, you can't tie me up, Jared. I can't be tied up." I shook my head 'no'. He grabbed me and I went limp. It was easier on me when I didn't fight. I hated being tied up, but I could survive it.

Jared looked at me one last time and I stayed silent. At least I wasn't gagged. He finally left me on my own as the first tear slid down my face. I lay back on the bed staring up at the ceiling. My hands were secured in a way that I could turn over but tight enough I wasn't going anywhere.

I tried not to think of Cantana as I panted and panicked. This wasn't so bad. I was alone. No one was with me. It didn't matter that the sun was bright outside. It didn't matter that the television played in the background because I was in the Chamber again. It came to my head unbidden.

I tried to stay in the moment. If I was going to think about Cantana I could try to guide my thoughts to safer places. I thought about my only friends there, Rosa and Paco. They seemed a safe territory to explore. I often wondered what had happened to them after the day I was rescued. Maybe Jared could answer that question.

I remembered how broken my father had looked after I returned home. It seemed to have nothing to do with his dying and I felt so guilty. It was like our relationship had been shattered. I went through a period where I blamed him for what happened to me. It wasn't based in reality; it was just me reacting to the awful things I'd experienced. Misplaced blame made sense and I snapped out of it as soon as I knew he was sick.

I knew that the Commandant had escaped. Secretly, despite everything he'd done to me, I harbored some feelings of glee at the thought that he'd gotten away. My therapist, Dr. Kim told me to just feel whatever I felt about Cantana. It was normal. I tried to strive for normalcy in my life.

She thought what I was going through was a type of Stockholm Syndrome, and maybe that was true. I suppose that after so much time I should want the Commandant caught and brought to justice for what he'd done.

Lana Rios had been arrested for her part in the kidnappings after I was rescued. She was taking the whole 'no comment' literally in a federal prison. The FBI assumed she had worked with the Commandant to pull off the kidnappings and the whole Cantana case would close once he was captured.

Parts of past conversations drifted in and out of my consciousness as I approached the edge of sleep. I knew some of the voices, like Mrs. Donnelly and my father talking by my hospital bed. I remembered whispering to Mrs. Donnelly when we were alone. I told her how Noel had been beaten for killing her son. She'd asked about that, what did I hear exactly and I told her. I finished by telling her that her son's murderer was dead. She'd nodded and cried. Then there was the Commandant and Lana chatting at night as I fell asleep. Cantana was supposed to be my past, but six years later I still couldn't run away from that nightmare.

A random thought tightened my chest and I moaned. What if the real reason I had been kidnapped now was to return me to the Commandant? My tired eyes squeezed tight, trying to block out the images of him.

"No," I whispered, even though deep down my insides fluttered. I couldn't think of him. I wanted to be angry with Jared and I tried to focus my energy there. He hadn't gagged me. Did he know? He had to know why I wouldn't scream. No scream. No yell.

"No," I said. "No!" Even now, my voice wasn't much louder than the television set. I couldn't scream and I hated myself for it.

I could feel the lucidity of my dream. I was there, back in Cantana and I was somewhere in Ohio, in a hotel room. It didn't matter that I knew I was dreaming. My mind screamed "No!" in a way my voice never could.

I could see Cantana now the way I'd never understood it then. It was as if I watched myself with the Commandant from a bird's eye view. I floated above the scene. Every time he touched me after the first night, it was always after someone else had abused me. Flashes of my torture whipped through my head and then he was there, soothing my wounds, wiping away my tears.

Over and over, someone would hurt me, rape me and then there he would be. He'd send them away, collect me. Bathe me. He'd hold me and he was so tender, so gentle. After a month I was always relieved to see him. He'd trained me in such a subtle way. Of course I'd thought I loved him. He protected me—only it was a lie.

He tricked me. The Commandant let his soldiers abuse me so that when he approached me I'd be grateful for it. It was so clear now and I hated the realization. I was naïve, I was stupid. The anger boiled inside me, spilling out my mouth in one word. "No!"

Even now, years later, I felt him. A small part of me wanted him. The Commandant was familiar and safe. I hated myself for the desire, the need, the ache that I couldn't escape. I could feel his hands on me. My skin was on fire, my insides clenched tight, begging with my body.

Suddenly it wasn't the Commandant. He was replaced by Jared. I was so mad I wanted to hit him. Tears streamed down my face because I'd trusted him. He and Noel worked as a team. Noel was the sadist and Jared was my sanctuary. No scream. No talk. Wait—that wasn't right. The Commandant replaced Jared; he was my sanctuary? No, he really wasn't.

"Sssh, it's just a nightmare," he said, his hands held me down against the bed. "Katie, wake up." He pulled away as my wet eyes focused on his face. I was floating above, watching him below me at the same time he was right above me. It wasn't the Commandant, though, and I was disappointed and relieved at the same time. I gasped and tried to catch my breath.

It was just a dream. A vivid nightmare. I groaned and curled into a naked ball, my towel lost in the bedding. I sobbed just a bit harder. Somehow I'd gotten my hands free but since it wasn't the Commandant I should have stayed tied up. I wrapped my hands together, very much afraid that Noel would see I'd pulled my hands loose. That wasn't right either.

I startled as I felt someone's hand on my back. His fingertips traced the scars there; they caressed me where whips, knives, canes, so many objects Noel had wielded had split or damaged my skin. The television playing in the background was the only sound in the otherwise quiet room. Noel was the one who loved to tie me up. The Commandant untied me. My wrists ached. His fingers burned my back as though the skin was recently whipped.

Noel destroyed me from the inside out with his sessions of figging and the beatings that seemed unending until there was no place on my body that didn't know pain intimately. I had seen every mark reflected back to me from photographs and mirrors. I knew every line, welt, and burn mark that my body possessed.

The scars on the inside, the ones in my mind, always felt the hardest to hide. Jared's fingers tenderly explored my back as I held my breath. I tried to stay in the here and now, but it was no use. I couldn't control anything. I felt as if I were going to crawl out of my skin. I couldn't get away from him but I could hide in my head. I was shaking violently, uncontrollably.

"No," I whispered. There was a phantom pain blazing across my skin and I waited for the real pain that never came. At least the pain wasn't new. My head, my wrists and my shoulder hurt, but I'd felt so much worse that this wasn't too bad. The other pain, the one that was all in my head, subsided too. His hand stilled in its exploration. Every pain in my body disappeared as I locked out the reality.

"I was...an hour. What ...you do?" His voice disappeared into a void. I didn't understand his question or why I was so wet. The white towel was tinged with pinkish red and I didn't know why. It was on the edge of my vision, so I closed my eyes and even that was gone. My hands felt sticky and I couldn't stop shaking while I disappeared too.

"What did you do?" he asked. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I won't tie you up anymore. Just answer me, Katie." I wanted to speak but I couldn't because I was too far away from that, from him. My hands weren't tied anymore. That should be a good thing. I wasn't here, I was there. I let my mind go blank. I refused to analyze my conflicting thoughts and feelings.

I blinked and saw the raw meat that was my wrists. Had I done that? I blinked again and they were wrapped up in white gauze. I turned over and tried to make time stop skipping. I heard the rustling of a plastic bag, then I felt it against the back of my thighs.

Somehow Jared bled into my fantasy and was speaking to me, though I couldn't really hear his words. I wasn't in Cantana or the hotel room. I was in my bedroom at my father's house. My dad was downstairs and one of his Miles Davis records played softly from the living room. He was making dinner, something spicy. No, it was the air freshener in my room: cinnamon apple. I was as safe as a person could be. Nothing bad had ever happened to me. I'm okay. I'm okay.

"I got you some clothes," Jared said.

I liked the safe place. I didn't want to come back from it. I didn't want to be in a hotel room with the strange man who had rescued me. Reality was just a movie playing in the background and the fantasy was real. I could just turn off the television set. I only had to find the remote control. I stretched out my hand seeking the controller and I could see my bandaged arm. That image broke my carefully crafted illusion and I slammed into the present.

Jared got off the bed and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. The lingering dream/nightmare rushed from my mind as I considered that Jared had the opportunity to use my body, but he stopped. Maybe he really didn't want me, at least not physically. That thought should have filled me with relief. It didn't.