Thanks so much for your comments and ratings! I know the pain of the abandoned Lit story. I have already written half of this one and plan to keep going as long as there is interest. For your part, could you pretty please leave me a comment or a rating if you're reading? I love knowing you're enjoying the story and I'm hoping to keep improving it!
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He gave her something to make her sleep. After the humiliating ordeal of being stretched out on the bed, tugged and pinched and poked, he had lifted her head and forced a glass of juice down her throat. She didn't remember anything else until she woke up, alone, curled in a tight ball on the same bed. For a panicked moment, she wondered if he had violated her while she slept. She inventoried her body, trying to feel if anything was different. But slowly, she convinced herself that this, at least, he had spared her.
He also must have been the one to drape the thin blanket over her naked body. The room was bitterly cold. And the temperature aside, she couldn't stand to lie here naked, alone, knowing that that man was likely to come back. She counted to five and then she leapt off the bed. The blanket pooled on the floor at her feet and she picked it up and draped it around her shoulders. She surveyed the room again to ensure that the warrior was not here, lurking in some unseen corner.
Her clothes were nowhere to be seen.
There were no windows--with a shudder, she remembered that.
There was a large, metal door on the far wall next to a wooden bench. She ran to the door and tried the handle. The knob creaked slightly at her touch, but it didn't budge, even when she grasped it with both hands and twisted and pulled. Flakes of rust came off on her hands, streaking her palms reddish brown. Impatient, she wiped them against the blanket.
Another scan. There were no more entrances or exits that she could see.
What if they had a fire? she thought. Okay, maybe mountains couldn't burn. But the things inside these rooms could. And if smoke filled these corridors, people would surely suffocate. Of course, there must be ventilation. She could breathe, even if she was still wracked with the horrible, heavy feeling that this would somehow cease to be true so deep inside the stone.
Shaking off thoughts of imagined disasters, Lucy focused on the one at hand. She was trapped in the room for now. But it was full of things that might be used as weapons. Perhaps of greater interest, there appeared to be a chest of drawers on the other side of the sleeping area that she reasoned might contain clothes. Determined, she walked towards it, realizing as she got closer that the door to a small, tiled bathroom--also no window--was open just beyond it. She opened a middle drawer of the dresser, reasoning that more personal items would be kept in the smaller drawers at the top. The third drawer she tried yielded a messy pile of worn, button-down shirts in a soft, flannel-like fabric. She picked one up and fingered the material, confident that it was thick enough to help ward off the worst of the chill. She didn't like the idea of wearing his clothes, but she liked the idea of being naked when he returned even less.
Before she could think much more about it, she pulled a shirt over her head, doing up the last of the buttons. It hung past her knees. Despite the disarray of the garments inside the drawers, they appeared to be clean. They carried the smell of soap. And underneath, faint but certain, the same spicy, earthy scent of the warrior.
She tried the other drawers, but there was nothing remotely capable of being fashioned into pants and his socks were so huge they wouldn't stay on her feet. On the mountain today, she and Sheera had been barefoot. It was common on the island. Resources were scarce and the weather was warm ten months out of the year. During the short, brutal winters, no one ventured outside if they could help it. Yet, inside the mountain, it was colder than the worst, snowiest day of the last winter. How did these creatures stand it?
She examined the rest of the room, poking into corners and pressing her palms against the stone walls due to the faint possibility of some kind of hidden tunnel or other escape. She made quick use of the tiny bathroom, using the toilet and splashing water on her face. There was a small nook past the living area with a table and chairs, but no sign of food. The space was sparse, but lived-in. It was messier and softer than she would expect from such a frightening person. Inside the desk, she found files and notebooks scrawled edge to edge in a language she didn't understand. Yet, in a bottom drawer, she also found a small collection of crayon drawings and a pile of letters tied with string. On top of the desk was a formal-looking fountain pen along with a collection of small plastic toys. One, she thought she recognized from a library book.
In the living room, there was something recessed into the wall high over her head. She was considered pushing over one of the chairs to examine it when the doorknob creaked. Startled, she darted back towards the bed like a rabbit disappearing into its hole at the shadow of a hawk. Unwilling to sit on the bed, she wedged herself against the footboard, trying to disappear into the wall.
Meek. Soft. Afraid.
It was only a little bit pretend.
The door opened on creaking hinges and the warrior came into the room. His eyes leveled on the bed and for a moment, his face registered surprise. A moment later, he found her hiding place and came towards her. He crouched at her level, boxing her in and surveyed her. His face showed little emotion, but she had the distinct sense that he was reading her and the wild thought that, somehow, he knew everything she had been doing and thinking since he had left.
"I thought I would be here before you awoke," he said finally. "But I see that I was not." He gave a small smile, taking in the shirt she was wearing. "You are not permitted to wear clothes without my leave," he continued easily. "I will decide what you wear and if you wear it. And being naked makes it more difficult for you to try to escape. But I find I am pleased to see you wearing my shirt." As he spoke, he reached out and fingered the collar, slipping his hand underneath for a brief moment to grasp her shoulder. "You're too thin," he said, standing up and abruptly changing the subject. "Are food supplies so low on the ground?"
She watched as he took off his jacket and tossed it over the chair at his desk. He untied his hair and let it fall loose, scratching idly at his scalp, as if relieved to be free of this aspect of his uniform.
"That was a question," he said, focusing on her again. "You will answer."
She couldn't tell him anything about the island. The warriors had not attacked in over a decade, but still, her people were virtually their prisoners. Not perhaps so profoundly as she was at the moment. But near enough.
"You must know how little food we are provided," she said finally.
"I know, too, that you supplement our generosity," he said, a warning note in his voice. "Tell me something more."
Feeling oddly certain that he would know if she lied, she offered a half-truth. "My family is poor," she said. "We hunt for most of our food and we haven't been lucky lately."
"Lucky," he said. "Hmm."
Lucy thought of Gino, her friend Harley's father, who was in charge of tending and distributing their food stores. He worked hard to try to ensure that everyone had enough. He had to make agonizing decisions--did a child deserve more? Or his ailing grandmother? The warrior's dismissal of his efforts made her angry.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
If he had commanded her to eat, she might have allowed herself to do it. But to admit any weakness seemed impossible. She shrugged lightly, hoping that this would satisfy him.
"Speak," he said, snapping his fingers at her. "And don't lie."
"I suppose I am hungry. I can't really feel anything."
