Page 144 of Sunrise

Staying awake is the only thing I focus on.

I have to last one more minute.

That’s what I used to say to myself when I’d run long distance for track. Go for one more minute. I can do anything for one more minute.

Those minutes drag by until he eventually opens the door and the world spins, colors blur, and smells confuse me as I’m, I think, hauled out of my car and into a garage. I can’t comprehend what’s going on.

Next thing I know, I bounce on whatever I’ve just been tossed onto. A couch maybe? It smells like dog.

“Stay with me,” Christopher says, but his voice is muffled. The ringing in my ears gets louder.

Suddenly, there’s a pinch in my arm.

Within seconds, the ringing in my earsdissipates, and everything starts coming back into focus. My skin prickles. A few more minutes pass, and I can almost flex my hand.

“There we go,” he says, sounding relieved. “Jesus, you gave me a scare there.” Swiping the hair from my face, he checks the pulse in my neck. I can wiggle my feet. “What the hell did you do, Madame? Eat one of the roses? That stuff shouldn’t have hit you this quick unless it was absorbed into…” He pauses, and something must dawn on him. “Oh, you naughty little slut. Did you fuck one of my flowers?”

He reaches between my legs, and I feebly knock his hand away.

“Now we’re back in business,” he says with excitement. Then his face twists into anger and he tackles me. I can’t put up much of a fight yet, but I sure as hell try. We end up on the floor where he manages to pin me down and zip tie my hands together. Then he heaves me back onto a couch.

“Sit. Stay.” He shoves his finger at me. “Don’t fucking move, I mean it.”

I spit in his face.

He wipes it off with his thumb and sucks it. “God, I’ve missed you.”

While I beg my body to keep normalizing so I can fight my way out of here, Christopher leaves me in the living room. There’s a dog cage in the corner with a blanket over it. Pictures are taped all over the wall. They’re all of me.

Oh my god.

He’s been stalking me formonths.

Desperate to escape, I notice the kitchen on my left, where there’s a back door with a bolt on it. The faint scent of bleach lingering in the air makes the hairon the back of my neck stand on end. The windows have wooden blinds hiding us from the outside world. I can’t tell where I am, but I don’t think we drove very far.

Whatever he gave me to counteract the shit in my system is really kicking in now. I’m just a little nauseous, but definitely better. The antidote is incredibly fast-acting.

As was the fucking drug.

Christopher returns, dressed in leather pants and a full-face mask with the zipper open so I can see his mouth. He tosses a leather outfit at me. I glower at it, repulsed. But it gives me an idea…

My throat hurts when I snap at him. “Am I supposed to wear that thing?”

He nods.

“How, when I can’t use my hands, Animal?”

The use of his old honorific makes something in him shift. I swear he turns into a different monster almost instantly. He’s more eager, less angry.

I use it to my advantage.

“Look at you. So scrawny and weak.” Only half sitting up, I can’t seem to gain full functionality yet. “You haven’t even helped your Madame sit properly.”

He springs into action and gently helps me sit up straight.

“Take this zip tie off me, Animal.”

He shakes his head, going mute on me. It immediately throws me back to the Monarch Club when he snapped his fingers at his partner and shook his head silently at her, too. She was so scared. So nervous and anxious.

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