Page 24 of A Princess, Stolen
After that, it took an eternity for my frozen fingers to pull up the thousand-dollar lace panties, straighten the dress, and wash my hands. Finally, I stood in the bathroom, reluctant to call out. It was better to be in here, not tied up, with a door between him and me.
Blindly, I turned the faucet on again and let hot water run over my cold fingers. At least, I had that. Hot water. My only luxury. I wanted to take a shower now to scrub the dirt, sweat,and fear from my body. I thought of my light-gray luxurious marble bathroom with columns, fluffy towels, and five soap dispensers. Apricot-vanilla, sandalwood-tonka…
“Ready?” the man at the door asked.
“No!” God, I didn’t want to leave!
I rubbed my hands together, shaking, but a sharp pain startled me.Damn it!I must have cut myself somewhere, at least, it burned like when you got a paper cut.
Clumsily, I searched for the wound and found a spot on my index finger that felt strange.
This stupid blindfold! I want to see something again!
My fingers were wet and I couldn’t find a towel—I couldn’t even tell if it was bleeding. When I rubbed my hands together again under the hot water, I felt something sharp.
Of course! Mom’s ring!I must have cut myself on the rough spot that I noticed in the taxi.
“Hey, princess, are you finished?” the man at the door asked.
“Just a minute,” I called back. I inspected the spot on the jewelry more closely. It was as sharp as a razor. Maybe one of the diamond prongs was broken. I quickly turned the ring so that the spot was hidden between my middle and ring finger. At that moment, the door creaked and I jumped. “What is taking you so long?” The man entered.
He had an air of authority about him, something threatening that made me feel tiny.
“You’re bleeding,” he said darkly but not impressed. Why did he have to have such a deep voice? It vibrated like a bass in my chest and made me feel like there was no escaping him.
I looked in the direction I didn’t expect him to be. “Yes… I must… It’s an old wound…it must have reopened.” I was a terrible liar.
He grabbed my injured hand, twisted and turned it, and again, I felt the rough skin of his fingers, but this time ittriggered nothing but fear. Luckily, I was wearing the ring on my other hand, so he probably wouldn’t associate it with the wound and take it off me for safety reasons. I was surprised that they hadn’t confiscated it long ago anyway. They probably had no idea how much it was worth, spurning it because the supposed few thousand dollars were nothing compared to the millions or even billions they were demanding.
When the man released my hand, I took a deep breath.
“It’s not that bad; at least you won’t bleed to death on us.”
He didn’t give me a bandage, no disinfectant spray, nothing. Instead, he bound my wrists together again and tightened the strap until I gasped, and then he tightened it even more. When he paused, I hoped he would loosen it, but he just said, “Get used to it! That won’t change either.”
Roughly, he led me out of the bathroom and a gust of sea air enveloped me like a lead coat. I smelled the salt and the moisture filled my lungs like water. My knees went weak. For a few seconds, I thought I couldn’t breathe. There was water everywhere. Like in my nightmares. Above me, below me. Inside me. A tidal wave of water. It washed through this corridor, flushing out images from within me as if someone had opened a floodgate. I saw Mom thrashing about, a tiny dot in a storm of gray waves.
“Nicholas! Nic!” Her desperate cry echoed from somewhere, perhaps from a hidden place in my soul. My vision blurred even behind the cloth, and suddenly, I was six years old again, floating in time without time, in the now and always.
Everything happens in those seconds.
My mom’s expensive silk dress billows out in the water like a white parachute, but it doesn’t save her; it pulls her down. Mom goes under, but she comes back up again because she paddles frantically with her arms. They are like oars that beat up anddown. “Nic!” The whites of her eyes seem oversized, like those of horses locked in a burning stable.
“I’ll take good care of her! I promise!” Dad’s voice sounds fearful, pure desperation breaking through every syllable. It plunges me into nothingness. I fall, miles deep, endlessly, and suddenly, all I feel is the cold like a thousand pinpricks and the seawater that keeps pouring into my mouth, nose, and ears. I choke, cough, and cling to Dad so tightly that he has trouble staying above water because I’m thrashing about wildly. “Dad! Daddy!” Above the stormy gray water with waves coming from all sides, flashes of lightning, ghostly lights plunging into the water with spidery legs. Thunder rumbles. Mom! Where are you? The salt of my tears mixes with the spray. I can’t see Mom anymore! The raging sea is like a mile-high monster devouring everything. Still, I keep hearing her scream! Nic! Nic! Nic! But the distant shouts only exist in my mind as it has long since faded. Mom has disappeared. Mommy is simply gone! Somewhere in the sea with the ghosts of the deep sea. It takes my breath away. The horror presses it out of me, and with a jolt, I am catapulted out of the images like a roller coaster whose safety bar opens.
In a confusing moment between past and present, I heard myself gasping for breath.Mom! Come back!
“Hey, hey, slow down!” The voice came from another place, surreal to me, swirling around me like a whirlpool.
I staggered, hit something with my shoulder, and sank. The extent of my fear was like acid in which I dissolved. Nevertheless, I felt two arms wrap around me and lift me, and I tipped forward. Seconds later, I was dangling over a shoulder.
Someone was carrying me. When had I toppled over? I couldn’t think clearly anymore. All I knew was that I had seen images from the time I had forgotten, a tiny glimpse of theseventy-two hours I had lost. It hadn’t been one of my previous panic attacks, at least, not immediately.
I had no idea what it meant. I didn’t know why now, of all times. My mind jumped back and forth between the memory and what was happening.
I was set down relatively gently in the present, but then the man slapped my face even if it wasn’t hard.
“Hey, Willa, breathe, okay! In short, out long!”
