Chapter 48 Untitled Chapter
Nora’s eyes snapped open, her consciousness returning in a violent rush. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was or how she got there. Her body ached everywhere, a symphony of pain from the beating, the restraints, the injection. Her head pounded viciously, and her mouth tasted like chemicals and blood.
Then it all came flooding back. Ben. The mask. Her parents. The cult. The initiation. Everything.
She sat up too quickly, and the room spun around her. She was lying on a thin mattress on a cold stone floor.
“No,” Nora whispered, her voice hoarse and broken. “No, no, no.”
She scrambled to her feet, stumbling as her legs threatened to give out beneath her. She lunged for the door, a heavy wooden thing with metal reinforcements, and grabbed the handle. It didn’t budge. Locked, of course.
“Help!” Nora screamed, pounding her fists against the door. “Help! Someone help me! Please!”
She hammered on the door until her hands hurt, until her throat was raw from screaming. “Let me out! Let me out of here! Help! Anyone! Please!”
Her voice echoed off the stone walls, bouncing back at her in a cruel mockery. No one answered. No footsteps approached. It was as if she was completely alone in the world, buried alive in this stone tomb.
“Help!” she screamed again, her voice cracking with desperation. “Please! Someone! Anyone! Help me!”
She kept screaming, kept pounding, driven by panic and terror and the overwhelming need to escape. Her fists became bruised, her voice became a ragged whisper, but still she continued. She couldn’t stop. If she stopped, she would have to face the reality of her situation, and she wasn’t ready for that.
“Help,” she sobbed, sliding down the door until she was sitting on the cold floor, her back against the wood. “Please, someone help me.”
Finally, after what felt like hours but might have been only minutes, she heard footsteps in the hallway outside.
“Help,” Nora croaked out. “Please, I need help.”
The footsteps stopped outside her door. She heard the lock turning, and hope surged through her chest.
The door opened, and a man stepped inside. He was large, muscular, dressed in the same black tactical gear she remembered the compound guards wearing. His face was hard and expressionless.
“Please,” Nora said, struggling to her feet. “Please, you have to help me. They’re going to—”
“Shut up,” the guard said, his voice flat and cold.
“But you don’t understand,” Nora continued desperately. “They kidnapped me. They’re holding me prisoner. You have to—”
“I said shut up,” the guard repeated, louder this time. He took a step toward her, and Nora instinctively backed away. “I don’t care what they’re doing to you. I don’t care why you’re here. My job is to make sure you stay in this room and don’t cause problems.”
“Please,” Nora whispered.
“You scream like that again, and there will be consequences,” the guard warned. “Do you understand me?”
Nora stared at him, seeing no compassion, no humanity in his eyes.
“Do you understand me?” he repeated, his hand moving to something on his belt. A weapon, probably.
“Yes,” Nora whispered, defeated. “I understand.”
“Good.” The guard turned and walked out, the door slamming shut behind him. The lock clicked back into place, sealing her in once more.
Nora sank back down onto the mattress, pulling her knees to her chest. She was alone. Truly, completely alone. No one was coming to help her.
She cried then, deep wrenching sobs that shook her entire body. She cried for her children. She cried for Noah. She cried for herself, for the life she had lost, for the nightmare she was trapped in.
Time became meaningless in the small stone room.
Eventually, she heard footsteps again. Different ones this time. Slower, more deliberate. She recognized the rhythm of them and felt her stomach clench with dread.
The lock turned. The door opened. Ben stepped inside, carrying a tray of food.
He was no longer wearing the ceremonial robes and mask. Now he was dressed casually, in jeans and a simple shirt, looking for all the world like the husband she had once known. But she could never see him that way again. All she saw was the monster wearing a familiar face.
“Good afternoon, Nora,” Ben said pleasantly, as if this were a normal visit. “I brought you some food. You must be hungry.”
He set the tray down on the floor near the mattress. There was a plate with what looked like bread and some kind of stew, a glass of water, and a napkin.
Nora looked at the food, then at Ben, then back at the food. Without thinking, without hesitating, she grabbed the plate and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall, food splattering everywhere.
“I don’t want your food,” she spat. “I don’t want anything from you.”
Ben looked at the mess on the wall, then back at Nora. His expression remained calm, almost amused. Then, faster than she could react, his hand shot out and connected with her face in a brutal slap.
The impact sent Nora sprawling backward onto the mattress.
“That was wasteful,” Ben said mildly, as if commenting on the weather. “Food costs money, Nora. Even here.”
Nora pressed her hand to her throbbing cheek, tasting blood in her mouth again. She glared at him with pure hatred.
Ben crouched down beside the mattress, his face now level with hers. “You know, I’ve been thinking about our time together. Not the time here in the compound, but before. When we were married. When we were intimate.”
Nora’s blood ran cold. “Don’t.”
“All those nights we spent together,” Ben continued, ignoring her protest. “All those times you let me touch you, let me inside you. You were so responsive, so passionate. Or at least, you pretended to be.”
“Stop it,” Nora said, her voice shaking.
“And then these past few weeks,” Ben went on, a cruel smile playing at his lips. “When you came back to me, when you invited me into your bed. When we had sex over and over again, trying to ‘make things work.’”
Tears were streaming down Nora’s face now. “Please stop.”
“Do you know what I was thinking during all of that?” Ben asked, leaning closer. “I was thinking about how easy it was to manipulate you. How desperately you wanted to believe that we could be a normal couple, have a normal life. How you convinced yourself that sleeping with me was somehow going to fix everything.”
“You’re a monster,” Nora whispered.
“Maybe,” Ben agreed. “But I’m a monster who’s had you in every way imaginable. I know your body better than you know it yourself. I know exactly what makes you respond, what makes you gasp, what makes you moan my name.”
He stood up, looking down at her with satisfaction. “And the best part? You gave it all to me willingly.
“I didn’t know,” Nora sobbed. “I didn’t know it was you.”
“Didn’t you?" Ben asked. "Well I guess you really couldn't tell cause my voice changer worked perfectly well.” Ben said. “Are you sure about that? Or did some part of you always know, always suspect, and you just didn’t want to admit it to yourself?”
“Get out,” Nora said, her voice breaking. “Get out of here.”
“I’ll leave,” Ben said, moving toward the door. “But I’ll be back. We have plenty of time together, Nora. Years, if necessary. And eventually, you’re going to accept who you are and what you’re meant to be.”
He paused in the doorway, looking back at her one more time. “Oh, and Nora? Next time I bring you food, I suggest you eat it. Starvation is a slow, painful way to suffer, and you’re going to need your strength for what’s coming.”
Then he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him, the lock clicking into place once more.
Nora lay on the mattress, her body curled into a ball, shaking with sobs. The shame of what he had said, the way he had mocked her, the intimate details he had thrown in her face, it all washed over her in waves of humiliation and pain.