More Than a Hotline Fling

-38-

Juneau's POV

A damp, musky smell twitched my nostrils. The slight burn seared my nose and mouth, where my skin puffed up. A rash lingered from the hydrochloric acid they knocked me out with.

Harsh, rhythmic throbs beat through my forehead. Startled, I blinked my eyes open. They were swollen, heavy. Throbbing pain in my cheeks, ribs, and between my legs led me to one realization.

I'm still alive.

I was held captive by three men, as far as I could tell.

A black, round object hung in the center of the windowless room. My shoulders flinched at another camera. Once-white paint surrounded me, now yellowed, chipped, and peeling.

No furniture filled the space, except a dirty, thin mattress on the floor. Its fabric scratched under my palms. Stained, exposed, and uneven plywood floors creaked as I shifted my weight and sat up.

My lips parted as I turned my head to a wall of pictures. Copies of the photos Damian received hung as a silent, sober reminder.

They planned this for months.

In the corner by the door, another camera was positioned on a tripod. At first, I thought it was for security.

No, it was to tape them abusing me.

Correction: to tape them appearing like they abused me.

So far, they'd done it twice.

I had no idea when panic first gripped me but, when I woke up here, it covered me in a second skin. My senses blurred as its claws sank in deep. Tucking my knees, I threaded my fingers through my hair. Pain erupted from my fingers as I clenched my greasy roots.

For the third day since our last taping session, I wanted to shrivel up, disappear, have the floor swallow me up. Nothing happened. My breaths came out in hot, sharp bursts. Each one required more labor, until only ragged wheezing left me. My veins pulsed with a rapid rhythm. The muscles in my chest constricted like a vice.

My captors' actions over the past forty-eight hours confused my brain. The possibilities it offered were far more horrifying than what they inflicted on me. Solitary isolation created a total mindfuck.

The thoughts slipping through my mind tormented me the most, what my captors stopped short of acting upon. Why the sick fucks put on their show was obvious, but my mind wandered where they didn't. Dark, ominous thoughts circled around the possibilities Damian warned me against, over the edge where they stopped playing for show.

Two at a time, with a third manning the camera, I was taped in staged attacks. They grabbed my throat, groped my breasts, slapped my face, pinched and marked my thighs with a knife. My fair skin lent itself well to the bruises they painted, a faint yellow cutting through swollen blotches of purple gray.

The first time I fought back, kicking and hitting a few pressure points. They cursed, brought in the knife, and told me to play along. When my bruises faded, they came back and gave me more.

They didn't rape me, but I feared that they would next time. None of my bones were broken. The knife's edge was used to prick blood, spilling small drips for visual effects. Their inflictions were surface level, but struck deep into my core being. A hand clamped between my legs was the last contact, followed by the camera fading to black and their retreat.

A television sat in the corner opposite the camera. Old and boxy, I crawled my way over to it. I had no fucking clue why it was here, but I trailed my fingers over the one-eighth inch of dust over the top.