Maneater

Chapter Thirty-Six

    The music video was wrapped, freeing Austin to direct his focus to other projects. Whenever one project wrapped, there was always another one. There was always an album waiting to be completed, or a string of appearances to be made on talk shows or radio shows. There were always tours, award show performances (if he decided to grace award shows with his presence, that is). Many artists took time to truly relax, but he was not one of them. He preferred to keep busy, preferred not to give any other artists the opportunity to slide in his spot and take his market share of the industry.

    Unlike many of the artists who came into this game for the sake of taking fancy vacations, he liked to make money while on vacation. Plenty of wise people had talked to him about that, early in his career. "There are going to be times when you want to celebrate the release of an album by taking a vacation, or celebrate album sales. And there's nothing wrong with taking a vacation. But take a few days off, then while you're still on your vacation, get right back to work. Now you've got a tax deductible vacation that you can write off. You've gotten a few days to relax but haven't had to miss a beat. Always be making money. Make money even when you're sleeping, shitting, or eating. Always have something working for you, even if it's money you've already made. That is how the wealthy get mega-rich."

    Austin tried his best to live those words. Even though he'd just wrapped a music video, he set to finishing the album he was working on. All he could think about was Crystal, though. No matter which song he attempted to work on or finish, she clouded his brain and took over his mind completely. He just couldn't shake her. To be real, I don't want to shake her. I love thinking about her. He sat at a table in the studio with light music playing in the background, tapping the end of his pin against his full bottom lip. His eyes strayed over to his phone, and his fingers itched to grab it and call her. Instead, he settled on texting her.

    Sending the text freed up his brain to think about other things. About an hour into working, his eyes were moving towards his cell phone again. Everyone else in the world was texting him, but she hadn't responded. She's probably back to trying to keep me at arm's length, he thought with a sigh. We had a great night, but it was too great, so she has to back off from me for a bit. That's fine.

    Except...even days later, she hadn't responded. That was when he resorted to calling her. Her phone would keep ringing and ringing, and another few days later, her voicemail box was full. Frowning, he paced around his bedroom wearing only a pair of boxer briefs. Something wasn't right. Even with the games she liked to play, she would've responded by now – if only to let him know she was still alive and still as feisty as ever. His steps slowed and he stood still in front of his bed. "Where are you?" he asked aloud to an empty room.

~~~~~~

    Approximately seventy miles away in either a large, elaborate garage or basement, Crystal lapsed in and out of consciousness. There were periods where her hands and feet would go numb. Then she'd feel tiny little prickling sensations of pain, and feeling would come rushing back to them again. How much longer could she live like this, though? And how long did Justin intend on keeping her here? He couldn't keep her bound forever. Was he counting on her getting a case Stockholm Syndrome? Did he picture them living happily ever after, after he'd taken her hostage and tied her up like she was livestock?

    He would disappear, for hours and sometimes days at a time. Because he didn't trust anyone else to care for her, he only fed her when he was around – which meant that she could only eat when he was there to feed her. Because he couldn't quite fully trust her yet, he kept her in her restraints all day long. That meant no bathroom breaks, no chances to stretch. Her muscles grew taut, and her neck ached from never getting rest.

    Sometimes when she was able to actually focus on an idea for longer than two minutes, she made a game out of trying to think how Nicole managed to escape. She managed to break the chair she was in, but how? Zip ties were nearly inescapable, unless you had someone there slicing them for you. Who would have been there to help her escape?

    She'd feel like she would almost get to the answer, but then Justin would pop in and take up his spot, kneeling in front of her. His moods could shift with a change of the weather. In the blink of an eye, he could go from being happy that she was around and hopeful of their future, to spiteful that she'd even think to date Austin, and pissed at her for dumping her for another guy. He alternated between grabbing her face and kissing her, to tightening his grip on her face and shoving her away from him. There were times he even cried. "We never even fucked!" she wanted to scream at him. "how could you be this obsessed when you haven't even seen what I can do?"

    The days began to bleed into each other. She couldn't tell one from the next. There were no windows, no natural sources of light. There was only light in the room when Justin deemed it so. Only food when he deemed it so, only happiness and lightheartedness when he deemed it so. She bore no control over this situation; he harbored all control. She didn't even have control over her own body, forced to piss herself because she wasn't allowed bathroom privileges.

    As the days went on, she hallucinated and fantasized. In one fantasy, Austin burst through the heavy metal door and ran in to rescue her. He looked so fresh and clean, so relieved and happy to see her as he cut away the ties binding her wrists and feet, and cut away at the rope securing her torso to the chair. Happy tears streamed down the both of their cheeks as he hoisted her up into his arms and took her away from that dark, dank, smelly place where Nicole's lifeless eyes stared at her.

    She could almost feel the sun on her face as he carried her out, the blinding light of the sun – which would later be revealed as the lights that Justin was flipping on in the dungeon he was hiding her away in. This was when she was forced to face a reality that Austin hadn't rescued in. This was when she'd realize that she was still here, captive to Justin, whose moods were growing darker and darker by the day. There was no telling what he'd do to her next.