Stolen

5

I felt someone watching me in the dark and immediately sat up to look around. He was standing by the door of my cage with his hands in his hoodie pockets. I recognized him as one of the men from before I met Marlben. He would come in to watch me or to beat me. 

He noticed me looking at him and slowly moved closer to me. I scooted back until I felt the cold concrete against my skin.

"Th-they said you can't touch me anymore... I-I'm your boss's soon to be wife... Th-that means you can't touch me," I stuttered as he moved closer.

"Boss doesn't even know you exist yet. I'm sure he won't mind," the man said smiling as he slowly removed his belt. He folded it over in his hand,  ready to use it as soon as he was close enough. I moved to the other side of my cage, realizing just how small this place really was.

"He'll find out!" I said ducking under his arm as he tried to grab me.

"Will he?" He said with a smirk. I felt like a cartoon rabbit trapped by a hunter and the pace of my heart matched, but there was no way to escape this.

He grabbed my shoulders and shoved me hard against the wall making me hit my head. "Will you tell him? Tell him and risk me coming for you, or him not wanting you after you've been touched and just killing you?"

"I-I," I hadn't thought about it. If I told him that I'd prefer to be killed, then there was no chance of talking him out of this. "If he finds out, he will kill us both. Not only me. He will make sure your death is painful, for touching what is his."

As I spoke, I stood up straighter and prayed what I said was true. He stopped for a moment, considering what I'd said.

"He may," he spoke softly, more to himself than to me. Then he pushed himself closer up against me as he spoke. "Then again-"

I interrupted him by hitting him as hard as I could in the stomach. He stepped back for a moment and grunted in pain. I took this opportunity to grab the key hanging from his pocket. I rushed to my cage door and finally opened it, freezing for a moment at the opening. I hadn't left my cage yet, so I was afraid of what consequences Mr. Marlben may lay out for me.

As I heard the man behind me come closer, I quickly forgot any possible consequences and rushed out towards the door, noticing how sore my leg still was. I shoved past the guard and took two stairs at a time until I reached another door. My leg felt like I'd been shot all over again. Pain shot off from the wound in every direction.

I opened the door and found myself in a large black and white kitchen. It looked like something right out of a magazine.

I could see trees in the distance through the windows and the sun was shining in like a piece of heaven on my skin. I felt temporarily frozen in bliss only to be interrupted by the downstairs door opening again, I started to run again, only to bump right into a man wearing a white apron, knocking us both down. He looked to be in his forties and had dark, graying hair and soft blue eyes.

He looked at the door, then to me before nodding. He grabbed me by the arm and shoved me into a large, dark pantry before closing the door without a word. I watched through the small crack in the door. He started working around the kitchen until the man came up the stairs.

"Where did she go?!" He asked. The chef shrugged and turned back to his pasta. The man grabbed him and shoved him back. "Where?"

"Who?" The chef asked innocently. The other man tried to grab him, but the chef hit him hard in the face.  The chef hurried to pull a large knife from the block and rushed at the other man. He froze suddenly and at first, I wasn't sure why, until I saw the gun in the other man's hand. The chef dropped his knife and stepped back with balled fists.