Stockholm Syndrome

Chapter Fourteen

    Tony lead Lea out of the bedroom, her gross clothes in his left hand while his right rested on her lower back. She tried to walk faster to keep his hand off of her, but he wasn't having it. when she sped up, so did he. It was irritating  and demeaning. She didn't need his help to walk down the hall; she wasn't some injured dog, and if she was it was his fault. 

    "Will you stop touching me? I'm fine. I know how to walk." Lea snapped. Stopping in the hall and looking up at him. Tony looked back down at her,  shaking his head calmly.

    "No, I want to touch you. So I will touch you." He shrugged, his face placid as they stood. Lea huffed turning away from him, when his hand returned to the small of her back she slapped it away. His hand retreated slightly and a soft sigh escaped his lips.

    "Why do you have to be so god damned difficult?" His hand went up through his hair, making it a mess. She looked up at him, pressing her lips into a tight line.

    "Take me to the fucking kitchen, or leave me the fuck alone." She leaned against the wall, her legs were beginning to tremble. She felt like a child who had just learned how to walk, or a person who had been confined to a wheel chair until recently.

    Tony grumbled unintelligibly before starting to walk once more. He now walked two steps ahead of Lea, not bothering to check if she could keep up or not. She barely could keep up with his pace; he wasn't going particularly fast, but she couldn't walk a normal pace.

    The two came into the kitchen, Lea grabbing the wall to keep herself steady. Tony pulled out a chair for her, putting one hand on the table in the center of the room and looking at her. "Sit down. If I can trust you to stay here, then I won't lock the door. If I can't trust you, then I'm going to permanently keep handcuffs on my belt loop so I can use them on you." His gaze turned to a glare as she stood on the other side of the room by the door. His steel eyes were knives in her chest. Ice ran through her whole body as their eyes locked.

    "Yeah okay, I'll sit.... But you uh..." She hobbled to the chair sitting, and looking down into her lap. She felt those eyes scanning her from head to toe. "I couldn't even run away if I wanted to. You saw me walking, I couldn't out run you." She glanced up at him, he relaxed only slightly from her words before nodding.

    "Alright, I don't want the kitchen to stink. So I'm going to throw these in the laundry room and then I'll get your soup." Without waiting for an answer he left. Lea watched him go quietly, her mind racing. "How could someone go from being so emotionless to being... angry? Was he angry? No that wasn't anger... What was it?" she thought as she sat there.

    Lea sighed and looked around, deciding to take in her surroundings. Just in case it could benefit her in the future. The counter was empty, the sink was empty, the only thing she could see that showed someone lived there was a small pot on the electric stove on the far side of the room. A fork lay on the stove beside the pot, she frowned to herself. "He lives by himself, but this place is so clean. He could be a clean freak." She pushed herself up slightly to peek out of a window above the sink. There was droplets of water, and some soap bubbles in the plug. She let herself back down sighing and closing her eyes.

    Tony came back in as quiet as a specter. The dishes in the cupboard clanked, causing Lea to open her eyes and look up towards the sound. He was ladling soup into a small bowl, soda crackers sat unopened on the counter. He turned placing the soup on the table, then getting himself some. He sat in a chair beside her. He set a spoon down for each of them along with the crackers.

    Lea looked down at the soup; it was a tomato broth with veggies and rice. Confusion flashed across her face, "how did he know my favourite soup? Did he know or is this just a coincidence?" She picked up her spoon, and they both ate in silence.

***

    The two finished their soup; Lea being slightly slower than Tony, but she eventually finished. "Want any more?" Tony asked, his bowl in one hand. She shook her head quietly; her hands folded in her lap. He took the bowl and went to the sink. "It's too bad I just did dishes or these would be washed now. As it is, I'm gonna leave them here, we are going upstairs so I can clean up that mess."  Lea stayed quiet; her hands folded, but gripping one another so tightly that her knuckles were white. She had no idea how to get out of this. It was getting difficult for her to keep herself together.

    "Can you put on some music? I am going to go crazy without something playing in the background." It was true, if she didn't listen to something other than his voice soon, she might just scream. She couldn't handle any type of silence, and if the only voice she heard was his she would rip her hair out. Tony raised both eyebrows as if he were surprised, but he nodded slightly.

    "Yeah, I have a CD player I can bring up. I think I should help you up there first though. You seem unstable." He held out a hand, but she stood up without help, a show of stubbornness.

    "I can walk by myself fine. I got here didn't I?" Lea stood up from the chair, she was still very unsteady but she could walk on her own. She didn't think she would fall, she held onto the chair just in case she lost her balance, or her legs gave out and toppled her over. Tony rolled his eyes. She wanted to make it known that she was stubborn, and she wouldn't give up fighting in any way she could.

    "Whatever, go back to the bedroom then. I'll be up with my CD player soon." He walked out of the kitchen. Lea could tell she had begun to irritate him.

"Good. Maybe he'll show his true colours soon." She thought before half stumbling her way back to the room that had been designated to her. She hobbled into the room, and sat down on the chair that had been left beside the bed.  She scrunched up her face; the smell was awful. Vomit from alcohol, whatever drug had been in her system, and chips she had eaten at the party. She put her face into her hands, "oh my god... Jacob..." The only friend she knew she had, he must be kicking himself for making her leave. She had to get back to him in once piece.

    Tony came in carrying a small stereo, and a hand full of CD's. She could hear him setting it down, and soon Fallout Boy began to play. Lea raised an eyebrow at Tony's choice of music; he seemed to know all of her favourite things, but they had just met. "Does he just like all  of the stuff I like?" she thought to herself.

    "Stand up, I'm moving that chair. You're in my way where you are." Lea looked up at Tony, now standing over her. He looked unimpressed. She wondered what would happen when he finally exploded at her. She slowly stood up out of the chair, and grabbed the bed side table. Tony shoved the chair, sliding it back against the wall and turning his back to her.

Centuries filled their ears as he scooped up the bedding. Lea tried not to hum along, but she knew every song by Fallout Boy like the back of her hand. The lyrics began escaping her lips without her conscious thought restraining them.  She moved to the chair that now sat beside the window, and once she was carefully seated she watched out of the window. The words stopped flowing from her lips as her eyes scanned the yard out of the window. Something about the garden was, off. It looked exactly like the garden that her mother had kept by their back fence when she was a child. The tiger lilies and black eyed Suzens were in the exact same pattern her mother used to have them in.

Lea stood up covering her mouth as she looked out at the yard; a blooming apple tree in the far right side of the yard, the flowers in the garden, there was even a fence post missing paint where her brother and her had taken her father's knife and scraped it away to see if the wood was really blue or it was just paint. Her head turned from the window, to Tony; fear, rage, confusion, and a horrible buried heart ache welled up inside of her.