Guardian ✓

ogre

HER ROOM WAS PITCH BLACK.

Or maybe it was the effect of the drugs he was pumping into her system day and night. He wanted nothing but compliance from her. During the first few days, her mind had even led her to believe there was someone else here..but now she wasn't so sure. She hadn't heard or seen that person since her first three day here.

But she still saw him.

She saw glimpses of Noah. He was everywhere and nowhere.

You're safe now.

Those words repeated themselves like a mantra inside her head when the torture got too much.

"Good girl," a rough, cold hand seized her hair in his grip, "you eat dog food like a dog. The other one didn't understand that very well."

She paused for a moment, tilting her head to the side. Was this dog food? She couldn't taste anything. She didn't even know she was eating.

You're safe now.

"Water?" He kneeled in front of her, pushing her head up as it lolled to the side.

Emma blinked up at him, seeing the outline of a monster. She spent the first two days fighting as hard as she possibly could. She was hopeful that Noah or her mother would get her out. Now, she wasn't so sure. It was been a long time. It felt like she'd been stuck here forever.

The last time she had water was with Noah. "Yes, please."

Her voice was scratchy – overused. He had been lenient with the drugs initially. While her body had been immobile, she was able to scream.

She drank greedily when he pressed the cup to her lips, nearly sobbing.

"You'll have to be extra grateful tonight, Lynn." He laughed when she scrambled back, hitting the wall behind her. "We're going to have a guest tonight. He's been very generous. I thought I would have to constantly be on the move until he told me I could use his basement. That's where he used to keep his wife, Lynn."

She flinched when he grabbed her neck, applying pressure. "Please–"

"Say you'll be grateful or I'll open their cages."

"Yes, sir."

He stood up, kicking her food bowl away so it would be out of reach. "Good girl. Maybe I'll loosen the chains if you behave."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

The other man called her Isla.

"I'd bet you were saving it for someone special, huh?" The man chuckled as he made her button his shirt, finding pleasure in how her hands trembled violently. "So was my wife."

He told Emma he killed his wife.

"It's taking every ounce of my willpower not to snap your neck as well." He murmured. "Since the day I made you dance for me at your mother's party – I couldn't get you out of my mind. It was like seeing a young version of Isla."

Spin.

Emma's eyes widened as she froze, slowly looking up.

She seems sad.

"Help me–"

The man smiled. "If I help you, I'll keep you to myself. If you endure just a little bit more, your brother will find you and it'll all be over." He leaned close, grabbing her chin gently. "Pick."

"Noah," she whispered.

He slipped her a key before getting up and leaving the room. Once again, the room was pitch black. However, it seemed like she could see. Her Noah hadn't abandoned her.

Your brother will find you.

Blood seeped from her body to the mattress she was lying on but she couldn't stop herself from smiling after so long. She didn't know what time it was. Hell, she couldn't even distinguish between her nightmares and reality.

But it didn't matter.

Noah was going to find her.

She smiled when the monster entered the room again, taunting and mocking. Even when he left her into a puddle of humiliation, taking her innocence without any regard, she couldn't keep herself from smiling.

She could taste the freedom.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

It took her one hundred and sixty-five hours to gain the courage and ask him about something that way always on the back of her mind. She counted.

"Mr Hawthorne?"

She shifted to ease of her left side before giving up on getting comfortable.

"You know you'll have to earn the food, Lynn. Why are you wasting your energy by speaking?"

She tilted her head to one side, speculating if she should tell him that she was already being fed in secret. The man from the party had been coming down whenever Kevin left to feed her.

It wasn't free... but Emma had gotten used to so much worse than what he did over the time she had been here that it really didn't matter anymore. There was nothing she hadn't done.

"Is my mother okay?"

He paused, throwing the scissors he had been using to chop off her hair against the wall and instead pulled her head back.

"Why the fuck do you care, Lynn?" He slammed her head against the wall. "Your guardian burnt her house down. If you weren't such a whore, you'd know that. How do you think she is, Lynn? Such an ungrateful slut."

Noah.

She blinked back tears, wiping away the blood that seeped into her eyes and crawled over to where the scissors lay. The chain around her feet and hands restricted her movement but she managed to grab them before sitting back down on the mattress where she proceeded to cut off the rest of her hair.

Emma ignored his sigh and his footsteps as he came by to sit in front of her.

"And to think you were ashamed of being naked once." He chuckled, pushing her back on the mattress as he kicked her legs apart.

His hand caressed her cheek, going lower and lower as she tried to think about something else. Perhaps how she wanted to finish cutting her hair. She wanted to look presentable for when her Noah came. That's why she hadn't worn the clothes yet. She didn't want to be more ripped than they already were. She wanted her Noah to still believe she had some dignity left in her.

"You're more fine that she ever was, Lynn. Don't you realise that?"

He kept speaking, whispering the most degrading things that Emma vowed she'd take to grave. No one would ever know.

Especially her Noah.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬