If Only I Knew How to Hate You

Bailey
Part Two

I can make it. I’m really making it. I can’t hear him. He could never find me in the dark, right? And it’s cold, he won’t bother. I keep trying to remind myself that I’ll be safe, running and running and running.

The hill. I climb to the top, out of breath, bent over. Clutching my side where there’s a stitch that’s paining, I manage to glance up, squinting. There, I see the lights of a small town. I don’t know exactly where we are or anything, but it’s the place where I was as a child.

Right. Sun, moon, north star, I realize. I should be able to find my surroundings. There’s only so many places that will have snow this early, also. Most comes in October, but it’s not yet… right? I furrow my brow. Here, I’ve lost all track of time, including the days, it seems.

Patter, patter, patter.

Snap.

My breath catches, and I whirl around, eyes wide as I face the unwelcoming dark. It’s not morning yet. Maybe two, three in the morning. No sun for a few more hours. Always darkest before the dawn, just like right now.

Helplessly, my chin quivers and I can feel my hands and legs shaking, not just from the horrible cold but also from the terrible fear that’s grabbing at me like a madman. My eyes dart around, searching and looking, my heart hammering and climbing it’s way into my chest to lodge there and I’m having a hard time breathing-

Snap.

Instinctively I step back, looking all around me. I step to the left. The right. In front of me, in back. Is someone there, or is it my imagination? I can’t tell for the life of me and it makes me feel so afraid and confused and lost.

“Looking for me?” I’d been facing just near the town and I turn again, staggering back. And there he is, my uncle, just two yards away. He flicks on a flashlight upwards. “Boo,” he smirks. Just like they do for scary stories around campfires.

But this really does scare me.

My breath catches and biting off a scream that’s clawing at my throat to get out, I turn around, back towards and town, and take off running. I could make it, I think to myself. I could run that far quickly, just to save my life. I can make it.

But I don’t.

I cry out as I feel him snatch a handful of my hair, nearly pulling it out from my scalp. Falling to my knees, I grab and claw at him, trying to get free. Screaming, I try to push him away, to pull him off of me. But he’s no gentleman and has no qualms about hurting women. He gives me a punch to the jaw, stunning me into surprise for a moment, enough to grab both my hands and tie them completely together, fingers and all.

“Shut up,” he yells, smacking me again when I shake out of it, screaming like a banshee again. “I’ll strangle you, I swear!” He adds, putting a fist around my neck just to prove it.

My scream is cut short and I choke for breath. He’s also leaning down on me, kneecaps in my ribs and pressuring my lungs. All of this makes me feel faint but desperate to live, to escape- at least to breathe again.

At last he pulls off and I fall to my side, heaving for a breath, gasping. As I do, he stands with an aggravated sigh, pulling a hand through his greasy, stringy hair. “That’s better,” He mutters, and kneeling next to me, grabs me by my shoulders. “You. Will. Shut. Up.” He commands.

I’m still having a hard time breathing and I can’t muster a reply as I glare at him angrily, my chest heaving. But evidently, he takes that as agreement, and he grabs my arms. I let out a groan as my back runs into a rock right there, but he just laughs.

“You’ll get a lot more of that now,” he promises, and so proceeds to drag me literally back to the cabin in the cold darkness by my arms only. He mutters and swears continually under his breath, promising to do all sorts of horrible things to me when we return for my ‘disobedience.’

“Stupid, stupid, foolish girl,” he growls, shoving me on the floor of the cabin as he turns on the light. Wincing, I figure I’ll get plenty of bruises, and try to curl into a small ball of pain. “Here I was, thinking I’d taught you something. Never, never try to escape. It just doesn’t work, got it?” He crouches over, pinching me.

I flinch and turn away, struggling to sit up with my taped together hands. He just stands there, watching me try and laughing when it doesn’t quite work. But I do manage to sit up and rest against the couch. Then I watch him return to the front door, carefully locking it, and heads to the kitchen, pulling out the meat knife…

My gulp comes out louder than I had thought and he smiles innocently at me as he starts back over. “Nervous, my dear?” He asks. “I know, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Oh no,’” he uses a high voice, mocking me, “’he’s going to kill me.’ ‘He’ll chop me to bits and eat me!’ Well…” he sighs. “As tempting as both of those are, it would make me very lonely after, you see. And you won’t be able to do so much, but…” he shrugs. “Sacrifices must be made, you must understand.”

“You. Should. Kill yourself,” I manage to choke out. “Save us. The trouble.”

“I could,” he nods agreeably. “But what fun would that be? Wait, don’t answer, Lizzy, dear, we all know what you would say,” he chuckles coldly, a dark glint in his eye. “Now, to business. Oh, and try not to scream again, you know how sensitive my eardrums are.”

Licking his lips, he proceeds to start… taking off my shoes? I struggle, trying to keep him away, but he doesn’t care and manages to take off both my shoes and my socks. He tosses them aside carelessly, probably to burn them later. My feel fall to the wooden ground, instantly cold. Of course. I couldn’t run out there barefooted. I’d freeze. All my hopes start fading away quickly.

“And one last precaution,” he beams, grabbing my leg. I gasp and try to get away, trying to pull myself and run off, anything just to escape the madman with a very, very sharp knife. He chuckles and watches me for a while before stepping up and hitting me in the head, just hard enough to make me dizzy.

“It’s not going to help,” he says, rolling his eyes as if I’m a foolish child. “And now… oh, stay still! I don’t want to get blood everywhere.” Then gritting his teeth angrily, he proceeds to sit on my leg which makes me wince, and grabs my other, carefully keeping it still on the ground.

Before I know it, the knife slides across the back of my calf, not taking my leg off, not even reaching the bone- but it tears my skin, some blood vessels. Worse, it tears through all my muscle and through the blinding pain and my scream of agony, I realize he’d done it so even if I tried going barefoot, I couldn’t run on one leg. The muscle ruined, I’ll be lucky to limp in some months- if I survive that long.

“That’ll do,” I hear him say cheerfully and he drags me back to the closet, still groggy with pain. Then through my blurred vision, I watch him tie my wrists back to the doorknob and shove me in completely. I cry out again as he touches my leg- the pain is like a fire and plague upon me, and I feel like I’ll die soon enough.

Let me die, I think as the pain becomes too much and my consciousness falls into a fog.