Bound to You

Leigh struggled against Matt’s tight grip on her upper arms as he slammed her against the fortified concrete wall of a claustrophobic room that she hadn’t been in since her arrival at the Complex. She felt salty tears burning their way down her face and she knew that she looked pathetic.

“Please, just let me go.” She whimpered, her body screaming in pain when he only tightened his grip. She noticed that he was wearing a pair of aviators and a bandana with a backwards hat; something she’d seen him wear every single one of the few occasions when she’d seen him, but something that was entirely too intimidating for her right this very second.

“Tell me what you fucking know, Leigh.” He spat at her, anger in his voice. “My best friend’s soul mate just died. Johnny just about fuckin’ died. Zack’s been in danger this entire time; we all have. I know you fucking know something, so you better tell me what it is.”

“I don’t know anything!” Leigh sobbed, shaking her head and lowering her eyes so that she was no longer meeting his gaze. He was scary; scarier than she’d ever thought he could be. She now realized why Johnny had always told her to tread carefully and not piss him off back at the mansion he’d taken her to when he’d first found her; she knew that, without a doubt, Matt could kill her and have no qualms about it.

“No one knows you’re gone yet, Leigh. No one knows I fuckin’ took you. And I could fuckin’ kill you right now, right here. Not that it would matter anyway, but no one would ever know.”

“No one besides Johnny would care!” Leigh lashed out at him, anger now in her own voice. Who was he to threaten to murder her? Who was he to tell her no one would know; that he could get away with it?

“Showing a little bit of a backbone now, are you?” He asked her, tightening his hold even more now. “Not as weak as you were pretending, are you? You’re not human, Leigh. I can smell it.”

“It doesn’t matter!” She screamed at him. “Let me go!”

Leigh surprised herself with the anger in her voice; she hadn’t realized she was so capable of holding that much anger. She struggled harder against Matt’s hold, but he held fast, refusing to let her go. He slammed her against the wall again, this time not taking any precautions about hitting her head. Pain exploded in entire body again, and Leigh thought she just might pass out. But she knew that wasn’t an option now; Matt wouldn’t let her wake up if she did.

“What are you? Who are you?” He hissed angrily, moving one hand to her throat, holding her forcefully against the wall, no longer caring if he left bruises, broken bones, or cuts. It didn’t matter any longer; she had just proven she was not who she had been saying she was.

She was a liar.

“It doesn’t matter what I am,” She squeaked, her face turning a few shades deeper as the lack of oxygen started taking its toll on her lungs. Matt realized that she was close to blackening out, and loosened his hand just a little so that she could just barely breathe. “But…I know he has a weakness.”

“Who?” Matt pressed, slamming his other fist into the wall, removing her wrist from his hold. She immediately moved both of her hands to his arm, trying to pry herself loose from his grip, but he didn’t budge an inch.

“Who do you think?” She asked him rhetorically, coughing a little bit. “Sean Castro, the one who’s behind all of this.”

Matt narrowed his eyes at her; she had to know him personally if she knew his name. All of them had been careful to not say his name in front of her, and unless Johnny had mentioned him, there was no way she’d heard his name within the vicinity of the group. “How do you know who he is?”

Leigh sighed and again tried to move his hands, ending in the same result of being unable to remove his grip on her neck. “Does it matter? If I tell you what I know, will you leave me alone?”

“Depends on what you know.” Matt told her. “And if I think you’re lying, I’ll fucking kill you, Leigh.”

“Let me go.” She repeated, not moving her gaze from the floor. “I can’t very well talk if I’m being choked now, can I?”

Matt cautiously removed his hold from around her neck, but then moved his body in front of the only door to the small room, blocking her from escaping.

“Start from the beginning. Tell me everything you know about Sean Castro.”

Leigh sat on the floor, moving as far away from him as she could, and began fiddling with her fingers as she tried to figure out where to start. It was a complicated explanation, and even though what she would tell him would be the truth, she wasn’t sure she’d believe him. Matt didn’t strike her as the type to trust others on their word unless he knew them. And he clearly didn’t know her, Leigh thought with a slight frown. She jumped when he slammed his fist into the wall angrily, and then took a shaky breath as she began speaking.

“I met Sean when I was six or seven. I can’t remember; it doesn’t matter.” She told him, not looking up from the floor. “He was my mother’s boyfriend at the time; he was with us for a very long time. He never liked me, though he seemed to tolerate me. I always thought something being off about him; something didn’t seem right, even as a child. But my mother didn’t care what I thought about him, so I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want to have to leave her. I knew she’d choose that scumbag over me. It was just how it worked in my family. Then…Things started happening, when I was ten or so. He was still with my mother; they were married at that point. I have a picture in my old house, if you don’t believe me. I’m sure you have no problem breaking in to places to take things, right?” Leigh asked Matt sarcastically, lifting her head to look at him just for a moment before looking back down at the floor and continuing. “He started leaving every Saturday. He never told my mother or I where he was at, but he would be gone all day. When he came home at night, he would smell as if he’d been in the slums. Mom never questioned him, but I did. I didn’t trust him. The next Saturday that he was gone, I went down to the basement, which was somewhere I was not allowed to go. He always told my mother and I to stay out of there; that it was “his” area. Again, my mother never went to the basement. I wanted to know what he was keeping down there, though. When my Mother passed out drunk, I managed to pick the lock with a bobby pin and went downstairs. He had fucking hostages down there; two, maybe three of them. All of them were naked, all of them tied to tables, gags stuffed and tied around their mouths. I saw pictures and news articles covering an entire wall, all of them apparently about the women in the basement. I read through some of them and realized that all of them were missing; that they’d all been missing for several months.”

“Castro never took hostages.” Matt told her as he lifted his aviators off of his eyes, glaring at her. “He always killed them and put them in highly public places, just like he’s doing now.”

This time, Leigh lifted her eyes and glared fiercely at him. “He fucking had hostages.” She told him, her voice a growl. “I don’t know who they were or what he did with them later, but they were fucking there.”

Matt sighed, but nodded his head, telling her to continue telling him. She took a deep breath and looked back down at the floor, taking a few seconds before she spoke.

“I continued looking around the basement; there was another room off to the left, locked. The door seemed to be reinforced, and there was no window in the door. I tried to pick the lock but couldn’t, so I went back upstairs and locked the basement up again before going outside and searching the basement windows to find the window that led to that room. I finally found it about an hour later; there was a single, small window that was barely big enough for me to fit through. I smashed through it with a wadded up towel, and slipped into the room. He had pictures of a little boy along with some letters tacked up to the wall. I didn’t even have to look for any other information to know that the boy was Sean’s son; he was identical to his father, except for his eyes, which were blue. I dug around in his desk, careful to not move things around to much and I found a birth certificate with the name Jared Castro on it.”

“You’re telling me that Sean Castro has a son?” Matt asked her, glaring down at her with his arms crossed over his chest. “Why should I believe a word you say?”

“Check my old apartment.” Leigh told him. “I have pictures of him and my mother from when I was young, and I took one of the pictures of the little boy so that if the time ever came when I could use it against Sean, I’d have it.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Matt pressed. “What’s in it for you? What’s stopping me from killing you, now that you’ve told me this? I still don’t trust you; you’ve been lying to us from day one haven’t you, Leigh?”

“If I was lying to you, it was for my own good.” Leigh told him angrily. “And I haven’t lied about anything that’s going to hurt any of you. You don’t need to know who or what I am; all you need to know is what I just told you.”

“Why didn’t you tell us before all of this shit started happening?” Matt demanded, pulling her to her feet again. “Before Johnny and Jimmy were almost killed; before one of my friends was killed?”

At the mention of Leana’s death, tears began pricking at the corner of Leigh’s eyes. Leana had been the only one of any of these people that had been nice to her; even Val had been cautious, if not suspicious, around her at first. Except for Johnny, Leana had been the only one to treat her with pure and simple friendship and respect. “I had no idea he was going to detonate the mansion. Hell, I don’t even know where he is anymore, Matthew. I lost contact with him after my mother died and he threw me out on my own. I have no idea what he’s really capable of, but I’m sure you do. You can stop him now, Matt.”

Matt didn’t say a word as he thought over everything she’d just told him. Did he believe her? A part of him wanted to not believe her, but there was something telling him that she might at least be telling a little bit of the truth. He couldn’t kill her; he knew that. She might have other information, and she still hadn’t told him what she was.

He didn’t blink as he slammed her head back against the concrete wall, knocking her unconscious. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he knew that before he did anything he needed to talk to Zack about what Leigh had told him. He knew Zack would be able to think of something, and after he did then they could ask the rest of the others. Right now, he needed to figure out a way to get Leigh back to her cot without someone finding out he’d taken her out of there.