Featherless Bird

Her afternoon and night went by slowly. She played the violin a while, but even a thing you love can’t keep you entertained for 6 hours. So, she thought. She counted the cracks in the ceiling. She tried to imagine what her family and friends were doing. She looked outside, and figured out that she was surrounded by woods. She made a new bucket list.
She did everything she could think of, from inventing a whole new world to trying to compose new songs on her violin.

Finally, Wade arrived again. The minute he opened the door she ran out and went to the bathroom.

The next few days were spent in the same fashion; waking up, eating some breakfast, watching TV or doing something while Wade read comic books - something he was oddly obsessed with- being locked up in a room, and then repeating it all over again. It was a horrible circle, though Carolyn found some reassurance in it sometimes. A routine had never been a part of her life, and now that she had one, it wasn’t half bad.

Carolyn woke up that day with the feeling that something was off. Her feelings resulted in being true when she looked outside and saw the snow falling quickly from the sky, and the trees being pushed from a side to the other. A snowstorm.

The girl remembered that when she was still in school, a snow storm meant no school, lots of fun, making snowmen and forts, and having snowball fights with friends. It was one of those days where you spent the day outside, and then you went inside at night to drink a cup of hot chocolate and snuggle up to watch a movie.
And then the next day at school, everyone would whine and already start hoping for the next snow day.

The sound of a door slamming shut and a gust of wind snapped her out of her thoughts, and she got up quickly from the bed and made her way downstairs. Wade didn’t lock the door in the night anymore. Maybe because he had moved his room next to her, or maybe it was because he knew she had too much common sense to run away in this weather; she didn’t know.
Carolyn shivered when her cold feet touched the broken tiles at the bottom of the stairs, but she continued to make her way to where she could hear the wind. She saw Wade trying to push the door shut as the wind blew, making it impossible.

Carolyn didn’t want to laugh, but she couldn’t help a small laugh from breaking out from her pursed lips. This caught Wade’s attention, as his head snapped to look at her. “How about you come help me instead of just standing there?” he said, still pushing against the door. She went and helped him, and with both of them they managed to close the door shut, the wind screeching as it slammed shut.

“There ya go. Now, go make yourself breakfast before you start getting upset,” she said to him, smirking a bit. Wade ate two toasts with jam each morning almost religiously, and when he didn’t eat breakfast he became very irritated…something that had left Carolyn with a three-day red mark on my face and a five-day of complete silence.

He grumbled something as she went over to heat herself some pre-made waffles. Having seen her inability to cook, Wade had gone to the grocery one night and had bought her some stuff that didn’t require cooking skill to make.

“So, since there’s this huge snow storm, I’m not going to work today.” Carolyn nodded; the only thing that knowledge meant to her was that she wouldn’t be locked up all day.

The rest of breakfast passed in awkward silence. Wade finished before Carolyn, and he went and watched some TV, leaving the plates for her to do. She sighed, resigning herself to do the plates that had started to pile up. When she was about halfway through, she felt arms slither around her waist. She jumped and accidentally dropped the plate she was washing, making it explode on the floor. She felt something sting her foot, and when she looked down she saw some blood coming out from her foot, and a shard of glass pinned in it.

Wade picked her up by her waist, and walked carefully across the glass-filled floor to a chair. “Don’t move.” He said, not meeting her eyes as he went to get something.

Carolyn sighed and sat on the table before starting to investigate her injured foot. It wasn’t pretty; her foot was covered in blood. The cut wasn’t as bad as she thought, however, although the glass was still in. She tried to pry it out with her nails, but the moment it moved a bit it sent a wave of pain through her foot, so she decided to leave it there for now.

Wade returned with a broom and swept up all the pieces of glass, refusing to meet Carolyn’s look. Once he finished that, he went off again, to Carolyn’s dismay. He seemed mad; she didn’t want him to be mad. It always resulted in her getting hurt in some sort of way or form. But when he returned, he was only holding a first-aid kit.

He cleaned around the cut silently, Carolyn not daring to speak a word. But when he pulled out the tweezers and the rubbing alcohol, that’s when she drew the line. “Nope.” She said simply, a determined look on her face. Wade looked up, confused. “You are not pulling out the glass or putting alcohol on the cut. Not gonna happen.”

“Do you want it to get infected?”

“Kind of, yeah.” Carolyn said, starting to hope that if it would get infected Wade would have the humanity to bring her to the hospital.

“Don’t even think about it. If it gets infected, I’ll either leave it there, or cut your foot off. So, do you want the tweezers and alcohol now?”

Carolyn glared at him, but said nothing as he took the tweezers to her foot, took a hold on the glass and started pulling. She bit back a cry as the pain hit her, tears already welling in her eyes. After a minute of excruciating pain, Wade held out the shard of glass triumphantly.

“Now…” She heard him mutter, as he unscrewed the cap of the rubbing alcohol bottle and carefully poured over her cut. Carolyn hissed loudly as it began to sting horribly.

“Didn’t you have any peroxide?”

“No.” He said, still staring at the cut on her foot while frowning. “I did this.” Wade said finally, not taking his eyes off of Carolyn’s foot while she shifted unnoticeably to make herself more comfortable.

“No, you didn’t. I dropped the plate.” She said, though she didn’t quite know why she was defending him. It was kind of his fault; he had snuck up on her.

“You know I’m right. Shut the fuck up!” He screamed, suddenly losing his calm exterior and letting the inner monster out. Carolyn cringed. He had been mad at her before, but not this mad. “Are you going to say anything? Answer me!” And with that his hand collided with her cheek, one of his nails scratching it.

“What do you want me to say?” She asked, starting to get angry, ignoring the fact that he could just as well kill her. That phrase ended up in a swift punch in her stomach. All of the air escaped from Carolyn’s lungs as she doubled over.

Suddenly, Wade picked her up again and threw her over his shoulder. Carolyn kicked, punched, pleaded and screamed, but nothing seemed to do the trick as he just ignored it all. He finally opened one of the doors in the hallway upstairs that Carolyn had never been in and threw her down on the floor inside. Without a word he closed the door and locked it, trapping her inside the unknown room.