She Knew

People always sit there and come out with that terribly annoying phrase of how "sticks and stones will break your bones but words can never hurt me". In my opinion this is so wrong. Broken bones heal, I've had enough of them to know, being a clumsy child as well as the beatings he gives me. My memory or my brain however, cannot be shut up, particularly all the nasty, vile comments he has come out with. He has always told me how sorry he is for having to do this, and how it isn't how he wanted things to happen, yet I'm still here. I have been here two years, seven months and around fifteen days. That's nine hundred and eighty eight days if I've counted and kept my tally right. Who knows how long I was here before I woke up too. So, roughly that long, give or take. One person does know how long I have been holed up in this cellar. Him. I might have been here a long time but up until recently I had no idea who he was. I've worked it out now. He wears what is evidently a fake beard, dark glasses, a wig and what can only be described as a cape covering his normal clothing. He uses a voice synthesiser so I don't even know what he sounds like. I'm not giving the game away though. He won't realise I know who he is until it's too late. I'll be free. My dark blonde hair once shone, but now resembles matted straw. My jeans and t-shirt were that encrusted with dirt I had to break the freshest filth barrier of stiffness every time I changed my sitting stance. My positioning in the cellar enforced by a rope like structure of wire coiled around my waist that was damn near impossible to dispose of, or escape from. But I had found a way, and although it took a while, I reckon today is the day. A solitary square window, about 20 inches wide, covered by a mesh like substance was in front of me, about six foot high in the breeze blocks. On a clear day I reckon it just shows the back of a dilapidated shed. If I ever get to finish college, I know what I want to do. I have to be in the police force. All those times Mum told me to be careful on the way home from school and not to go anywhere on my own, all those times I watched a missing person story on the news, or flicked through the paper and saw a "have you seen this girl" ad; you never think it'll be you. You never even pay much attention other than thinking it such a shame and then moving on with whatever else you have to do. I want to be a valued member of the community police force and warn young girls, like me, to wise up, be sensible and to never risk their own safety. I figured out who he was by talking to him. Whenever he comes to bring me food, or turn on the heat lamp, I chatter incessantly, asking him questions that would seem random, but to me are well thought out. It became obvious really quickly that this man felt I had wronged him in some way, so I guessed that must mean I knew him. The only thing I had to go off was his build and skin colour which unfortunately is average height, average weight and Caucasian. It's not a lot to go on. Being a relatively well behaved teenager, I knew it couldn't have been anything dramatic. My head was full of this list of men I knew; teachers, friends, friends' fathers, even relatives. Eventually the ones I suspected could be involved were absolved and I was left with one name, swimming through my mind night and day, not that I could tell what was night and what was day down here. I've tested my theory for months, as of course, there is always the possibility that this lunatic is simply a deranged stranger, and it was a case of me being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, it's definitely him. It's without doubt my ex boyfriend. No one knew about him, so how could they have suspected him? Seth Brookes was the epitome of normal. He was five foot ten with mousy hair, brown eyes and a nondescri pt face. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about him. He was an accountant who drove a silver Vauxhall Vectra, one of the most standard cars in the world, and lived in a semi-detached, two bedroom house in the somewhat clichéd, sleepy village of Waterfern. The problem was that while he was in his early thirties, I had just turned seventeen when he took me. I'd told him I was turning twenty, and attending the university campus near the town centre studying philosophy. In reality, I was doing my AS-levels in the sixth form centre around the corner. We never texted each other, or exchanged e-mails, we simply kept bumping into each other at the same spot every day, and chose our evening activity, and off we went for five months. It was all chemistry fizzing, giggling and butterflies, just how it was supposed to be. The lie about my age was an accident, a moment of stupidity, and as I saw him walk up to the podium in the auditorium on careers day, my whole world imploded. I'd convinced myself he hadn't seen me in the throng of all the other students. I must have been wrong. After that day, he was never in our usual meeting spot, and four months had passed without even passing him in the street. I'd even gone on a few dates with Nick, my new next door but one neighbour, when he was home from university. Life went on, for me at least. Maybe not for him. If only he'd mentioned the age discrepancy, I could have worked out who he was before this got too far. He can't walk away from this now. Occasionally, he used to throw me in a newspaper cutting with my Facebook profile picture on, with smaller pictures of my parents and older brother looking solemn or at a press conference, and a few garbled words of how the search was still on for 'missing student'; pretty generic stuff. As time went on, they got fewer and further between. Nothing has been given to me since the second anniversary of my disappearance. So now I'm nineteen, I should be at university, not sitting in my own waste in a dank, dark cellar. At what feels like the same time every day, which I can only guess by the purple tinge to the sky is evening, Seth brings me down a heat lamp and a plate of food. Sometimes a sandwich, sometimes a salad. All cold, pre-prepared. They look like they have been bought at a petrol station and he's just thrown them on a paper plate. He'll sit in a chair a few metres away and tell me the heat lamp is so I keep my freckles. Every single day it's the same. He leaves the house while I eat and comes back only to collect the lamp. I'm sure. When he comes in he smells of outside. Grass and fresh air. It's probably not something someone not in captivity could tell, but it made a change to the acrid tang of the muck I could smell all day every day. 'Freckles are very attractive you know,' the robotic voice vibrates, 'much better than being pasty. I wouldn't love you if you were pasty.' 'Just don't burn me. My face wouldn't be very attractive scarred either.' I spat. He sneered and carried on smoking his cigarette. I never agreed with smoking, but it might just be my saving grace. Picking up his weapon of choice for today, a metal bar, he rolled it up the inside of his right arm with his left hand, while the cigarette dangled from his curling lips. I was forever wishing for his synthetic beard to catch alight, but it hadn't so far. It'd make today so much easier. The metal bar struck my bare feet just above my toes. Pain seared up my calves, and momentarily blinded me. If I cried out it only spurred him on so I took it out on my bottom lip instead, biting down so hard I could taste blood. 'See you in an hour, honeybun! We can't have you burning now,' he sniggered and bent right down to eye level to blow smoke in my mouth as he roughly bought his lips to mine. It was that forceful his beard snagged on my rotting teeth. He chucked me under my chin and threw his cigarette at my increasingly blue feet. I watched him walk up the stairs back into what I can only presume is the main house, waited for the tell tale click of the lock turning and flung myself forwards towards the still burning embers of his cigarette. I couldn't reach it with either hand. Shit! I told myself to keep as cool a head as I could manage, and realised that while my fingers could not contact it, my toes just might be able to. The weight loss that happened with just one convenience meal a day meant that I could shimmy the coil from around my waist up to where my bra would have been. Feeling around with my feet a good few inches further than I, and probably him, thought possible, heat scorched the ball of my left foot. It was nothing compared to other injuries I had endured at his vicious hands. After a couple of attempts I was able to bring the cigarette to my hands via gripping it with my toes. Reaching around my back, I dug the glowing end into the last remaining piece of the coil and felt it fall away. I had done it! Not trusting my legs to stand after not having done for so long, I pulled myself across the floor by my arms. I'd tried to keep them moving and strong as much as I possibly could once I had begun to dream up my escape. His chair was my aim. I needed to put it up to the window to climb up on. Pulling myself up on to it, tears of joy escaped from my eyes at feeling something other than cold, hard concrete beneath me. Struggling to put weight on my right foot as it took the brunt of the metal pipe of only five minutes ago, I shuffled the chair across as if it was a zimmer frame. Grabbing the same metal pipe that had caused me so much pain, I shattered the glass in one foul swoop, and used it to stretch the mesh until it gave me some room to manoeuvre. My lungs sung with the coolness of the summer breeze I had longed for. Getting through the window was easier than I thought. The landing however, much harder. I hit a million little pieces of gravel and felt them sink into my shins, followed by my thighs and the tops of my bare arms. I could hear cars! Lots of them. I thought I would be more bothered by the sunlight but the grey stoop of evening had set in. Now was the time to run. The house was on its own but near a motorway. There was a car on the driveway. It was my mothers. I crouched as I saw movement. Seth pushed her against the car and kissed her squarely on the mouth. My breath caught in my chest as I heard her ask if he'd fed me yet. She knew.