Trapped (A Ticci Toby Story)

Chapter 10- Finer Lines

Cheryl clasps her hand over my mouth.
She holds a blade against me, just under my ribs.
Thin, sharp metal against tight skin.
She makes me watch the blade disappear into me.
Deeper and deeper until I can't see it anymore.
And I finally panic.
I didn't want to die.
I know this was killing me.
My blood is spilled onto the table.
Dark and thick, it seeps over metal surface.
My life resided in every drop, leak, and pool, of my blood being wasted as it falls over the surface onto the dirt floor.
She's screaming into my ear.
A taste of my own medicine,
Bitter-sweet discipline.
A recreation of where I stabbed her that night, that awful night, she took Alex from us.
A reaction to my action to put me back into my place.
I want it to stop.
She needed to stop.
My back arches away from the metal and I fight to get away from her.
Stop
Stop
Stop
Please stop
Tom holds my arms down aboved my head.
I can't move.
Cheryl is telling me what she'll do to me, her voice overshadowing my ability to think rationally.
I believe her
The knife is pulled out of me, tossed aside,
Slick with my blood, it falls from the table.
She jerks my head back with her hand that is clasped too tightly around my mouth.
I can't breathe.
I fall against the table.
I'm going to die.

"Toby?"
My eyes flick open.
The nausea still pulled violently at my stomach from the recent memory that I found myself unwillingly reliving over and over again.
I look up to find Marco standing over me.
He was awkwardly clinging to a broom that was twice his size.
Almost as if he was afraid I would steal it from him.
Over the last hour, I've sat and watched him try to use it, the object swinging and hitting him on the head too many times before I lost count.
I've tried to intervene, to take over the task he'd burdened himself with, but he refused defiantly.
He wouldn't allow me to move from my spot against the wall and help clean the mess Cheryl made in her living room.
He wanted to do this on his own.
And I was okay with that.
I've already wasted what little strength I had left with Cheryl's games and I didn't know when I needed to pull up the will I didn't have to fight again.
Marco was in my care and I wasn't going to let anything happen to him, but I was beginning to see how unpredictable our captors were.
Cheryl was kind before.
But now, she made it clear that whatever she'd brought us here for wasn't worth her time anymore.
My attack against her was a switch that flicked and broke in her mind.
Sudden fits of rage and threats of murder hanging over our heads.
These games she plays, these unbearable games of winner takes all.
I did this to us.
My failure.
My punishment.
My fault,
My fault,
My fault.
"What?" I finally breathe out.
"Uh..." he trails off briefly, "Er... Oh! What staths with 'F' and ends with 'uck'?" he puffs out his chest with anticipation.
I eyed him uncertainly.
His smiled, the gap between his teeth he shown proudly, he was a ray of light against my dark thoughts that I wasn't expecting to see.
But... He wanted my answer.
I thought back to the vigorous scolding I've received from Jane when I compared our servings of food to 'half-assed essentials soaked in piss.' and considered that answering him wasn't worth her wrath if he repeated it back to her,
But another part of me, a larger part of me, took pleasure in pushing her buttons.
"..... Do you mean--"
"Firetruck!" he cheers in the moment I opened my mouth to say 'fuck'.
I smile at that and he giggles.
"I bet you thought I was going to thay the F-word..." he adds.
I chuckle despite myself and brace my hands on a nearby bookshelf to try and stand from the squatting position I was resting in. "Wh... Why did you ask... If you already knew the answer?" I speak through my strain.
My attempt to distract him from my struggle fails and he drops his broom and rushes over to help, grabbing my other arm and offering little support.
My pulse grows louder in my ears with the strain and darkness hazes around my vision until I'm seeing more stars than Marco when I stand.
Embarrassed, I press my hand into my eyes until the haze clears.
When it does, Marco steps away from me and shrugs as nonchalantly as a seven-year-old could manage.
"You looked weally sad and I wanted to make you smile." He said simply.
I drop my hand with a sigh and lean my weight against the wall.
If I wasn't even able to stand without someone, who was only a quarter of my body weight, then how can I defend myself against the freak of nature of a man?
How can I possibly protect them?
My failure being to watch every one of them die.
I wasn't sad.
I was devastated.
I opened my mouth to tell him I was fine, but I saw his expression and my mouth snapped shut.
His expression,
I knew it so well.
It was the same knowing look sally had always given me when I tried to feed her the same bull shit I was going to give Marco.
She wasn't an idiot and neither was he.
He knew I was failing him, leaving him alone to defend himself in Cheryl's wake.
To make matters worse, I knew I was breaking a promise I maid to the girl I cared for so dearly.
That stupid, halfhearted promise I made to her in my bed that means everything to me now.
The reality of that promise hurt.
I was never going to see her again. I was never going to tell her about the children I've met or the kiss I shared.
I wasn't going to find her smiling green eyes behind Jack's shoulder or hear her tease me about whatever scolding masky drilled into me that day.
I was going to die and be left in the decay only to be exposed to sunlight in the spring for Cheryl's new victims to use what is left of me to waste.
My bones thrown aside because they don't know my story,
Who I was,
What I've done,
And how I died.
I would be just as faceless and meaninless as everything else I've cared about.
A viscous cycle that I only wanted to keep them from.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
I try to remind myself, that I only wanted to save her, but I knew that my actions were only acts of impulse and not strategic planning.
I didn't consider the consequences of being labeled a threat to Cheryl's life.
Marco's silence is uncharacteristic for the chirpy boy and it unnerves me.
I gaze over the deep frown that is plastered on his face.
His shoulders are slumped and he leans against the broom, pressing the handle against his cheek.
A bitter tick of exhaustion sparks in me when I hold his eyes with my gaze. Wide brown eyes search me for an answer he knew he had.
Not again.
"I think you're getting sick too." he finally mumbles after a handful of agonizingly long moments. His free hand drops from the broom and nervously clutches onto his olive green colored shirt. "Because--because Chewl hurt you."
After Cheryl threw me back into the cell, she left Jane to fix the damage.
Panicked and sobbing, she wasn't Jack.
Blood, and dirt coated my skin, She hadn't even come close to his work, but she did what she could with what was given to her.
A single roll of dressing and a bottle of water that I refused to let her pour on my bloody torso and waste.
Marco sat beside Jane and helped in every way he could, but what he witnessed caused him to continuously glance in my direction with unease.
It was driving me insane.
The bandages around my torso were dampened with blood and sweat now.
Due to the blood that seeped through them when I lifted the heavy crates of potatoes and put them onto Cheryl's truck.
'Bleeding like a pig' she had said.
For fourty-four hours I bleed,
Cotton stretched thin and stained red,
Heavy breathing and head glazed with sweat.
Lie to him.
I told myself.
Don't hurt him again.
The timer ticks slowly, but its wind up too tight.
But I don't get a chance to speak.
Marco pulls away from me when the screen door creaks open from the back of the house.
He begins sweeping up pieces of a shattered porcelain doll.
Loud footsteps cross through the dining room, heavy and dangerous.
Tom was in the house now.
I slide back on my knees picking up the pieces of a shattered green and gold vase when he enters the room.
My eyes harden and my jaw sets, but I don't allow him to see my growing defiance.
I can't.
I can't risk upsetting him.
Not with Marco in the way of his rage.
Instead, I force myself to study each piece of glass scattered out before me.
He stops in the doorway, causing the air in the room to grow smaller.
His mass took the space we had from his presence.
He was too close to Marco.
Every muscle in my body tensed with fight.
The young boy turned and stumbled back from him, briefly losing his balance over the mess he had managed to sweep into a pile, before staring at the oversized man with terror filled eyes.
But Tom wasn't paying attention to him, he wasn't paying attention to either of us.
His eyes didn't carry the all too familiar look of danger when they surveyed our progress on the room before resting on a flashlight on top of the shelf next to me.
Our eyes didn't meet when he crossed the room, but I couldn't stop the memories of screwed up face over me as he retained me. His cold, dead, and merciless eyes as he squeezed my throat until my breath seeped out of me and I slipped into unconsciousness.
I willed myself not to move away from him as he approached me, by eyes betray me and I turn away from him.