Prologue
She didn’t think she could cry anymore. And yet, she woke weeping in the cold and dark. The worn and thin mattress she lay on was soaked by her tears. She knew it smelled, but her ability to detect the foul stench had disappeared after the first few days. Her nostrils had grown used to the funky smell of the mattress, the thin blanket, her unbathed body, and the smell of her waste from the metal pot in the corner.
At the same time, her sense of smell had heightened in connection with scents outside the room. For instance, when he opened the door, she could smell the food he brought immediately. She also was overpowered by another smell—a mix of sweat and salty ocean and some fragrance she couldn’t identify.
When she heard footsteps, as she did now, she would sit up and press herself against the wall as he required, but she would also ready herself to gulp in the air that flowed in through the open door.
She sat up quickly and pushed back the long tendrils of hair that were damp with tears and snot and tucked them behind her ears. He’d slapped her once for having her hair hanging in front of her eyes, and it had made her see black for a few seconds.
Getting slapped, however, was better than the other thing, the unspeakable thing. She never knew when it would happen, but it wasn’t usually at the same time he brought her food. So when she heard the footsteps, she immediately sought for the scent of food. If she smelled it, she knew she was safe. For a few minutes at least.
As soon as the door cracked open, the odor of tortillas and beans trickled in. Thank God. She sagged in relief. He stuck his head in to make sure she was in her spot against the far wall before he ducked down and put the plate on the ground. She waited until the door was locked again, as she’d been directed, and then crawled over to the food and ate it with her fingers. When she was done, she’d sip a tiny bit of the precious water that was in a sealed jug in the corner.
He’d warned her in the beginning that he would only refill the bottle once a week. Imprisoned in the dark, it hadn’t taken long for her to lose track of time. She had no way to mark anything down but tried hard to keep track by how often he brought her a meal. It seemed that he only fed her once a day, but she couldn’t be sure. Time was so distorted. What she did know was that this was the twenty-third time he’d brought her food.
Each time she ate, she waited for a while and then did some exercises. She wanted to stay strong so she could try to escape. If he slipped and forgot to bind her hands behind her back before he abused her she would use her long fingernails to poke out his eyes or slice his throat. She kept her nails sharp by filing them on the concrete floor. They would be her weapons.
After she ate, she would do a few pushups. She was up to ten now. Very lame, she knew, thinking back to last year in Phys ed when she could do fifty. She did jumping jacks too—as many as she could without falling over. And then she did crunches. Crunches used to be easy for her. She’d done 250 once. Now she was lucky to do fifty in a row.
While she waited to exercise, she counted to one thousand. When she got there, she tried to count backward from one thousand. When that was done, she repeated her mantra: “I am a survivor. I am a survivor.”
Keeping a mantra and counting kept her from thinking about the things she couldn’t bear to think about: her captor, his abuse, how worried her mother must be, her future, death.
But she knew that when she fell asleep, all of that would come rushing to the surface. She often woke screaming or crying like she had today. She could only hold off those thoughts for so long. They would surface at some point. That’s one reason she dreaded sleep. Even though it offered blissful escape, it was soon interrupted by nightmares.
She reminded herself that despite what he did to her body, he couldn’t touch her soul. She’d learned long ago to separate her mind from her body and to distance herself from pain. The last time he had abused her, she was pretty sure she’d left her body and was somewhere up along the ceiling, floating, looking down on herself and him dispassionately. He couldn’t really touch her. Not really.
At first, she’d fought him with every ounce of her being when he walked in the room, but he’d Tased her, and she’d flopped onto the mattress like a dying fish. The pain had been excruciating. She’d always thought being Tased would feel like a small electric shock, but it had flattened her. She’d lost all ability to control her body. It was like her entire existence was a massive menstrual cramp. Then, when the shock subsided, her body was limp and useless.
The second time she fought him, he Tased her again and then beat her so badly she lost track of time while curled up in the fetal position, whimpering and wondering if she was dying.
Her secret training was preparing her for the third time she would fight back. She would steel herself mentally and let her body take as much abuse as he could give it. She would win because he wouldn’t be able to defeat her mind.
Because her body was not her. It was her and wasn’t at the same time. It was complicated but made sense to her.
She’d counted back to seven hundred when she heard his footsteps again. She inhaled frantically but knew it was too soon for him to be bringing more food. He was there for something else. She clenched her eyes together and balled her hands into fists. One time soon she would look for an opening and she would fight. He could use the Taser again and punch her, but she would be unstoppable. She would fight back, and she would kill him. And then she would go home.
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