Margaux lay on her side, staring at the bar of yellow light beneath the door. She’d long since cried out the last of the moisture in her body, or so it seemed. She felt like an empty husk — one gust of wind and she’d blow away. How nice if she could.
She’d forgotten again. That was why it got to her. Why it still hurt. Every time she thought that crushing sense of emptiness would overwhelm her, one of them brought her back up, treating her like a human being for just long enough to give her some sense of contrast. She wished they’d let her drown in hopeless apathy and be done with it.
She wondered if they enjoyed this — if they’d done it to the others, the ones before her. She wasn’t sure whether that would make it better or worse.
Maybe the two of them weren’t even fighting. Maybe it was all some elaborate good cop, bad cop routine, designed to keep her nervous, to keep her well-behaved.
No, that was ridiculous.
…Still.
Margaux couldn’t completely shake the notion that they were playing some strange game with her.
She turned over sharply to face the wall, taking the blanket with her. She wrapped it around herself like an itchy cocoon, burying her face in the flat, almost impractically thin pillow, and drew her legs up against her chest. Tomorrow was another day. One that brought with it a whole new collection of reasons to be afraid.
*
Bill couldn’t sleep.
At first he had been kept awake by the barely audible sobs from Margaux’s room. His first instinct had been to storm in and tell her to shut up — to threaten her if necessary — but after sitting up he had suddenly thought better of it.
Now that the house had descended into a near-silence, punctuated only by the distant hum of the television, it was only his thoughts that kept him awake.
He sat with the sheet crumpled around his midsection, staring into the darkness at nowhere in particular.
Something was deeply wrong with Margaux, he realised. Something was different. Not her reaction to his sudden advances — that was to be expected — but her behaviour before. She’d been agitated about something. As if she was waiting to be accused.
What had happened?
What had she
done?
He slid his legs off the edge of the bed, threw off the sheet and reached for his boxers.
*
He didn’t know why he wanted to see her in the flesh. He had no intention of waking her up… not until he was sure. Yet there he stood, in the doorway of the end bedroom, looking down at the sleeping hostage curled around herself. There was a kind of reassurance, he supposed, in seeing her with his own eyes. Hearing her breathing.
She flinched, and for a second he was sure she was awake. But she only tightened her grip around her upper arms and drew her legs closer, curling into a smaller ball. Was she cold, or dreaming?
As he turned to go back to his room and dress, he thought he heard her whimper softly.
*
Margaux was walking up the rain-slicked steps where she had fallen. It was dark, and freezing cold. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
She knew that she’d managed to get out here alone somehow. Had she escaped?
The steps ended, and as she stood at the top of the hill she couldn’t make out anything in the distance. Not a light inside a house, nor the headlamps of a car. Where was she supposed to go?
“No one’s coming for you.”
She turned to face the voice and found herself surrounded by four perfect doppelgängers, each of their identical faces marred by an expression of pity and disgust. All at once the darkness of the night was replaced with the faint yellow glow of the kitchen bulb.
“Don’t say that. You don’t know…”
The Margaux to her left shook her head. “No one’s even looking for you.”
“No one knows you’re gone,” added the one to her right.
Behind her: “No one’s noticed.”
Before her: “No one
cares.”
“David will pay them. He will.”
“Oh,
sweetheart. No. He won’t.”
“He’s got no emotional investment in your safety, dear. None at all.”
“So what if something happens to you? He’s got plenty more cash cows where you came from.”
“
Plenty.”
“Shut up, all of you! I don’t need to hear this-” They blocked her path as she tried to push through them, back towards the front door.
“Yes you do, darling.”
“Because you’re still holding out hope-”
“-And because you don’t seem to have accepted what those men are going to do to you-”
“-When they realise you’re worthless.”
“And you are. Worthless.”
“You need a plan to get out of here, sweetheart. You have to escape before they have a chance to hurt you.”
“But-”
“Or do you think they’ll keep you alive
out of the goodness of their hearts? Just let you go?”
“What am I supposed to do? There’s no way out.”
“Isn’t there? Or are you just not looking for one?”
“You’d better find it, darling. Before it’s too late.”
*
She opened her eyes to find Bill standing over her in the light of the open door.
Margaux didn’t think she’d ever moved so fast in her life: before she knew what she was doing, she was on her feet, trying to be anywhere but on the bed. He grabbed her by the arm and threw her back down.
“There’s no need to look like that, Margaux. I only want to have a talk with you.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed. She inched away.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?”
His tone was conversational, gentle, and entirely, glaringly fake. It was the affectionate coo of someone calling an animal into the slaughterhouse.
She swallowed compulsively. “…Should there be?”
“We both know the answer to that question. ”
“I don’t think
I do.”
He put his hand on her wrist, and she pulled it away sharply.
“Now, Margaux, there’s no need for this. Calm down.”
“I’m…” She took a shuddering breath and pressed herself back against the wall. “I’m perfectly calm.”
“That just isn’t true, Margaux. How are we supposed to have a civilised talk with you panicking?”
She was silent, but for her quickened breathing. He put his hands on her shoulders, and she had nowhere to go. Instead she looked away.
“Please, I don’t know what you want…”
“I want you to take deep breaths — slow — that’s right. That’s better. Now look at me.
Look at me. Don’t make me force you.” He fixed her with what, in another man, might have passed for an earnest look. She knew him too well to be convinced. “What happened today?”
“Today?”
“Today.” A look of impatience flickered in his eyes, before he fought it back.
“Nothing. Nothing happened.”
“Margaux, I don’t know who you think you’re fooling but it certainly isn’t me. Tell me — now, before I get bored.”
“Tell you
what?”
Bill sighed.
“Robert left your mobile in the kitchen this morning.”
“…Did he?” Margaux tried to force a blank, impassive expression, but she knew at once that she was caught.
“Yes. Despite my instruction to keep it on him at all times.”
“Oh.”
Bill was silent. The intensity of his stare frightened her, and she tried to look away again. He grabbed her chin and held her in place.
“I know you found it, Margaux. I
know you did. All I want to know is whether you tried to use it.”
“I don’t know what you mean-”
His hand released her chin and cracked across her cheek, and Margaux’s head snapped sideways with the force of it.
“I’m going to ask you once more.” He grabbed her hair and moved in so close he was nearly on top of her, tipping her head back so sharply she almost expected him to bite her exposed throat. “Look into my eyes and tell me that you didn’t try to use that phone. I dare you.”
She stared up at him, hardly daring to breathe.
“Go on, Margaux — tell me.”
“I-I didn’t-”
His hand cracked across her face again, and when she cried out he clamped a hand over her mouth.
"You lied to me, Margaux.
Again. I thought we were past that." Bill pushed her down onto the bed and pinned her in place with his full weight, his hand still muffling her cries. “I thought I’d made it clear to you that lying to me wouldn’t get you anywhere.”
She cried out something that sounded like
“I’m sorry,” followed by a
“please.” She hadn’t the strength to struggle, not really, but that didn’t stop her from trying.
“I can’t entirely blame you. I accept that. You saw an opportunity and you went for it — okay. But didn’t we have a deal? Does your own safety matter
so little to you that you’d risk getting caught doing a stupid thing like that?”
She just looked up at him with wide, pleading eyes. Silent. His large hand across her face made her feel small and all too breakable.
He frowned.
“I’ll decide what to do with you later. Clearly Robert and I need to have a talk about his lax approach to security. Stay in here, and shut up.” She nodded hurriedly, eager for him to get off her and leave.
Bill slowly took his hand away from her face, and she drew in a sharp breath. He moved off her and stood, straightening his shirt.
“You promised not to disappoint me, Margaux.”
He left before she had time to respond, slamming the door behind him without glancing back.
*
It was very quiet for a few minutes. Margaux strained to hear something, anything, but either they weren’t yet talking, or they had gone outside.
Then suddenly, so loudly it startled her, in a voice that was undeniably Bill’s:
“You
irresponsible cunt!”
There was a crash, then a yell.
She pressed her ear against the door, biting her lip.
“What did I tell you? What did I
fucking tell you?”
“Bill, mate, I don’t know how the bitch got it-”
“We both know
exactly how she got it, you lying prick.
You left the fucking thing in the kitchen.
Right out in the open. I’m amazed she didn’t notice it sooner!”
“It was a mistake, mate-”
“Don’t you fucking
insult me, Rob.
A mistake? Are you trying to be fucking
funny? If the battery hadn’t conked out, the girl would have called the police. We’d’ve been in handcuffs before we knew what was going on! Both of us in the lockbox for eight years, at the very
least, over
one fucking mistake.”
There was a long silence. Margaux moved back from the door and sat down on the bed.
He’d been furious. Really furious.
She had expected as much. Her little discovery might have cost him his freedom, after all.
Margaux lay on the bed, curling into the fetal position.
The side of her face was beginning to ache. The adrenaline must have been wearing off. She wondered dimly if she’d have bruises in the morning. The salt tang of blood in her mouth surprised her, and she raised a hand to her lip to find that the cut there had reopened. Oh yes, she’d be a pretty mess come daylight.
