Chapter 62

Chapter 62

She lay in the corner of her cell, her face turned to the wall. Her whole body was shivering, though whether this was due to the plummeting temperature or shock was impossible to say. Naomi felt as if she had lost control of herself – her body, her mind, her fate – as if she was freefalling into a vortex from which there would be no escape. How pathetic, how inadequate her earlier attempts to console Mia seemed now. She'd had no concept of what her friend had endured, how brutalized, insignificant and wretched one person could be made to feel. The sisterly affection she'd lavished on her cell mate seemed insulting now, even obscene. Naomi had had no idea what suffering had meant, until now.

Pressing her cheek to the cold concrete, Naomi stared at the drop of water gathering on the joint of the leaky water pipe, watching it grow steadily larger until gravity took over, the liquid falling silently to the floor. Immediately, another drop started to form and she kept her eyes glued to it. If she could just focus on this, the steady, predictable rhythm of accumulation and release, then she could stop herself collapsing inwards, avoid endlessly replaying the horror of her ordeal. But those emotions, those feelings, were hard to push away. She felt like she'd been destroyed . Not just by the appalling physical degradation her captor had inflicted upon her, but by the callous refusal to treat her like a human being. To her abuser, to the barbaric crowd of voyeurs, she was just an object, something to be used for their pleasure, then discarded. The most painful, most distressing day of her life had also been the most eye-opening. Until tonight, she'd had no idea that such evil, such cold, pitiless evil, really existed.

Her captor had hardly said a word throughout, taking orders from his audience and responding with cold efficiency. Afterwards, he made her get dressed, then marched her back to her cell, chaining her to the wall, before hurrying off without another word. Even in her confusion and pain, Naomi had noticed an impatience to get away, an urgency, in her attacker's manner. For the first time she suddenly realized that their abductor must have a life, duties to people beyond these four walls, things that he had to deal with, places he had to be. It was shocking and devastating in equal measure. For him, this gruesome ritual of imprisonment and abuse was just one element of his life, whereas for Naomi and Mia, it was their whole existence, their sentence. This was utterly crushing, Naomi projecting forwards to what lay ahead, the ghost of the absent Shanice colouring every dire prediction. Clamping down her terror, Naomi kept her eyes fixed on the growing water drops, hoping, praying, that she could maintain her sanity.

The water continued to ooze from the aged pipework, falling to the floor without disturbing the silence that filled the claustrophobic space. Naomi had no idea if Mia had looked up when they'd returned to the cell, or whether she'd tried to block the whole thing out, hunkering down in her corner of the room. But she was certainly not moving now. For one terrible moment, Naomi thought that something had happened to her, that death had claimed her whilst she was alone, but as the seconds passed, she finally picked up the slow, rasping breathing of her fellow captive, a gentle, fragile intake of air that sounded as delicate and vulnerable as a feather in the wind. But that was the only sign that she was not alone. Mia did not speak, she did not reach out to Naomi, she simply lay where she was, silent and immobile.

Part of Naomi wanted to be angry with her, to berate her friend for not showing any concern or sympathy for her following her ordeal, but the better part of her knew that to do so would be heartless, ignorant and cruel, adding unjust insult to terrible injury. Mia had already been attacked by her captor multiple times, had been broken on the wheel of his perverted desire and had no fight left. Before, Naomi had perhaps judged her for that, angry that she would allow her spirit to be broken, to give up, but now she understood the cause of her submission. They were trapped down here, sentenced to appalling suffering, despite having committed no crime. It was a shattering realization, a dreadful fate, one from which there appeared to be no possibility of deliverance. So, in the end, what was the point in fantasies of escape? What was to be gained by pretending that if they supported each other, things might yet work out well for them? There would be no happy endings, no redemption, which is why tonight they lay still in the silence, their faces turned away from each other, each locked in their own private hell.