The room came into focus, but light played in through the windows casting an ethereal glow. Dust motes sparkled in the diffuse streams of morning, amber illumination lending a hazy quality to the room.
I'm dreaming, she thought. It’s nothing more than my imagination.
The thought helped ease the quivering fear in her heart. What was more: it gave her strength and a touch of bravery she believed impossible had this scene been true reality.
"You can't hurt me," she said, the statement matter of fact and without question.
Eyes narrowed in response to her words, he answered, "That's not my intent, but accidents happen." His tone was regretful. It piqued her curiosity, but not enough to question him.
"You're not real," she insisted. Attempting to sit up, she felt sluggish, but it wasn't the crippling boneless feeling from before. Her body ached, her tongue swollen and thick, but despite that, she found the ability to speak. "How can you hurt me when you don't exist?"
His head cocked to the side, his features focused in such a way that Alice wondered if he'd understood what she'd said. Were her words more garbled than she thought?
She didn't have to wonder long.
"I'm not a ghost, Alice. Not yet, at least." His steps were loud against the wood floor, his hand warm where it caressed her tear stained cheek. "Do you feel me? Am I cold?"
"Just a dream," she insisted.
He smiled. "In a way, yes. But not in this way."
Silence fell between them, the susurration of his skin sliding down her face as loud as a jet engine in her head.
"You're so beautiful. Just as I knew you would be. We'll get you dressed...get you ready for your new life. You'll shine, Alice. It'll be what you always wanted. An escape from the life that has done nothing but hurt you. Even in dreams, you could never escape."
But this was a dream. Was her conscious thought bleeding into her nightmares? Was she waking up while still remaining asleep?
Her brows pulled together, confusion saddling her until the air was ice against her skin. Glancing down, she ignored the way he stroked her hair, her breath hitching in her chest to find her body unclothed.
"You didn't suffer," he whispered. "Quite the opposite, in fact."
Tears burned her eyes, understanding weighing her down even more than the lasting effects of the drugs he claimed he'd used. "Did you...?" Sobs choked her voice, rendering her silent.
As if the explanation would excuse the abuse, he spoke to her softly. "You were so cold. I was trying to keep you warm. There was so much vomit that I couldn't clean it up, and then you were cold. If it means anything, I fought to resist. But you begged. As soon as I saw the mess you made of yourself, you begged."
An acrid smell hit her nose, stains on the cushion of the couch outlining where her upper body had once been. Vomit. It had to be. The scent of bile was distinct.
"You'll beg again," he promised. "But not now." His eyes found hers, the light sparkling in the depths of frozen blue. "Let's get you ready. I don't want you to be cold anymore."
Lifting her from the couch, he swung her towards an open door, the metallic clang of a falling leg iron slapping the wood at his feet. Alice faintly remembered the biting cold of the restraint circling her ankle, but the memory was distant and fading. He must have released her when she’d been unconscious.
Where was her fear? As a child, she woke drenched in sweat when the monsters came to toy with her. She’d screamed until her throat was torn, her limbs flailing even as her parents attempted to soothe her panic.
Nothing had consoled her in her youth, but perhaps experience, age, maturity, or exhaustion consoled her now. Was she screaming in the darkness of her bedroom without even knowing it?
"How do you know about my childhood?" It occurred to her finally that this man was intimately aware of her nightmares, but there was no reason for the knowledge. She hadn't told him since she'd woken, she didn't believe it was possible for her to have spoken while drugged.
His hands were warm against the skin of her thighs, the flesh of his palms callused and rough. When she'd first met him, she wouldn't have believed him the type for manual labor. But initial impressions can be wrong.
"I know a lot of things about you. Does the source really matter?"
As she pulled further from the effects of the drug she'd been given, her awareness of her nudity came more into focus. Beneath her ribs, her heart sped, the muscles of her body tightening with each lumbering step Max made through the maze like halls of an ornate and beautiful home. Queen Anne, she guessed, if the woodwork and other details she remembered of the style were accurate.
The walls were painted in brilliant jewel tones: emerald green morphing into sapphire blue, the intensity of purple emphasized by the stark white fabric of the furniture sporadically placed throughout.
Her eyes peeked inside the rooms they passed, her mind drifting aimlessly until led back to the conversation they were having. "The source matters," she muttered.