"The dreams, Doc. Let me finish the dreams and I'll tell you everything else you want to know."
Resigned, he relaxed back against his chair. "At our next session, you'll tell me? You'll talk to me about before?"
She nodded her head in silent agreement. She'd agree to anything if it meant she could save Delilah.
"Fine, but start with what happened after Max came back from the basement. I don't want you so upset that we can't finish this session."
"He raped her, Doc."
"Alice -"
Her frantic eyes locked to his. "He raped her right there on camera for me to see. She...she..."
Her body trembled as the images flew past, snapshots detailing the way her sister's skirt had been lifted, the way her covered face had been shoved against the mattress so that she couldn't scream or breathe. When he'd finished, red fingerprints had dotted the white skin of her legs from the force he'd used to hold them apart.
"I don't need the details of the assault, Alice. Please, start with what happened after."
The corner of the room where she lay crumpled and broken was the only crutch she could find to keep her from shattering apart completely. Before her stood a steel door painted to look like simple wood, its hard, cold surface disguised to resemble warmth.
A pneumatic hiss followed the electric beep, a small red light flashing to green before the door was pulled open into a shadowed interior. A monster filled the doorway with broad shoulders, a trim waist and thighs so thick with muscle, they challenged the seams of the linen pants he wore to cover them.
His heavy, booted footsteps were the first warning he gave as he entered the room, stopping just shy of where her feet stuck out on legs that were useless to hold her.
Tilting his head in the way that mocked her with familiarity, he pursed his lips, a silent observer to her suffering.
"Did you finish cleaning up?"
The words were staggering in their normalcy, a question asked a million times by a million different mouths and voices. Mothers to their children, husbands to their wives, teachers to the students that filled their classrooms day after day until lazy summer weeks switched from something promised into something actually lived.
Alice wondered if ever in those million times had the question been asked in a situation as bleak and hopeless as the one in which she found herself trapped.
"No," she confessed, wanting to throw the question right back at him as heavy and solid as the way he'd tossed it to her. Did you clean up, you petty bastard, after hurting a woman that did nothing to you?
His hand outstretched, he wiggled his fingers inviting her to grab hold so he could lift her from her crumpled seat. And knowing what her rebellion would bring if she dared refuse him, she reached up to give him all he expected, despite the way her skin crawled at the moist heat of his palm.
Lifting her was effortless, a quick flex of a bicep that was three times the size of her arm. Unsteady in her heart and body, she tumbled forward until she was pressed against him, his arms wrapping around her as his chin came down to rest at the top of her head. “One of these days, we’ll get you on task, Alice. You’ll be able to remember things without me having to remind you.”
Desperate to pull away, she collapsed against him because she knew she had to accept the unwanted embrace.
A clock sounded in the distance, the eight o'clock hour announced by the bells tolling the Westminster chime, a morbid crawl of melody that forced her emotions to manifest into hot and sticky tears.
Only when that clock had pounded down the eight lonely gongs, did her captor speak again.
"Come with me, Alice. We need to clean up the mess you've made."
The mess you've made, she thought, her mouth clenched tight so she wouldn't accidentally speak the words that scratched at the surface. An assault inside her, she wanted to dig them out and shove the words into the space that hung between them.
I wouldn't have been here to make that mess if you weren't such a depraved and cruel prick.
However, silence lingered heavily as her feet half stepped, half dragged herself into the dining room where the plates lay broken and still, the delicate pattern that had once been so beautiful cut through with the evidence of her violence.
Dropping her to her knees, Max stood above her, watching as she brushed together the fragmented pieces. Each piece could have been a part of herself, her heart and soul split down the middle, her freedom and dignity crushed beneath the baked red potatoes that had been flavored with salt and rosemary.
Forming a pile of the larger bits of food and ceramic, she left behind the dust that lay scattered too small for her to manage with shaking hands.
"I need a dustpan," she admitted, flinching to finally hear the way her voice was gritty with emotion.