Capítulo 15: Chapter 15

Macey

"Is it true you were held captive for over four years in Russia?"

"Do you know the whereabouts of the other girls that were held along with you?"

"Is it true you exchanged sex as a form of survival?"

The questions continue to rain around me in waves of thick dark water, nearly cutting off my air supply. Dark visons of my tampered past come up, choking me with its mighty grasp. I don't see him, but I feel Michael stand, throwing his chair back with force.

"Hey, that's enough, get the hell away from her." I cringe at his shouts and cursing but am thankful that I am being protected behind them.

"Ma'am, were going to have to ask you to leave."

A few whispers and murmurs begin around me as my breathing becomes more and more erratic. A soft hand touches my back while I feel his breath right at my neck, speaking quietly to me.

"Whit let's get out of here okay. Let me take you out of here." Taking in his masculine scent, I nod my head, allowing his hands to grip mine and stand me up on my shaky legs.

It isn't until I can feel the cool air surround my heated face, that I make the realization we are now outside. My head feels dizzy and my mind Spinning with reflections of my past. I lean my head against Michael's shoulder as we walk further and further along the street. After a few moments he stops me leaning into my body and speaking once again.

"How are you feeling now? Do you want to sit down somewhere?" shaking my head I shut my eyes trying to remember the breathing techniques for whenever I feel out of control and unable to get a grip on my reality. "Okay let's walk around a little bit more; my place isn't too far from here. We can walk there where you can sit and rest for a few moments."

Realization settles on me once he finishes speaking, but I don't let it determine anything. I trust Michael. I know he won't hurt me. "What about your car?"

"I'll come and get it later. Don't worry it's not a far walk."

Accepting his answer, I nod my head and follow his lead as he begins heading in the opposite direction of Olga's office.

We walk for no more than twenty minutes, the whole time he clasps my hand tightly in his and I am grateful for the distraction. Once we reach the destination, my breathing has become steadier. I can now fully look around and take in the beauty of the neighborhood that he gets the luxury of calling home.

It's a single story ranch style home with a large window overlooking the outside. There are two large trees right in front, giving it a peaceful, private look and its three large white pillars in front complete the look of serenity.

It's perfect, and defines the strong masculine man standing before me.

"Hope this is okay, I have a back patio. We can go around back and just sit and talk for a while." He states in a deep voice. I know he is trying to tell me that I won't have to step foot in his home, but I am tired of everyone treating me with kid gloves. I wish to be free of this whole ordeal and that starts with what Olga always tells me.

Face your fears.

"May I see your home?" I ask with a shaky voice.

Fingers softly grasp my chin, bringing my gaze back up to his massive frame. His small smile lights up my cold heart, and for one moment, it doesn't feel as if he were someone who rescued me, took me away from the evil and brought me into the light. It feels as though we are friends, doing something completely normal on a beautiful day.

"You sure?" Nodding my head, I give him my best impression of a smile and walk up to the door.

Michael pulls out his keys, then opens the door, pushing it open far enough to allow me access first. The inside is exactly what I would expect of a bachelor. There is a large full sized television hanging from the wall, while two black leather couches take up the other side. There is a large dark wooden hand built bookshelf along the wall that leads to the kitchen, filled with different photos framed in black and trophies for when Michael was younger.

"Make yourself at home, I'll be right back." He states, walking into the kitchen. I hear him busy himself inside while I steady myself, looking around more. My earlier anxiety slowly melting away the more I explore.

Seconds later, Mike appears beside me holding a small glass of water. I eye it with caution, not understanding his concept of getting me a drink I never asked for.

"What's this?" I ask with innocence, my mind working into overdrive for the second time today.

"Water, thought you might want some after our walk here."

"I never asked for this." I say, my voice shaking with worry.

I am my master's pet.

"Whitney? Whitney, hey look at me." I hear Michael shouting but can no longer see him. Master Phillipe, that is all my mind will conjure up, he's not dead, I can never rid myself of him.

Strong hands grip my face tightly and I prepare myself for the onslaught of pain I am guaranteed to have. Shutting my eyes, I allow my body to shake with nervousness, angry that I can no longer control the anxiety. After a few moments of silence, I open my eyes and watch as Michael's face comes back into focus.

"There you are. Thought I lost you for a moment." He says softly but his grip is still strong and controlling.

"Why did your bring me here?" I say throwing myself away from his grip. What was I thinking, assuming I am ready to make choices for myself? Why would I think I could just start over somewhere? I am no longer that same girl.

"Hey, I need you to calm down, I"

"Do not tell me to calm down," I shout, slapping my hands against his.

"Whitney, hey listen to me"

"No, I knew you were just like all the others. You only want me to remain who I was when I was with master." Strong hands grip me, pressing me up against the wall behind me. Panic sets in as I await my punishment for speaking so boldly.

"Do not compare me to that monster. He stole you, abused you and raped you for years. I am nothing like that asshole. The one that you, by the way, want to go back to so badly."

Tears flow down my cheeks at his words. He's right, I am damaged. I am broken and in a place of darkness that no one can reach. I am lost, and don't think I will ever find my way out of the dark.

Something must register about our current position, because Michael releases me sharply, cursing under his breath while his booted feet take him backwards, his hand rubbing over his temple.

"I'm lost, Michael. I can't let go of everything that I've been through, because I don't want to." He releases his face and looks right at me, right through me. "I'm scared, scared that it will happen again, scared that I'm disappointing everyone around me. I hate this feeling of constantly walking on eggshells around the two people that love me more than anything. I can't return love, Michael, I've tried, and I can't because the only emotion I can conjure up, the one I have trained and tortured my body in order to complete, is numb."

Mike's eyes grow with sympathy. It's not a reaction I wanted. In fact it's one I am sick to death of seeing on everyone around me. But after a few moments, he straightens up, and walks back over to me with his face now full of determination.

"Come with me." He states harshly, then walks past me down a long narrow hallway.

At first my fear overwhelms me. I feel sick for letting him in the way I have, throwing all my immense emotions at him with anger, but then the same sense of feeling dejected and demoralized flow through me and I run down the hall before my mind can begin second guessing itself.

Michael is standing at the base of a door when I catch up to him. He looks back at me, then at the door with trepidation. I give him a stern look, one that I hope I perceived with courage, and he gives me a nod in return. I find it odd; I have to speak around my parents and Olga, even the other agents that stayed behind when Michael left in Alaska, didn't understand anything I tried to convey without speaking. But Michael is different. I find I don't have to speak around him, I don't have to be anyone else.

"I'm going to show you something, but I don't want you to have to feel as though you need to lose yourself in what's in here. It's the way I let all my demons out when I feel them creeping around the edges of my sanity."

His eyes meet mine once again, and after a beat, turns back towards the door and slowly opens it. I peer inside, noticing a flight of stairs, leading to some kind of basement. Mike walks ahead of me, right down the stairs, each step creaking with his weight. I follow along, my anxiety returning in full force, but I push it down.

The mirrors are the first things that managed to catch my eye. My reflection splits into four as I venture around the converted basement. The room is covered in a blue bouncy matt that shines with cleanliness. There is a large work out bench located in the far corner of the room surrounded by black and steel weights that look larger than I do. A state of the art treadmill is located on the other side of it and in the middle is a large black punching bag, hanging with a massive amount of chains.

A gym.

"What's this?" I ask, physically relaxing as I look around more and more.

"My escape." He states walking straight past the punching bag and to a locker of sorts against the wall. Opening the locker he pulls out a large pair of black gloves and walks back over to me. "Physical stamina helps you build endurance. You were never allowed to fight back after all those years, and now you can. You can fight your demons head on in a safe environment, free of people starring at you, or asking you stupid fucking questions."

His hands move over mine and covers them gently with the black gloves. They are a little large on me but comfortable enough after he tightens them.

"You want me to punch a bag?" His eyes look at me skeptically something that makes him look somewhat less intimidating.

"I want you to fight the ones that haunt you Whitney."

Looking up at him as he tightens the other glove, I see the face of a man with a past of his own. His deep chocolate brown eyes flash with pain and anguish, but he attempts to hide it well. Being allowed to see him in what seems to be his only comfort is a privilege.

"I'm going to teach you how to hit this thing without hurting your hands. In order for me to do that, I'm going to need to get behind you, are you comfortable with that?"

My instincts are to say no. To never allow myself to get into a vulnerable position, but I trust Michael, I don't know why and perhaps that is why I'm here, but I trust him enough to know I won't be hurt. Not by him, not yet.

Michael steps up behind me, placing his hands gently atop mine, then pushes forward so that I'm closer to the bag. Pulling my right arm back and left leg forward he pauses the stance and whispers into my ear.

"Now I want you to hit it with your right hand, but do not use all your weight. Focus on your arm strength only." Nodding my head, I take his notes and throw back my arm, landing into the bag with a hefty punch. Pain ignites down my arm, but I push it aside.

Frustration overwhelms me when I realize the bag didn't move, not one inch. Pulling the straps off; I take the gloves off and throw them down crossing my arms like a troubled child in the middle of a tantrum.

"I can't do this. This was a mistake."

"You can't stop after hitting the bag once, you have to give it a try."

"I did try, and it didn't even move. This isn't working." I turn, ready to head straight for the steps that will lead me back upstairs but stop when I hear his voice.

"Do you even want to get better?" I turn with fury, ready to fight back but he beats me to it. "It seems to me someone that has been through what you have, would have at least tried to get better. But it seems you like to feel this way. Is that what it is? Did you ask for it? Did you like it?"

Anger swells around me as I march back down the few steps, stopping right before Michael's body. The scent of his masculine cologne does nothing to me as I fight the urge to smack the smug look off his face.

"How dare you say those things to me. You have no idea what they put me through." Anger is seething through me but I'm more frustrated with the fact that Michael has called out my deepest fear. Is that the real reason I cannot get better? Tears begin to swell at the base of my eyes, but I wipe them away with fury before they can fall.

"Then prove it Whit." He states gently, placing his hands softly on my shoulders. The heat of his skin radiating off me in waves. "Prove that they don't still have you. Prove that you are not their victim, that you survived all of this."

My eyes roam over his face then straight past him to the punching bag mocking me in its stillness.Michael's hands reach out containing the gloves and I snatch them and put them on the same way he showed me just moments before.

"Remember what I said, Whit. Don't throw your weight in it, use your arm and give them hell." He says from behind me. The bag before me morphs into another version of me, only I am not alone. The man responsible for hurting me for all those years, the one that destroyed what little of myself I had left, stands behind me, cradling my body within his as if they were one.

Anger swells around me in an indescribable rage. I strike my arm out and strike the bag, watching as it sways back then comes back towards me. I don't stop there; my fist continue to land into the bag with fury over and over again. I overlook the pain radiating within my wrist flowing all the way up to my shoulder focusing solely on what my imagination has conjured in front of me. The more I punch, the more my image takes away every piece reflecting the girl I once was.

"Whitney!" I hear but ignore the shadowing voices consuming my mind. My onslaught continues, my tears flowing down my cheeks.

"I can't reach her" I whisper. "They're hurting her."

"Whitney, what do you see? Who are they hurting?"

"They're ripping off her clothing, destroying her body"

The images relay in my mind over and over again as they play as a skit in front of me. The young girl, dressed in her prom dressed, the one her mom was all too happy to take too many photos in, groped and beaten, raped and tortured.

Trained

They are training her to obey her master

"Whitney? Hey look at me."

"Master is coming. He is watching her as she gets rapedThere are three of them."

"Whitney, you are safe, I need you to look at me." I can hear Michael's voice calling me from afar, but my eyes won't leave the horrid images that constantly plague my mind.

Why me? Why do I have to see nothing but evil?

"Whitney, baby please look at me?"

Something inside of me snaps as two strong arms wrap around my body and haul me away from the images. I blink a few times, letting myself get transferred back to the present. Looking around I take in the basement, watching as the punching bag that had mocked me so well slows to a stop.

Turning, my eyes veer at the strong arms, broad chest and wide shoulders of Michael, stopping just as I get to his dark brown eyes.

"There you are." He speaks softly, pushing a piece of my hair behind my ear. "Thought I lost you there."

"They hurt me." I say allowing more tears to silently spill. "They hurt me so badly."

"I know they did baby, I'm so sorry."

At his endearment, my legs suddenly feel like jello, making my body go weak under him. Michael catches me and cradles me to his chest while I cry out everything I can in that moment, letting anger and embarrassment follow another time. He holds me for a while, clutching her arms around my body in a protective mode. Once I'm calm enough, I speak.

"Michael, can I ask you a question?" I say in his now soaked shirt.

"Course you can Whit. Anything."

"Why does everyone call you Mike, but when you first met me, you called yourself Michael?" I don't know what he expected my question to be, perhaps something about my captures or master himself, but he visibly relaxes and chuckles slightly. I take the opportunity and sniff his shirt, taking in the masculine smell of him.

"That's what you want to ask me?"

A slight giggle erupts from within me and before I know it, it all around consumes me. I laugh loudly, joining Michael as well. By the time we stop, I'm breathing heavy, still wrapped around his chest, my lips close to his collar bone.

"That's a damn beautiful sound babe." I look up, starring into his eyes once again.

"I'm sorry for"

"Don't ever apologize for letting go. That's why I brought you down here. It helps, even I have to let it all out sometimes. As for your question, I don't know why I wanted you to call me Michael. The only one that does is my mother, but there was something about you. I wanted you to trust me, trust in the fact that I was there to help you, saying my full name, was the best I could offer."

I think of his answer, content with his words. He's right, I watched in those first few days as everyone called him Mike, and it made me feel special. It sounds small and insignificant, but I like knowing having a piece of him he doesn't show anyone else. "Thank you, for helping me."

"You never have to thank me for that."

We stay in close proximity, holding each other as if it were the last day on Earth. I'm just about to speak when I hear the door upstairs rattle with vibration. Michael breaks free of me, huffing out a sigh and turns to walk upstairs. I stay in my spot, still as a statue, allowing him to speak with whoever is on the other side of the door in private. It isn't until I hear a familiar voice, do I move to follow upstairs as well.

"thought I could trust you Mike, I left you alone with my daughter and this is what you do?"

"Mr. Donaldson, please calm down. It isn't like that."

"I want my daughter out here with me, now."

I turn the corner, stopping in place when I see my father standing on the threshold of the open door of Michael's home. His arms are crossed but I can see that he is angry and agitated. Shame covers over me as I realize how afraid he must have been when he came to pick me up from therapy, only to be told I left over an hour before.

"Someone was harassing her, that's why I brought her here."

"And you didn't think to bring her home to me and her mother?"

"I didn't want to put her in a car. She was in shock and my house is close by. Please, I would never do anything to hurt her." My father's silence is what I hear until Michael's throat clears and he speaks again. "How did you find my house anyways? How did you know she was here?"

My father is reluctant at first, but when he speaks next, my mind reels with anger and disappointment.

"I have a chip located on her person. A bracelet I had given her when she got back. It has a tracker inside it."

"What?" I shout turning the corner and letting myself be known. Michael walks right over to me, placing his hand around my shoulders. I take in the warmth of his hold, but my anger and rage won't let go of what my father just revealed.

"Whit." I look up with unshed tears, starring into the brown irises of Michaels eyes. "You should go with him. I know you're angry, but your parents were worried." He turns to address my father who is looking at the two of us with shock. "It was my fault; I should have called you and told you what happened and that we were here. Please don't take it out on her."

Dad stares at Michael with exasperation, then looks over to me. His face changes from frustration to unease, as his tired eyes look me up and down. "Let's go Macey. Let's go home."

Cringing at my name, I look down with embarrassment, the kind I don't quite understand, and walk towards my father, reluctantly releasing myself from Michael's grip.

"Meet me in the car." He states to me in a tone I've not heard from him before.

Nodding my head, I walk right to the old gray Prius and hop inside, buckling myself immediately then turning back to stare at my father speak quietly with Michael. After a few heated moments, he turns back leaving Michael at the threshold of the door and begins walking back to the car and hopping inside beside me.

Pulling out and zooming down the road, I am content enough to stare at my hands crossing my fingers around themselves, until my father's voice booms from the driver's side.

"How could you do something so irresponsible Macey?"

"I"

"No. Do you know how worried your mother and I were? Do you understand that we have already been through a period in our lives where we weren't able to find you?"

Looking down once again, I attempt to steady my breathing, worried I could say the wrong thing and get punished for my words, for my answer.

"Macey, you need to answer me."

I am my master's pet

"How could you do something so stupid?" He shouts, slamming his hand down on the steering wheel.

I look up with shock, noticing we are now pulling into the driveway of our home. I get out of the car before the keys even leave the ignition and run up to the front door. Mom opens it quickly noticing instantly the look of fear and betrayal in my eyes.

"Honey, what"

"She was at Mike Taylor's house." Dad says waking inside, slamming the door behind him. "And she was just about to explain to me why the hell she was there in the first place."

"Mike Taylor's? The detective?" Mom asks and I shut my eyes, reliving the perfect moments of release I felt with Michael, the cherishing moments I felt while he held me.

"Well?"

"Enough!" I shout, looking over at my father with tears building in my eyes. I wouldn't think I had any more tears left over after today, but they continue to surprise me by popping up continuously. "I went over there because I trust him, because he treats me differently than everyone else. Because he helps me feel normal."

"He rescued you. How do you know It's not just another form of Stockholm for you?"

"Because he would never do something like put a tracker in a piece of jewelry that I thought meant something. No, that is something only two men I know would do. You and my master."

With hose last words, I walk right past mother's gasp and my father's surprised face, and into my room, falling onto my bed and allowing the tears to finish flowing. Wondering the entire time, if I will see Michael again.

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