Still Beating

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I’m dreaming.

I’m dreaming about the ocean.

We went to Disneyland when I was eight-years-old—me, Mandy, Mom, and Dad. I’d been so excited. I wanted to put my toes in the salty sea for as long as I could remember. We rented a car and made the drive out to the Pacific ocean one afternoon, and I can still recall the way my heart was beating inside my chest with wild abandon when the ocean came into view. I pictured Ariel and her sea sisters swimming beneath the surface.

There was magic. There was beauty.

And then I choked. I parked my butt in the sand and watched from afar as my sister and parents splashed and giggled and created memories I so desperately wanted to share.

But I couldn’t move. I was frozen to the beach, surrounded by sand castles and unfamiliar faces. The water looked so dark and ominous when I’d gotten close. The vastness of the ocean had spooked me, and I was terrified that I’d be swept away.

And then it was time to go.

“Are you sure you don’t want to dip your feet in? You were so excited,” my mother encouraged, gathering up sand toys and colorful beach towels.

I swallowed hard, my eyes carefully assessing the waves rolling in.

Maybe. Maybe I can do this.

I pulled myself to my feet, my toes digging into the soggy sand. Then I moved towards the howling sea with timid footsteps and trembling limbs. I stopped just short of the shoreline, glancing up at the gray clouds overhead.

“Let’s go, Cora!” my father shouted from a distance. “It’s about to rain.”

Wait, wait, no… I’m almost there. I just need one more minute.

I sucked in a deep, courage-filled breath and continued my sluggish trek forward. That’s when the rain started. I watched the droplets pelt the ocean, water mixing with water. My dream washing away before my eyes.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

It started coming down fast and furious. I tried to make a run for it, but a strong hand wrapped around my upper arm, pulling me back.

“Time to go, Corabelle. There’s a bad storm coming in.”

I gulped, my eyes filling with tears as my father pulled me away. I never did feel the way the water splashed at my ankles. I never felt the seaweed tickle my toes. My father promised we’d go back the next day, but we never did.

To this day, I still haven’t been back.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

My eyes flutter open, the steady drips tearing me away from a dream that may forever haunt me. But it’s not rain I hear. And I’m not lying in my warm bed, preparing for a new day in the classroom teaching high school English. I’m somewhere else. I’m somewhere cold and dark and frightening. There’s a dull ache throbbing at the back of my skull, and I try to bring my fingertips to the source of the pain. It’s then I realize that my wrists are chained together behind my back, shackled and bound like an animal.

Oh, my God.

My eyes shoot open, wide and alert. Petrified. I rattle my chains that are attached to handcuffs, trying to gather my bearings, trying to remember how the hell I got here. It’s dark, but it’s not too dark. My eyes just haven’t adjusted to my surroundings yet. I blink rapidly, scanning the room I’ve been imprisoned in. I’m in some kind of chamber or cell. Maybe a basement. I squint my eyes, noting a small, narrow window across from me with the faintest trace of light. Sunrise is peeking through my new nightmare, confirming that I am, indeed, awake.

That’s when I hear it. A deep, throaty groan.

I twist my neck through the pain and discover Dean Asher chained to the opposite corner of the cement room in the same position, his head lolling back and forth as he brings himself back to reality.

I don’t know if there is a sense of dramatic irony in the fact that I’ve been taken captive with the one person in the world I hate most, or if there is a semblance of relief in the realization that I am not alone in this.

“Dean.” My voice is hoarse and weak, hardly a whisper fracturing the heady silence that envelopes us. I watch as Dean lifts his head and it falls back against a hard post, prompting another moan. “Dean,” I repeat—this time a little louder.

“Where the hell am I,” he croaks out, but it’s more of a statement than a question. It’s a demand. I can see his eyes narrow at me through the hazy darkness, questioning my existence, questioning if his mind is playing tricks on him, questioning everything. “Cora?”

“Dean.”

His name squeaks out through parched lips. I feel tears begin to bite at my eyes as the fear swells in my gut. I feel nauseated. Hollowed out. I start yanking at my restraints, pulling and tugging, shaking the shackles against a steel pipe.

Dean follows my lead and does the same, shouting for help and clanking his manacles as I scream at the top of my lungs.

“What the fuck is this? Where are we?” Dean is out of breath, his questions heaving out of him with frantic desperation. “Are you hurt?”

I think I should be surprised that my well-being is at the forefront of his concerns, but I’m too overwhelmed with terror and anguish to ponder it. I swallow hard. “My head…” It’s all I can manage before more tears well in my eyes and I’m too choked up to say anything else.

“Yeah, me too.”

I try to pull myself together, sucking frazzled breaths in through clenched teeth. I feel a panic attack edging its way through me, but I can’t let it take over. I’ll panic when hope is lost—when everything else has failed, death is imminent, and all options have been exhausted.

Right now, I need to stay focused. Level-headed.

I need to get us out of here.

I watch as Dean rises to his feet, his hands cuffed behind him and chained to his own pipe. Metal screeches against metal as he stands, then he slams the cuffs against the steel with all his strength, over and over again. “Someone, help! Get us fucking out of here!” he bellows, his voice echoing through the dank basement, mingling with the clanking chains.

I lean the side of my head against the wall beside me. “What do you think he wants with us?”

Dean continues to cause a ruckus, loud and shrill. “Don’t know. Don’t want to know.” Ding, ding, ding. Clank, clank, clank. “I’ll fucking kill you, motherfucker!” he shouts.

“He knows you can’t kill him. You’re chained to a pipe.”

Dean ceases his efforts to glare at me from across the cellar. “So, what, I’m supposed to just give up and rot down here? Not a chance.” Clank, clank, clank. “Help!”

“Do you think he wants you or me?”

I can hear Dean’s heavy breaths huffing and puffing from a few feet away. He hesitates before responding, a low hum skimming his lips. “You.”

God.

I close my eyes, forcing back a new wave of tears. A few drops slip through, sliding down my bruised cheeks and stalling at the edge of my jaw. I wipe them away with my shoulder. “I guess you’re the lucky one.”

“The lucky one? I’m chained to a fucking wall in a psychopath’s basement. At least you hold some kind of value. I’m a dead man.”

“I’d rather die than be of value to that sicko. You know what that means, right?” I curl my legs to my chest, bile gliding up my throat at the mere thought. “He’s going to rape me.”

A silence settles between us because, honestly, what is there to say?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

We both know what’s on the agenda for me and there’s nothing either one of us can do about it. Why he kidnapped Dean, I’m unsure—maybe because he saw the creep’s face?

A bitter anger seeps to the surface and I expel it the only way I know how. “I can’t believe I’m going to die down here with you of all people. The Powers That Be must really hate me.”

“Seriously?” Dean is quick to bite back. “We’re probably going to be gutted and sodomized, and you’re holding onto a high school grudge? Jesus, Cora.”

I try to balance myself on my high heels with wobbly ankles and pull myself up, sliding my chains up the pipe. My knees are shaking, and I almost collapse back down to the rubble. “Why didn’t you drive? I told you to drive.” The rising sun continues to spill more light into our hellhole, illuminating the look of outrage on Dean’s face. I look away, my jaw tight.

“Are you saying this is my fault? I was trying to save you.”

“If you would have just stepped on the gas, he would have let me go, and we’d be safe and warm in our own beds right now.” My resentment is spewing out of me, and maybe Dean doesn’t deserve it, but it’s easier this way. It’s easier than accepting the reality of our situation.

I can see him shaking his head at me, clearly insulted. “You’re really something else, Corabelle.”

I expect him to go on. I want him to say more. I wish he would take the bait and funnel his own fear and frustrations into petty rage and throw it right back at me. Give me all you got, Dean.

But that’s it. That’s all he says, and I feel hollow again.

I slide back down to my butt, the weight of my body, the weight of all of it, unable to hold me upright any longer. Dean sits down a few moments later, his legs sprawled out in front of him, leaning back against the pole with closed eyes. My own eyelids feel dry and brittle, almost acidic—like lemon peels. It hurts to blink.

Silence dances between us for a long time. The sun is up, shining its happy, brilliant rays into our dungeon, bringing to light the harrowing truth of our circumstances. I almost wish for the darkness. Most things can be masked in the dark.

My chin is to my chest when a door creaks open and bulky boots pound the stairsteps, one at a time.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

I jerk my head up and glance at Dean, who is looking at me with a similar uneasy expression. Our eyes hold tight as we both rise to our feet once more.

“My pets are awake,” the man declares when he appears at the base of the staircase. His belly is protruding from the too-short hem of his t-shirt and splotches of sweat stain his armpits.

Vomit swirls in the pit of my stomach and I want to wretch.

“What the hell do you want?” Dean commands, clanking his cuffs against the pole. “I have money. I can wire you everything in my account.”

The short, stubby man gargles his laughter, then coughs until he’s bending over and wheezing. When he regains his composure, he straightens and approaches us. His beady eyes hardly spare Dean a swift glance before he’s focused on me.

That same leering look from the night before is plastered on his face as he drinks me in, toes to top. His gaze settles on my cleavage, and I try to shift my shoulders to cover myself in some way, but my efforts are fruitless. I’m only making the swell of breasts jiggle and I think it’s turning him on. I inch my way backwards, as if I have somewhere to go—somewhere to hide.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun together, kitten,” he says to me, puckering his lips like a kiss and making a revolting purring sound.

I feel my resolve crumbling. My heart is racing beneath my ribcage, trying to make a break for it, and I have to tell it to calm down. There’s nowhere to run.

Dean starts beating his chains again, trying to distract the disgusting pig who is undressing me with his soulless, gray eyes. “This is stupid, man. We both have families. Jobs. Friends. They’re going to start looking for us—you’ll never get away with this.”

More gurgled laughter erupts from the man, but he doesn’t even look Dean’s way. He’s still eyeing my breasts, his tongue poking out to wet his thin lips. “Tessie Evans and her clown of a stepbrother said the same dumb shit to me,” he says, pacing forward. Getting closer. “Their flesh is compost out in my barn. Their bones make good chew toys for the dogs.”

I scream.

I scream and scream and scream, blinded by tears, shaking with terror.

“Please don’t do this. I don’t want to die,” I force out, kicking my legs at the man as he closes in on me. “No, no, no. Please.”

“Fuck!” Dean shouts from across the room, still going ballistic on his chains, as if that will somehow help. As if that will get us out of this mess.

“Save the fight for later, big boy,” the man hollers over to Dean, his focus pinned on me.

I can feel his foul breath skim my face. He smells like cooked carrots and gasoline mixed with rancid body odor. I squeeze my eyes tight, my shoulders bobbing up and down in time with my sobs. He leans in, further and further…

“Gimme a few hours, kitten, and I’ll show you a good time,” he mutters with a wink, his nose almost grazing mine. “I have to go make a car disappear first.”

Oh, God.

He steps backwards, cutting his eyes between me and Dean, then whirls around with a whistle and disappears up the staircase.

I fall to the ground—hard, crying and trembling.

There’s no doubt in my mind he’s going to kill us. He’s going to have his fun first, and then he’s going to slit our throats and feed our bodies to his dogs.

“Goddammit. God-fucking-dammit. Jesus fucking Christ.”

Dean is chanting away beside me, pacing the few steps he’s allowed to pace, then starts pulling forward against the pole, hoping to somehow break free. He tugs and strains through angry growls, and I’m actually worried his hands might separate from his wrists.

“It’s no use,” I say quietly, my head propped up against the metal post that binds me to this nightmare. This prison. “We’re trapped.”

“I’m not giving up.”

I watch him through blurry eyes as he continues his unproductive efforts, groaning and cursing the entire time. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Tug. Twist. Shout. Swear.

“I’m sure the thought alone devastates you,” he grumbles.

I close my eyes as more tears leak out, and I suck in a shaky sigh. “Do you think anybody’s looking for us yet?” I wonder out loud, not really expecting an answer—there’s no way to know.

Dean eventually stalls his escape attempts, a sheen of sweat reflecting off his face from the morning light. He looks at me, and our eyes stay locked for a few beats, the raw truth of our predicament spearing us right in the gut.

Looking for us.

We’re going to be the product of search parties and canine trackers and news reports and gruesome documentaries on Investigation Discovery.

Me and Dean Asher.

Dean inhales with a shudder, leaning his shoulder against the pole. “You know, I used to joke that we’d probably end up killing each other one day,” he murmurs, kicking at a small rock near his sneaker. “I guess I always had a feeling we’d go together.”

I know he’s trying to make light of our ordeal, but his words sucker-punch me. They knock the wind from my lungs until I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.

I sit there on the cold, hard floor, quietly crying until my tear ducts dry up and I’m too exhausted, too weak, to even move.

Dean starts to sing.

I’ve always known he could sing pretty well from family karaoke nights at my parent’s house over the last decade. I’d sit on the couch with crossed arms and stony eyes, annoyed by the sound of his rich, gravelly voice. Mandy would swoon. My parents would stare at him with their proud, beaming faces. Even the goddamn dog would watch in adoration, her tail wagging with each perfectly-pitched note. Then everyone would clap, except for me, and Dean would take a bow, occasionally shooting a smarmy wink in my direction.

I’d stick my tongue out or flip him off, brimming with contempt. Mandy would jab me in the ribs with her elbow, and sometimes my mother would scold me for being rude.

Ha! Rude.

Wrapping my entire car in plastic before a life-changing job interview is fucking rude.

I try to ignore the sound of his voice and close my eyes, but I find the raspy melodies to be oddly calming. He’s singing one of my favorite songs—Hey Jude by The Beatles.

And somehow, despite the fear and uncertainty, despite the gravel digging into my thighs and the terror digging into my heart, I manage to fall asleep.