Bang(75)

“I trust you, Declan,” I tell him as he wraps the tie around my head, covering my eyes in a makeshift blindfold.

“Lift your head,” he whispers and then knots it in place, leaving me in darkness.

It’s now that I feel my heart begin to race. After spending most of my childhood locked in a darkened closet, I have been claustrophobic. I hear movement, and feel Declan getting off the bed, only to return a few seconds later.

“I’m going to tie you up, okay?” he says and I can feel the heat of his body above me as I lie here. He takes my hands and holds them together as I feel a prickly, coarse rope being looped around my wrists. As he continues to secure my wrists and tie me to the headboard, he tells me, “This is a natural fiber rope. It’s all I have, so if you fight the restraint you’ll hurt yourself. Understand?”

“Yes,” I respond and when he’s done I try adjusting my wrists, only to have the coarse fibers poke into my skin.

“I’ll be right back,” he says and then the bed shifts, followed by the click of the door closing.

He’s gone, and the darkness begins to consume me. The only noise I can hear is the lapping of the water against the boat. My wrists begin to rub against the brittle rope as I shift around. My breathing picks up, but soon becomes labored with my increasing heartbeat. Suddenly, I feel the room caving in on me, swallowing me up as the air grows thick. I plant my feet flat on the bed; I can’t seem to sit still anymore. And then I smell it. That familiar smell of Carl’s cigarettes.

“Declan?” I murmur, but all I hear now is the muffled TV on the other side of the closet door. Confusion begins to swarm, and my head grows unbearably turbulent with the increasing smell of cigarettes.

Fear and confusion take over when I realize I’m naked. Carl has never locked me up naked before, and I begin jerking my hands, trying to break free. My entire body goes numb and tingly as I start thrashing around, desperate to find light and escape. Nothing feels real as my head floats, and I hear the echoes of screaming. The pressure of the walls caving in on me is so heavy, collapsing on my chest. I struggle to breathe, yanking and jerking, doing everything I can in my sheer panic to get loose.

Someone grabs my hands, and light filters in. Opening my eyes, I realize the pressure on my chest is a man and the screams are coming from me. Tugging my arms violently to get away, I shriek, “Let me go!”

“Hold still, Nina. Calm down.”

Who the f*ck is Nina and who is this guy? Where am I? Where’s Carl?

“Get off me!” I wail through my burning screams. As soon as my arms are free, I bolt, leaping quickly off the bed only to be tackled down.

“Nina, breathe!” the man shouts as he pins me in his grip. I struggle to fight my way off of his lap, but he keeps his firm hold on me from behind.

“Let go!”

“Breathe, baby. Please, just breathe.”

He holds me tight as he continues to talk, slowly bringing me back into my body. The fog in my head filters out, and I begin to remember where I am. Finding my way out of the tunnel I felt I was just in, reality appears, and I realize I must have been hallucinating. The pounding of my heart shakes me, and when I look down, I’m covered in blood, sparking another spike of panic.

“Oh my God.” My trembling voice is barely audible.

“It’s okay, baby. You’re okay,” Declan soothes.

“There’s blood.”

“Shhh, baby. It’s okay,” he whispers. “Just breathe with me.”

I slack into his arms, my back snug against his front, and focus on the rise and fall of his chest as I try to parallel my breathing with his. After a few moments, he lays me down as he sits over me.

I lie here, embarrassed about what just happened and the fact that Declan saw it. He reaches over to pull a blanket up, covering my exposed body. His eyes are heavy with worry as he looks over me. He takes my wrists in his hands, and that’s when I notice the source of all the blood.

“We should clean you up.” His words come out gentle. “There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom,” he tells me, and when I nod, he gets up to retrieve it.

I sit up, leaning my back against the headboard, wondering what the hell just happened. I used to have panic attacks like that back when I was a teenager, after I had run away. But that was so long ago. I feel numb, like I’m in a daze. Declan will surely question me about this, but I’m too disoriented to even stress about it.

He returns, sitting in front of me, and starts cleaning the blood from my hands and arms with a warm towel.

“Does it hurt?” he asks and I keep my focus on his hands as they tend to my abrasions.

I give a shake of my head, not wanting to speak right now, as he continues to clean and then bandage the cuts with a little gauze. Once he’s done, he sets everything aside and moves to sit next to me, cradling me against his chest.

He holds me for a few minutes before asking, “What happened?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck, I’m the one who needs to be apologizing, not you. I should have never left you alone like that.”

“Where did you go?” I ask.

“To lock the door out to the cockpit,” he tells me, and then draws back to look down at me, running his hand through my hair, combing it back. “Tell me why you panicked.”