Chapter 8: Phone Light
The bulb over us hummed louder after I stopped trying to answer his question about tough. The heat from it made the top of my head sweat, and the rope didn't give at all when I shifted. I'd counted the wraps around my chest while he watched me - four loops, tan, pulled tight enough that the fibers bit through my blazer. Enzo hadn't moved from his spot near the crate to my left, his black jacket still open at the collar, that snake tattoo catching the warm light every time he turned his head.
He looked at me like he was waiting for me to fill the quiet. I didn't.
Then he stepped back toward the crates stacked against the wooden wall. I heard his shoes on the concrete, two steps, and the soft scrape of something being slid across wood.
He picked it up and held it out where I could see it.
My phone.
It was screen-down on the top crate, dark, my clear case catching the blue window light from behind him. I hadn't seen it since he'd taped my mouth. I'd assumed it was in my bag, or on the floor of my car, or wherever I'd left it before all this started. Seeing it there made my chest pull against the rope before I could stop it.
"Recognize it?" he said.
I didn't answer right away. I watched his hand. He turned it over once, casual, like he was checking the time, but the screen stayed black. No light, no buzz. He'd either turned it off or let it die.
"Where'd you get that," I said. My voice was rough from the tape.
He smiled a little, not kind. "It was on you."
That wasn't true. It had been in my blazer pocket. He'd taken it when he tied me. The thought landed hard and fast - he'd had it the whole time I'd been sitting here begging with my eyes, while I answered his questions about what I wanted. He'd let me think I was cut off without knowing for sure. Now he wanted me to know.
He set it back down on the crate, screen up this time, exactly in the center of the wood slat. The black glass reflected the overhead bulb as a small white circle.
"I keep wondering when you're gonna ask for it," he said. "Most people ask right away. Please, can I have my phone. Please, I need to call someone."
He was using the same tone he'd used when he said Please, that's new. Testing again.
I stared at the phone. Part of me wanted to say give it back, right now, let me call my mom, let me call anyone. The rope made my shoulders ache and my hands were going numb behind the chair. The phone was maybe six feet away. If I could get to it, I could press the side button, try emergency call with my knuckle, something. But I was tied to a chair and he was standing between me and it.
The other part of me knew what would happen if I begged for it. He'd made it clear in the last ten minutes what he did with begging. He collected it. He'd said he wanted to see how tough I was, and asking for the phone would look like the opposite. Dismissing it might be the only move that didn't give him more to hold over me.
My breathing got shallow. I made myself take a slower breath, the way I'd been doing since he removed the tape, and looked away from the phone to his face.
"I don't need it," I said.
His eyebrows lifted. "No?"
"No," I said. The lie felt thin in my mouth, but I kept my eyes on him. "It's just a phone. You can keep it."
He didn't react at first. He just looked at me, that controlled stare not breaking. Then he picked the phone up again and held the side button down. The Apple logo glowed white for a second before the screen went black again. Battery dead. He showed me the black screen like it meant something.
"You don't need it because there's nobody to call?" he said. "Or because you think not caring makes you tough?"
I swallowed. "Because you already decided no one hears from me tonight."
That got him. His mouth tightened for half a second before he smoothed it out. He slipped the phone into the inside pocket of his suit jacket - my phone inside his jacket, against his chest - and patted the pocket once.
"Smart," he said. "But wrong. Someone could hear from you. I could let them."
He let that hang in the air between us. The bulb hummed. Somewhere beyond the blue window light, a truck went by on a road I couldn't see.
"You want to prove you're Mary River," he said, quieter now. "This is how. You tell me who you want me to text. One message. I send exactly what you say. And then we see what happens when the outside world thinks you're fine."
He was offering contact, but only on his terms. If I gave him a name, he'd see who mattered to me. He'd control the words. He'd have proof that I was still begging, just in a different form. If I refused, I stayed cut off and he kept the phone anyway.
I looked at the pocket where my phone was now. No light. No sound. The warehouse stayed dim and the rope stayed tight, and I realized the phone had never been a rescue. It was just another loop of rope, just held in his hand instead of around my chest.
May you like
"Who would it be?" he asked.
I didn't answer. I kept staring at that pocket, breathing through my nose, letting the silence stretch until he had to fill it.
