Page 9 of The Flesh That Binds Us

When I woke up the day after Wayne had drugged me with the cupcake he’d baked for me, I was chained to the wall by both wrists above me beside a man named Paul on a stained queen-size mattress.

“Please! I can't do this anymore!”

Paul had been here for two months already and recounted horrific tales of abuse at the hands of Wayne. At the time, he’d only eaten pig feed and been electrocuted with a stun baton more times than he could count. His infected wounds, bruised flesh, and gaunt face had horrified me. He’d recalled how Liana Curtis—the woman’s body who was found the day I was taken—was assaulted nightly while Wayne tortured her, sometimes dunking her head in their shared puddles of excrement, or hung from the basement beams by a gambrel hook and revived with CPR after he was finished with her. At the time, it was hard for me to believe that anyone could survive such abuse like that.

Until…Wayne had done the same thing to me.

Paul said he’d been forced to watch when Wayne hung Liana from the gambrel hook and sliced her abdomen open as if she was cattle. That’s usually how Wayne killed them. While they pleaded and begged until their body was another carcass for him to play with and their blood saturated the cold concrete beneath them. The first month I was here, Wayne had used my body any chance he wanted. He’d remove my chains and hold me down with his impossible strength, and did things to me I could never forget. Those days were the hardest. I’d stopped crying and flinching in his presence after three months when I’d survived the usual time frame he’d keep his victims alive. And it took another three months for me to realise that he wouldn’t hurt me if I just followed three simple rules.

First: don’t resist.

Second: don’t cry.

And lastly: always smile.

And eventually, he’d moved me upstairs into his bedroom. I was granted more trust, with the exception of a long chain clasped around my ankle that was attached to a cement block on our floor that prevented me from reaching the windows or the front door. At first it was strange—the slight freedom was unnerving, and I always thought I was doing something wrong. I couldn't understand why he wanted to keep me…until the first night, when he made me stand behind him as he sliced open a woman’s abdomen, forcing me to watch as her steaming intestines plunged to the floor.

I remember screaming until I passed out.

But then I just…watched.

Because I was his assistant.

The one who helped clean up the aftermath.

I bathed and fed them, took care of them for months, up to the moment I helped carry their heavy flesh. Wayne felt that if I didn’t have anything to do every day, I’d try to escape, but that thought hadn’t crossed my mind in years—not after he caught me trying to take my chain off.

The metal bit into my skin as I twisted my foot. My fingers were slipping, slick with sweat as I fumbled for the pin. I’d seen this trick on one of the films we watched recently while he forced me to sit beside him. It’d been two months since I was brought up here, and I just couldn’t do this anymore. I yanked harder as I moved the pin around, ignoring the sharp sting as the metal scraped my skin raw. My hands moved fast, clumsy with adrenaline. The pin edged out just enough to give me something to grip, then the bedroom door creaked.

And my entire body locked.

No.

Slowly, I lifted my head, feeling my heart plunge into my stomach as I found Wayne standing in the doorway. “What does my angel think she’s doing?” he grumbled. I wasn't breathing, and my heart was beating so fast, it was all I could hear in that moment. He stood there for a second, then…he moved faster than I expected, grabbing my ankle and yanking it toward him. I cried out as the chain snapped taut, the metal biting into my skin.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I gasped, scrambling to steady myself.

“I leave you alone for five minutes!” he snarled.

“Please don’t be mad! Please! I won’t do it again⁠—”

“I know you won’t.”

He stood, towering over me then, and for a second, I thought it was over—that maybe he’d just leave, lock the door, and pretend this didn’t happen. But then he grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him.“Because you’re not going anywhere.” His teeth were bared as spit flew onto my face.“Do you understand me?”

I nodded frantically, tears streaking down my cheeks. “Yes! Yes, I understand⁠—”

“Unless you want to end up right beside your father.”

I closed my mouth, slumping forwards as pain seared through my chest. The reminder was like an anvil to my heart. It was time that I accepted defeat. I was never going to get out of here, I was never going to see the people I loved again. I would die in these walls, just like Dad did.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I choked out. “I promise.”

“Pass me the scissors, darl,” Wayne mumbled with the needle pinched between his teeth. I moved before he finished speaking, masking my discomfort as I reached over to grab the small rusted pair, and placed them in his hand carefully, avoiding the sticky patches on his fingers. I didn’t like to be around Wayne when he handled the flesh, but I had no other choice.

“Thank you,” he grumbled as he squeezed my hand before releasing it, a gentleness in his touch I knew he’d reserved only for me. “All done. Look at that, isn’t she a beaut?” Wayne preened at his own handiwork, the embroidered belly-button flower now complete in his hand, a thin-lipped, proud smirk on his weatherworn face.

“It’s beautiful,” I told him, and I meant it. I…thought I meant it.