Chapter Two - Gray

I opened my eyes to darkness. Had I even opened them at all? For a moment I was uncertain but then I noticed a tiny sliver of yellow light peeking through an opening on my right hand side. When I turned my body and held up my hand, I touched a wall.

Drab gray wallpaper rested under my palm. The speck of light illuminated enough that I could see and feel that I was laying on a bed. Never had I been so disoriented. I pushed my left hand onto the mattress. A heavy quilt, wrinkled from my sleeping form, covered the bed. It was a simple thing, all white with a few blue stripes near the top. Homey, ranch-like. So was the frame of the bed. The whole room, with what little light there was to wash it in, held a very plain, but warm feel to the place.

That was not my bedroom. That was not my bed. The dresser on the opposite wall was not mine. The window at the foot of the bed, with a small wooden bench sitting on the floor beneath the glass, was not mine. None of those items were mine. Who did they belong to?

I began to panic. Though the room was cool, a bead of sweat pooled on my upper lip. Nervous sweat. I slid off of the bed and hurried to the source of light - the window. I pushed the thick, tan curtains aside.

Trees. An endless picture of trees stood erect on the opposite side of the glass. Sunlight filtered through the receding canopy from above in random patterns. Reddish-brown leaves blanketed the forest floor. I was ground level with hundreds of trees. My bedroom was on the second story of my house. That place was not a room of my home.

"Where. . .?"

I didn't know how to finish the thought. I didn't know what I was trying to say. I touched a hand to my forehead in distress. What was going on?

I heard footsteps. It was hard to tell where they were coming from. The thuds were few and far between, soft vibrations. After a quick search I spotted a door in the corner of the room and when I focused my ears the steps grew louder. Heavier, almost. Alarm made my stomach flip. My heart throbbed against my chest. A heavy bass drum with a hectic rhythm. I had awoke in a strange place with no remembrance of how I came to be there, and I was going to meet the person who brought me to said place.

The doorknob turned. The hectic rhythm stopped.

A loud squeak shattered the silence as the door swung wide open. I didn't have much time to prepare for anything - who the footsteps belonged to, where I might have been - so the fear didn't tickle my conscious right away. I was a little curious, a little edgy, to see who stood behind the door.

I wished I had been working on opening the window instead.

There, standing as tall and as wide as the doorway itself, was the baseball Catcher.

Memories of the park pooled through my mind. When I had ran past him at the ball diamond I hadn't realized how tall and broad he actually was compared to my small build. Looking at his silhouette in the doorway gave me goosebumps.

He wore dark jeans, a black t-shirt, and most importantly the very mask that earned him his name. The disorientation that seemed to claim me moments before vanished; I was left frozen, completely ridden of emotion or thought.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked quietly.

No answer.

He stepped into the room. I stiffened. Another step.

"W-why am I here?"

No answer. Step.

I swung my head around to look for an escape route. Perspiration dribbled down my spine. More nervous sweat. My sense of fight-or-flight kicked in and I could no longer sit still. No way could I fight. I spun toward the window. My fingers dug underneath the sill, scrabbling for an indent to help me lift the square piece of glass. I heard another step, timing each one unbearably slow, like a person approaching a wild animal. I snarled and scratched at the window.

It was only then I saw that metal nails had been hammered into the wood from the outside.

I was a caged animal.

I turned on my heel. The distance between the Catcher and I closed immensely; three more steps and he could reach out and touch me. I shuddered violently, pushing myself back against the wall.

"Stay away!" I threw a hand outward.

He paused. The room became silent. And then everything happened in rapid succession.

Him, his arm unraveling from his side like a snake that had been coiled, his hand latching onto my wrist.

Me, mouth dropping down in surprise at the speed hidden within his huge frame.

Him, yanking me forward and then pushing me away right before I collided with his body.

Me, being thrown aside and back onto the bed, my back flouncing on the mattress, brain jostling.

Catcher stared down at me. Gray eyes. That was all I could identify. Steel-gray eyes shrouded with darkness stared at my petrified complexion. Terror locked my body down. I was frozen by the icy tendrils of terror. My teeth chattered but not from the cold.

I regained my focus, forcing my arms to haul my own body backward. What did he want?

Another step.

"What do you want?" I demanded, trying to sound strong. I was anything but.

His shins bumped the edge of the bed as he took one last step forward. He was so tall. I was a mouse trapped under the hungry gaze of a cat.

Catcher leaned over the bed, slowly, and I scrabbled back into the wall, a horrified, sweaty mess of heavy breaths and soft whimpers. I was no match for him when I needed to defend myself.

The solid wood of the headboard connected with my shoulder blades. I could only crawl so far, only put so much distance in between the two of us. It wasn't enough.

One of his hands palmed the mattress. Catcher's other hand reached out to me, fingers elongated. They reminded me of centipedes - long and twitchy, hunting for something to touch.

I slapped away the hand in a bold attempt. A stupid attempt.

His arm barely moved from the strike. A single moment coated in thick silence passed.

Then he lunged at me.

I closed my eyes and screamed and kicked out a leg. The sole of my shoe came into contact with something thick - a thigh, most likely. An audible grunt was the response. A hand grabbed my bicep, long fingers curling around my arm easily just as another hand pushed against my mouth. He held my right arm down. I thrashed as much as I could.

I opened my eyes to see the Catcher shifting himself on the bed. He shoved his knee onto one of my thighs as I continued to squirm. The weight was unbearable. My left leg was still free. I had nearly swung it around, aiming for anything, only to end up getting it tangled with his other leg. He pinned my lower half.

"Help!"

I screamed louder into his hand feeling my head go dizzy with the pitch. My ears rang with the noise, but I am assured that it pained his auditory more than mine; I was accustomed to the sound. Catcher pushed my lower jaw up into my top teeth. With my free hand I shoved at him, pushing at his stomach, his ribs, his chest, not able to reach his neck. The combination of fighting and screaming made my head feel light as a feather, efforts creating zero progress.

I slowed. I had to slow. His body - his long, heavy body - crushed my tiny one. I had to guess that he weighed over two hundred pounds but it was not fat. He was muscle from the neck down - I knew because I felt it on top of me. It weighed on me like a small car and for a moment I believed he would flatten me into the form of a pancake. But he propped his one leg on the mattress, one elbow on the bed to re-establish weight distribution and forced my head to look into his mask.

My vision caught his two gray eyes. Those same gray eyes that just -last night?- held a stark determination to their color. That determination wasn't for me in a sense. It was for him to. . .kidnap me?

The room grew quiet. My ragged breathing had been the only noise, which was strained against the spaces between his fingers. I couldn't understand what was happening the longer he stared at me, silent all the while. His gray eyes probed my face. I hated it, hated it.

I bit his finger. Very hard.

Catcher ripped his hand away, and along with it, that penetrating stare. I sucked in a large breath through my nose, pushing myself upright. He had given me some space, shifting his weight over to the side as he flicked his hand in the air repeatedly. Red teeth marks glowed on his index finger.

I wriggled out from underneath him as best as I could; it wasn't much. I had just freed my left thigh, eager to hoist my knee into his crotch, when his head whipped around.

Cold steel settled on my face. I fought back a cry. God, how much anger I could discern just by looking at his eyes. He moved, climbing up on his knees as he planted a hand on my chest to force me back down onto the mattress. I clawed his arm, a fresh wave of panic-induced adrenaline surging through my body.

"Get off of me!"

I spat at him. Saliva landed on his shirtsleeve, wet and bubbly. Catcher stopped moving. Both of our attention fixated on his shirt to stare at my mound of D.N.A.

His gaze returned to mine for a mere second, hard and cruel, just before winded his arm across his body. I felt the sharp ridges of his knuckles as he backhanded me across my cheek. My head flew to the left from his power. Warmth pooled on the right side of my head, a needle-stinging sensation filling my senses.

I turned back to look at him, my jaw locked. He looked no different than before he had hit me; he was carried by a certain calm in his body, only his eyes letting on to how unstable he actually was underneath. Catcher returned my challenging stare. Somehow I believed my eyes betrayed everything I was feeling on the inside - horror, confusion, frustration.

But I hoped he saw how much I hated him.

As fast as it all happened, it ended. Catcher pushed himself off of the bed, off of me, movements neither jerky nor hindered. I remained frozen in place, only my eyes moving as they followed him. Without so much as a backward glance, he left the room. A squeak sounded as the door shut. Something clicked on the other side. I scrambled off the bed. When I ran to the door and jerked the knob, I cursed.

He locked it from the outside. My hands flexed over the back of my neck and I paced, perplexed. I turned to the window.

Locks on the outside of doors, nailed-down windows. I had been taken. I did not need a neon sign in front of my face to tell me that fact.

I didn't quite know how to react. I was scared shitless. I should have been huddled in a corner crying. My nerves were firing to rapidly at that moment for me to stop and have a breakdown. Every time I turned on my heel to walk across the room, I'd glance at the window and spot the circular heads of the nails, and my throat would close.

Why? Why, why, why was it happening? Why me? Why had I been chosen by this man to be locked in this room for whatever purpose?

I bit at my fingernails, deep in thought.

I had nothing special. Nothing more than a family with mediocre income. Was it about money? My parents weren't rich, but well-off. Sex?

My lip curled. That was not how I wanted to live.

I did not know who he was. Hadn't a clue. But he must have known of my existence. Those nails had not been hammered in that sill in a matter of seconds. Locks on the outside of doors took time to install. The room had been prepped beforehand, at least a day or two in advance.

I sat down on the edge of the bed. My hands rested on top of my thighs. It took me a minute to notice how bad they were shaking.

I held them in the air, watching as my fingers quaked.

I had to get the hell out of there.