Tink knew what he waited for as she sat feeling the warmth soak into her to white skin. Her legs looked foreign in the sunlight, reflective with traceable blue lines and gashes and dark spots no longer bruised, but not quite skin like. She hadn't seen her face, and had no desire to. She could feel her jagged teeth and the places where she knew she had been scabbed and beaten tingle under the suns hot rays.

He wanted the show, the black bits. The moments that Snatch wanted. Only John wanted to close his eyes and feel them, cowardly, reliving someone else's strike. It hit her like a jolt of electricity,  and she watched him.

He looked relaxed where he stood off to the side, even content. Except for the pulsating beat that was visible on both sides of his collar. Like Stash, she'd remembered, reading private signs on skin to survive.

Tink wondered what he would do if she just got up, and never stopped walking. Or better yet, became a mute. Unable to say anything at all except I'm here. It crawled across her mind like tentacles. He'd be done. You'd be gone. No longer useful, why would he stay?

She purposely stretched in the wheelchair to cause her borrowed cotton top rise above her stomach making no effort to pull it down, and waited. She wished she could close her eyes and appear relaxed, but not even in control of what was happening could she pretend she wasn't on alert. The outside was dangerous, even the walls on all four sides were made of windows. Stash could be anywhere.

It didn't take long for him to make his way back to her.  She didn't dare look at his face, giving him the opportunity to see how useful she could be, stories and skin and enough to make him want more.

"What do you think Hope?  Does it feel safe?"

Instinctive laughter bubbled below the surface. Safe. She no longer had reference for a word like safe, not as long as there were men like Stash in the world. Men who wanted to own, control, and live off the pain and emotions of others, men like John.

"It feels safe with you here."

She waited. Watching as he thought about her statement. His throbbing veins in his neck increasing their speed. It felt good, she'd done that. Her eyes met his and he was first to look away, a small win, but she'd take it.

"I'm not a part of the picture Hope. You survived. You were brave enough to come out here. Soon you'll see that you are in charge of your own stability."

She could feel anger building. He was smart. That was new. Stash was heavy handed, but simple. This game was aggravating. She would be in control, but not today. Today she would study the board.  That's how you play. You size up your opponent until you know their weakness.

"I'd like you to share something with me today. Anything you choose. Times before you were kidnapped, times during, something since. Anything at all."

She picked at a scab leftover on her shin, old and crusted it peeled in one long strip as a slow trickle of blood ran from it. She watched it, making no effort to stop it, or change its course.

John's face reddened, his eyes trailing from her face to the blood, steady blip blip blip of his neck veins.

"I couldn't measure time there, in the room. Day or night, weeks or years. It was just one long block of time. In the beginning it was easier. The man came every day. Sometimes more than once a day. He brought me things like food or a brush for my hair.  When he came, I knew time was moving.  But after a while, when I got to be used he came less. Time was nothing, and everything."

John nodded, his eyes still following the crimson trickle onto her brown hospital sock. She waited for question, for another line to be drawn in this game she hadn't figured out. She knew it would, although it took longer than she had thought. When he spoke it startled her and she picked the spot some more to reprimand herself for letting her mind wander.

"Was it a relief then, in the beginning when he came back?"

She felt the weight of the question. It was tingly, laced with more. The question was about how she felt about Stash.  She swallowed down the burning acid that crept up her throat. She would not be discarded again, not until she was strong enough to be the one leaving someone else for dead.

"He was my world. My food, my companion, he allowed me to live, to keep this baby. He hurt me, but only when I was wrong about him- and even then it proved to me I was alive."

The words came out more harsh than she intended and the professional mask was lifted, for a moment. She saw a rage under the surface that she didn't understand. She wondered where it came from.

"Those feelings are normal Hope. People like Stash, they want the power that comes with taking away everything and giving it in small doses to make sure you know they control everything about you.   It's very normal for a victim to almost worship a captor...because their lives do depend on it.  Sometimes they even try to stay, or find their way back to the same situation, because it's what they know."

She pulled the neck of her shirt down and swiped at a bead of trickling sweat making sure to leave it askew with the side of her breast exposed.

John didn't sway his gaze away from her face.

"He owned me. Like an animal. And left me in the woods to die.  I wouldn't go back, I'd chop my own head off before I went back.  Or worse!"

His hand twitched, the pulse sped. She noted he didn't sweat despite wearing more clothes than her and being in the sun.  His left brow rose as he leaned in closer.

"Worse?  What could be worse than chopping off your own head?"

Tink hadn't meant to spurt any of that out. She was angry that he tricked her, taking her or here where he knew she'd be distracted and alert, putting her in the hot sun and toying with her like a cat with a mouse.  She grabbed the arms of the wheelchair, her body suddenly shuddering uncontrollably. Her teeth chattered together as if she were sitting outside in December.  Her breathing  quickened she struggled.  The more she breathed the less air she seemed to get.

Her eyes darted until finally landing on his, her muscles jumping as she held the chair for support. He stayed still, watching, waiting, until she felt tears slip from her eyes. Angry wet tears she couldn't wipe away because the chair was all that kept her from the floor.

Slowly he stood up and put his hands on her shoulders. His face inches from hers. She could feel his breath against her nose as she struggled to get air ow her own.

She heard him speak, quietly, calmly despite the clacking of her teeth and the chair.

"Interesting."

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