I don’t believe in DNIs, but this blog’s content is mostly SFW (if violence and gore can be considered safe for work, lmao). The occasional nsfwhump will be tagged as such.
About me: Zipper (they/them), 20s, aro-ace
I take writing commissions! Find my commission sheet here!
My writing tag is #zipwrites. My current-ish projects are The Ol’ Ball and Chain, The New Roux, and On the Wing. Everything I post is some form of rough draft. Some go through more variations than others.
Off-Tumblr archive of my work in case Tumblr ever goes down: thezipperzone.blogspot.com
More about me n’ my blog under the cut!
Likes: lab whump, medical whump, hero and villain whump, dehumanization, kidnapping, captivity, pet whump.
Squicks: nsfw, cannibalism (please don’t ask me about these things)
My archived (unfinished, no longer being updated) whump series are The Animal I’ve Become, The Apprentice, Roux & Ambrose, and Box Bastards.
I usually tag trigger warnings with the “tw” after the content (ex: “blood tw”), or with the word “whump” after it (ex: “medical whump). I trigger tag my writing more than reblogs; you can expect to see/read gore and violence here, though, and if that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to unfollow or block me.
Feel free to send me asks or talk to me about whump stuff! Especially lab whump!
aaaa thank you <3 i am. fully obsessed with unmade. it's been so long since i've read a classic kidnapping whump story and i'm completely hooked.
also, fun fact: i have a playlist with the song "vienna" by billy joel on it, and that's part of the reason that for such a long time i was like "oh yeah one of my mutuals has an oc named vienna, i should read that sometime." (that playlist also has the song "dear vienna" by owl city, so she's on there twice!)
Zander had never noticed how much he fucking hated summer before.
The way the days stretched on and on, how people looked so dumb and happy walking down the street, the oppressive, nearly claustrophobic heat pressing in from all sides. It all made him sick.
People knew Vienna was gone. And not just gone — kidnapped, taken, maybe something even worse. Her name and story were everywhere, speculation abound, people knew. And they could still just….live their lives. Like nothing at all was wrong. As if the earth itself hadn't split in two, into ugly jagged pieces that pierced Zander every time he so much as took a breath.
Every day that passed felt like the walls closing in more and more, and the damn heat wasn't doing anything to help.
He started having to limit his runs to either the early morning or late evening, the only times he felt like he wouldn't get baked by the sun. Not having to see as many people was just an added benefit. Vienna's face becoming suddenly, perversely famous meant Zander's was too, to a degree. He could see it in stranger's faces; the flicker of recognition, of pity, of curiosity. Zander Wright, the poor boyfriend who didn't get there in time.
Most days he spent at home, stowed away in his room, blinds pulled shut to block out the light. He'd read, or scroll mindlessly on his phone, or look at pictures of Vienna for the millionth time. He spent a good amount of time just sleeping or staring at the wall, pleading with his own mind not to show him the nightmarish images it seemed to conjure up of its own volition lately. Vienna, afraid. Vienna, crying. Vienna, hurt. Vienna, dead —
He'd pound his fist against his bed, scream into his pillow, anything to break the visual.
It was hard to believe those images could exist in the same world he lived in. The same world where he and Vienna had lived and laughed and loved together. Where they'd baked cookies in the dorm kitchen at 2am, where they'd gone window shopping for home decor, acting like they could buy a house tomorrow; where they'd fallen asleep talking on the phone almost every night last summer. There was just no way those two realities could coexist.
Sometimes he tried to convince himself that Vienna was fine. Gone, yes, but still okay. Maybe she'd hit her head, got amnesia, but was happily living on a beach somewhere. Maybe someone a little soft in the head had picked her up wanting a friend and she was safe, unharmed, just playing along for the moment. Hell, maybe fairies picked her up and took her to some magic realm. If that was going to happen to anyone, Vee would be the one.
But at the end of the day, he knew what was most likely. And it was enough to send him reeling, gasping for breath in the middle of the night.
To Zander, it felt like his family gave up on trying to coax him out of his room pretty quickly. Like he was just an inconvenience. Sure, he noticed the little offerings they left outside his door — his favorite snacks after his mom came back from the grocery store, books that he knew were Tiffany's favorites — but what was he supposed to do with that? It's not like any of it would bring Vee back. Useless. Just like he was.
During the times he did venture out of his room, Lauren always appeared nearby like a sneaky shadow. If he was playing video games, she'd somehow end up on the couch across the room, scrolling on her phone. If he stepped outside to shoot hoops, she'd end up tanning in the yard. Some days, it put him on edge, like he was being constantly monitored. On other days, her quiet presence felt like a lifeline.
Friends reached out pretty frequently. For the first few weeks, every time his phone buzzed Zander would lunge for it, convinced it would somehow be Vienna. Disappointment crushed him every time. Still, he somehow couldn't help hoping, just a little, that each message or call might be from her.
He indulged people in hanging out a few times, but couldn't quite stomach it. Some of them wanted to talk about Vienna. Zander couldn't help but think they had no idea what they were talking about, no idea what this was truly like, and would return home restless and shaky. Some people didn't talk about Vienna at all. That was worse. They'd swerve the conversation away from her at all costs, trying to force some kind of normal lightness that made Zander furious. When he realized any topic of conversation made him want to go off the rails, he started avoiding people entirely. It was easier to do that than lie.
So, when he ran into Ethan, Zander's skills were a bit rusty.
Ethan was a friend from high school. Zander hadn't been great at keeping in touch with friends from back home. Not like Vienna, who had friends like Kaya from childhood who she seemed bonded to for life. Zander and Ethan had hung out, played basketball and video games together, but at the end of the day he was more of a "I'll see you when I see you" type of friend.
And where they happened to see each other was a smoothie shop after one of Zander's runs.
It was mid-morning by then. Zander had been trying a new place — something about going back to the shop he'd worked out after throwing his apron down and storming out didn't sound appealing — and chosen this one by chance. All he really needed was a smoothie with some protein powder in it. In, out, easy. But then he'd heard his name.
"Yo — Zander!"
Zander automatically pasted a pleasant grin on his face as he turned around. "Hey, man."
Ethan smiled, reached out a hand to dap him up. "I've been thinking about you!" Zander tried not to flinch at the words.
They did the cursory catching up — classes, sports, mutual friends, each dancing around the topic of Vienna with all the grace of a ballet of elephants. Then, Ethan finally broached it.
"I'm getting together with some people in a few days at my brother's place. You should come. You know, get your mind off stuff."
Zander's first instinct was to protest — you think a house party will get my mind off my best friend being fucking kidnapped? — but Ethan had the consideration to look a little chagrined at his own words.
"I mean, I know it doesn't work like that. But it'd be nice to see you there, dude."
Maybe it would be nice. Maybe he was just bored. Maybe he just wanted an excuse to get drunk off his ass. In any case, Zander nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll see you there."
****
The party turned to a blur pretty quickly.
It started when Zander walked in. Right off the bat, some girl came up to him, puppy dog eyes, saying how she was so sorry about Vienna. Like she were dead or something.
When he disentangled himself from her and went to grab a beer, he remembered the last time he'd had one was that party with Vienna. Where they'd joked about just staying together at Lakewood for the summer. Well, she had joked. For Zander, it had been more of fantasizing.
He made a mixed drink instead, heavy on the tequila. It usually wasn't his favorite, but something about it burned in just the right way tonight.
The more he drank, the more confident he got. Words flowed easier. He was able to make people around him laugh for the first time in what felt like weeks. And for a fraction of a second in those moments, he could almost forget. Could almost pretend this was another normal summer night, Vienna tucked away peacefully in her own hometown.
So he drank a little more.
It was the habit he could admit he'd gotten from his father. Coming alive with a drink in his hand. The last time he'd gotten this wasted was probably freshman year, trying to fit in with the older guys on the basketball team. It had worked — given him that easy confidence, the looseness that somehow correlated with being cool. But it had lost its appeal once he'd met Vienna and realized he could get that same high with her without any of the nasty side effects.
But he didn't have Vienna now. He just had this. So he drank a little more.
Eventually, he found himself seated on Ethan's brother's lumpy couch, surrounded by people he didn't know. Sitting there like he was just one of them, like he was just normal….it felt like a relief and a betrayal all at once. He had his head tilted back, eyes shut, allowing the good feelings to keep him floating above the crowd. That's when he heard it.
Vienna's laugh.
His eyes snapped open and he sat upright, chest heaving. He looked around. People were draped over furniture, laughing in little groups, holding their red cups and bottles with relaxed casualness. Zander had almost accepted it as a hallucination, leaning back against the cushions, when he heard it again.
He was on his feet this time, walking towards the sound. Down the hallway. She was here. She was here. He knew it, knew she was alive, knew he would find her —
It wasn't her.
It was some girl with light brown hair, falling back on a bed in one of the bedrooms as she made out with some guy. She giggled again. Now that he was looking at the source of the sound, Zander didn't know how it ever sounded like Vienna. The girl wrapped her arms around the guy's neck and kissed him deeply.
The room spun a little. Done. Done. Good times over. All of a sudden, Zander felt the need to get out of the house like a man fleeing a burning building. His feet pounded the floor, the screen door slamming behind him as he left without a word to Ethan or anybody else.
The roads were dark and empty. Zander clutched the wheel, leaned forward in the driver's seat. It was okay if the lines on the road seemed to swim a little. He'd driven here a hundred times. He'd just take the turns extra slow. Nothing he couldn't handle.
Before he knew it, Zander was in the driveway. He leaned back in his seat, blinked. That felt….quicker than it should have.
Whatever. At least he'd made it.
For a moment, he felt some sort of primal urge to scream, to howl like a wolf at the moon. But he was mostly just tired. So he numbly turned off his car and weaved his way to the front door.
Keys fumbled in Zander's hand until he managed to get one into the lock, turning it with some effort and stepping inside. He expected to find the first level of the house empty, but as he stepped inside he saw Tiffany sitting at the table with her glasses on, face lit by the blue glow of her laptop screen.
Zander froze for a moment. "I didn't know anyone was up still."
"It was going to be me or mom and dad waiting up, so count your blessings," Tiffany muttered, barely looking up from the screen.
Well, there was no hiding it. And he was nearly twenty-one years old, what could she expect? Zander closed the door behind him and staggered into the house, the lack of light making him even more unsteady on his feet than the drink alone. He cursed under his breath as he bumped into the table, and Tiffany glanced at him with a smirk.
"Seems like you had a good night."
"Whatever," he grumbled, throwing his keys down on the table. Tiffany's eyes followed them, widened with realization. She turned in her seat and pulled back the curtain to see his car in the driveway.
"God, Zander, don't tell me you drove like this?"
Oh great, a lecture. She didn't exactly have her life together, either. "I was the only one on the road, it's fine."
"Don't be an idiot." Tiffany's voice shook a little and her eyes pierced him with accusation that sent a jolt of defensiveness through him. "You could have killed yourself."
"There are worse things," Zander muttered. He knew that now.
The words seemed to take fire out of Tiffany. She leaned back in her chair as if deflated. "Zander… you're going through so much. I know that." Her voice was unbearably soft. "But you can't be so reckless. You need to try to help yourself out, you know? I mean… this was seriously dangerous. You're starting to scare us."
Something about the way she spoke, tender and careful, so very un-Tiffany, rattled him. Like he needed to be coddled by her. Like he hadn't been carrying the burden of all this family's shit on his back for years.
"Yeah, well. Learned from the best, didn't I?"
The words landed like a slap. Silence stretched, both of them caught in it — both thinking of the times when Tiffany’s pain had nearly swallowed the whole family.
He knew immediately he'd gone too far, but pride and anguish knotted the apology in his throat. He stayed frozen, hands curling at his sides. He waited for her to snap back, to validate his words with her own ricocheting anger.
Tiffany’s mouth opened, then closed again. She turned without another word and walked away, her footsteps soft on the stairs until the house was quiet again. The silence was worse than any scream.
Zander sank into a chair at the table, pressing his palms into his eyes. All he could see was Vienna’s smile. All he could hear was his own voice: There are worse things.
****
The house felt too small the next day. He stayed in his room almost the entire time, just waiting for his parents to come in, to confront him about driving drunk last night. But they didn't. Tiffany must not have told them.
It made the regret of what he'd said to her sting even sharper.
Zander saw her once, in the hallway while he was trying to silently go downstairs to grab a snack. He stopped in his tracks, opened his mouth to speak, but she just brushed by him, face hard.
Back in his room, Zander flopped on his back on the bed, snack discarded, appetite gone. The only sound he could hear was the ticking of his clock. Jesus Christ, he couldn't do another fucking day like this.
That night, he packed a small bag for the next day, looked up the route to Lakewood on his phone. He had to get out of this house. Just for a little while. Just for the day.
He rose early, quietly, not wanting to have to explain himself in person to his parents or sisters. Maybe a chance to breathe would help. He was just about to make it out the front door when—
"Where are you going?"
Lauren looked younger than her fourteen years, standing on the stairs still in her pajamas. She was wearing slippers adorned with little smiley faces. Zander's hand twitched on his backpack strap.
"Out for the day."
"You'll be back, right?"
"Of course I'll be back, I just need a day to myself." Zander was fighting the urge to roll his eyes until he saw the look on his little sister's face. Her eyes were filled with tears.
"Lauren — hey." He crossed to her, went up a couple steps to wrap her in his arms. "I'll be back. Everything's fine."
She'd been through too much already. The cancer, treatments, their parent's constant hovering and dysfunction, Tiffany's ups and downs, and now this. Her brother being a selfish, cracked up pain in the ass.
"I promise, okay?" He leaned back a bit, catching a tear in on his thumb like he had when they were kids on the playground. "I'm gonna go….for a drive. Visit Lakewood. Then I'll be back before bed."
He held out his pinky with an overly solemn face, and Lauren finally cracked a smile. Her pinky hooked around his, and Zander made sure not to show a trace of heartache on his face.
****
It was about a two hour's drive to Lakewood. Typically, Zander would pass the time by listening to music, a podcast — but everything that came on the radio seemed to either piss him off or make the most pathetic tears swell in his eyes. He kept jabbing at the skip button before finally shutting the damn thing off and driving in silence.
Where exactly he was headed, Zander wasn't quite sure. There wasn't exactly a plan for the day. Just a burning, pressing need to feel closer to Vienna, somewhere in Lakewood. Whether that meant at the library, the quad, or in town, he didn't know. He'd figure it out when he got there.
And that's how he found himself parking in front of the investigation headquarters.
He turned his car off. It was stupid. Last time he'd seen most of the jackasses sitting in this building, they'd been convinced he'd done something to Vienna.
His feet carried him through the front doors. This was so, so dumb. As if there was anything he could even do here.
He walked up to the front desk, an officer waiting. Seriously, what was he even looking for?
"I'm here to see Agent Miller."
A trickle of sweat ran down his back. He hadn't expected those words to come out of his mouth. But oh well, there they were.
The officer was saying something quietly into the phone, paging Miller, he assumed. Or Carver, to put him under arrest once and for all. He'd wait and see.
Miller came into the lobby a few minutes later, a curious, expectant look on his face.
"Zander — what's up? I didn't know you were in the area."
"I just - just wanted to see if there were any updates."
Miller eyebrows went up, expression suddenly sharp."Why? Is there something we should know?"
"No. I —" I feel like a failure. I feel like I'm drowning. I think I might just be the world's worst brother. If I imagine the look on Tiff's face one more time, I think I might snap. Next time my dad acts like nothing happened, I'm going to fully lose it. My only lifeline vanished into fucking thin air. I can't live the rest of my life like this. The walls are pressing in. Is it just me, or is every day a little hotter? "I just can't be home right now."
Zander's face burned a little at the admission, but he the only thing more pathetic would be trying to take it back, so he stood his ground, looking at Miller.
The agent paused for a long moment, face inscrutable. "Do your parents know you're here?"
Is he serious? "What does that matter? I'm legally an adult."
That earned Zander a look that seemed to pierce right through his defenses. "I'm sure you understand why it matters."
Zander flushed further, abashed. "They don't know I'm here, technically. But I told them I was coming down to the Lakewood area for the day. So they know enough."
"Mm." Miller just hummed. He studied Zander for another moment, then jerked his head back in the direction he'd come from. "Come in in. I'll see what I can do."
****
Zander sat stiffly in the chair Miller had pointed him toward, staring at the scuffed linoleum floor. He was half-convinced Miller would come back, tell him to go home, and that this whole thing had been a mistake.
Instead, Miller returned with a file folder and a thin stack of glossy papers. He dropped them onto the desk between them.
“No new updates I can share,” Miller said, sitting across from him. “But I do have something you can help with. If you’re serious about not wanting to go home.”
Zander’s head snapped up. “I am.”
“Good.” Miller slid the papers toward him — missing person flyers, Vienna’s face staring up from each one. “Half the time, people take these and pin them to a bulletin board. The other half, they toss them before they leave the building. I need them folded into thirds so they’re easy to hand out. Neat, no crumpling.”
Zander blinked. “You want me to….fold flyers?”
“Don’t knock the small stuff,” Miller said. His tone wasn’t mocking — just steady, matter-of-fact. “Cases are built on it. You want to help? Start here.”
It wasn’t what Zander had imagined the rest of the summer — he’d pictured something dramatic, some hidden clue only he could provide — but his hands moved automatically, crease by crease. The rhythm steadied him. For the first time in days, his mind wasn’t racing.
After a while, Miller leaned back in his chair, watching. “Not bad. Clean lines. Patience. That’ll come in handy someday.”
Zander huffed. “For folding paper?”
“For more than paper.” Miller’s mouth twitched — something between a smirk and a knowing smile. He didn’t elaborate, but the words lodged in Zander’s chest.
By the time Zander left that evening, a neat stack of flyers sat boxed by the door. Miller walked him out of the building. As Zander turned to say something — he didn't know what; thanks, sorry, can I come back next week? — Miller spoke first.
"You gonna be okay at home? Safe?"
"Yeah." Zander nodded fervently. "Yeah. Nothing like that. Just…needed a minute to breathe."
"You were good help. I appreciated it. You know where to find me, alright?"
Zander nodded, throat suddenly tight. He lingered for a moment before deciding he couldn't quite speak right now, and just gave Miller an awkward wave as he opened his car door.
Sweet summer air blew through the open windows as Zander drove home. He’d barely done anything — and yet, driving back home, he felt less useless than he had since Vienna disappeared.
The kitchen lights were on when he got home. Zander could see his family sitting around the table, no different than how he'd left them. He took a deep breath. Reminded himself of the gentle rhythm of folding the flyers. And went back inside.
Life now held patterns, but no predictability. Vienna did all she could to hold onto some sense of meaning in her days, stick to some sort of vague schedule that helped time make sense, held her sense of self together when it felt close to shattering entirely. But Alec always had some way of knocking her off balance, of reminding her that any feeble control she thought had over things was just that. Weak. Thin. Breakable.
One of the most common ways he did that was by coming down to the basement drunk.
The first time, she'd dared to hope. The way he stumbled into the room, eyes glassy, reeking of alcohol, made Vienna wonder if this was her chance. If he'd be clumsy, thoughtless, make some sort of mistake that would allow her to escape.
But that was never the case. Being drunk made Alec erratic, but never careless. Not about something, as he often told her, he'd worked so hard for. If anything, it just accentuated the most frightening parts of him.
Sometimes he'd come down drunk and mean. His words were jagged glass, his hands rougher than usual, even when she didn't resist. He called her names that stuck in her ears long after he stumbled upstairs again, left her bruised and trembling, braced for the next round. Those nights, she could almost predict the storm: bottle in hand, slurred accusations, rage looking for a target. And her, the only thing standing there.
Other times, he came down drunk and soft. That was worse.
He would drop onto the bed beside her, arm flung heavily across her stomach, face nuzzled into her hair. “You’re mine,” he’d murmur, sloppy and sing-song, demanding kisses that made her skin crawl. When she tried to resist, he’d whine like a child until she gave in, terrified he’d turn sharp in an instant. He often did.
And a couple times — just once or twice — he'd cried. Really cried. His head in her lap, words tumbling out in an incoherent mess about being unappreciated, unknown, unrecognized. About how nobody saw him the way she did. She’d sit frozen, hands hovering over his shaking shoulders, hating him and hating herself more for the way she sometimes pitied him in those moments. A larger part of her, though, wanted to shove him away, wanted to scream, You are! You're pathetic!
But some primal force in her, instinctual and intuitive, knew that she couldn't. She'd sit there, still and silent like a prey animal, knowing that acknowledging his vulnerability in any way could only make him more dangerous. He never mentioned these occasions later, and she didn't know if he'd forgotten it in his drunken haze or just refused to bring it up.
The worst part was, she never knew which version would stumble through the door. Angry Alec, clingy Alec, sobbing Alec — all of them dangerous in their own way. She learned to read the tilt of his shoulders, the glassiness of his eyes, the first words out of his mouth like weather signs, trying desperately to prepare herself.
But it didn’t matter. He always changed direction without warning. She could never be ready.
So Vienna learned the only rule that mattered: never let your guard down. Not even when he was slurring, not even when he seemed half-asleep, not even when he was laughing like they were sharing some private joke.
Especially then.
All her senses were attuned, so much so that on this night, she heard him coming from the first step.
Her chest tightened. Drunk again. She could hear it in the stagger of his steps, the sloppy rhythm that made her skin crawl before he even entered the room.
Vienna's body locked up as he swung the door wide and stumbled in, grinning like he owned the air. His shirt was already half-unbuttoned, a bottle dangling from his hand. The sour stench of liquor hit her throat.
“Hey, sunshine,” he slurred, collapsing onto the bed and slinging an arm around her shoulders. His body was too hot, his laughter sloppy. “Miss me?”
She said nothing. She had learned silence could sometimes keep him steady, like not jostling a glass already overflowing.
But he noticed. He always noticed.
“No hello? No smile?” His voice dropped, suddenly sharp. His hand dug into her arm. “You ungrateful little bitch.”
Her stomach flipped. She forced her lips to move. “Hi.”
For a moment, he studied her — then just as quickly, the anger evaporated. He laughed, pressing a sloppy kiss to her temple. “There she is. Knew you loved me.”
Vienna’s heart pounded. It was like walking on ice, never sure when it would crack and pull her under.
His hand trailed down her side, fingers fumbling against her clothes, pulling, tugging. “Soft little thing,” he murmured. “You never do get used to this, do you? So tense. So fun."
And then, just as her body began to uncoil — smack. His palm cracked against her cheek. The world flashed white.
“Look at you,” Alec sneered, laughing again. “Crying already? I barely touched you.”
Her ears rang. She tasted blood on her lip.
He yanked her chin, forcing her gaze to his, his pupils wide and glassy. “You thought nothing would ever touch you, didn't you? Never thought someone like me was waiting. Watching.”
Vienna squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could vanish into the mattress, into the dark. But he was still there — his weight, his heat, his voice slurring against her skin, weaving tenderness and cruelty together so tightly she couldn’t tell them apart anymore.
And that was the worst part: not knowing which touch was coming, only that it would.
The sting in her cheek still burned when Alec’s mood swerved again. He laughed, brushing his thumb over the red mark like it was something precious, like he had crafted it just for her.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. “My beautiful little canvas.”
Vienna’s stomach churned. She could feel the shift — the way his weight pressed heavier against her, the way his grin softened into something more deliberate. His hand wandered lower, clumsy but certain.
No.
Her chest seized. She knew that tone, that look. Even drunk, even more so because he was drunk, this was the part that always followed. The part she couldn’t fight, couldn’t outrun.
A tremor shot through her body. She swallowed hard, willing herself to stay silent, but a broken sound slipped from her throat.
Alec caught it instantly. He grinned wider, triumphant. “There it is. That little whimper. I swear, I could live off that sound.”
Her skin crawled. She turned her face away, staring at the wall, at the chip in the paint she had memorized a hundred times already. If she focused hard enough, maybe she could go somewhere else. Anywhere else.
But he wouldn’t let her. He never did. His hand forced her chin back. “Don’t hide from me. You know I like watching your eyes when I take what’s mine.”
The room tilted, too hot, too close. Vienna’s pulse hammered so fast it hurt. She hated how her body shook, how helplessly it betrayed her terror.
And beneath it all was the crushing weight of inevitability.
Because he was drunk, unpredictable, violent — but this part? This part was always the same.
***
Alec shifted against her, groaning like a man after a feast. His weight still pressed down, every inch of him heavy and hot, as though he were branding her into the mattress.
“God…” he breathed, nuzzling into her shoulder. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
His arm slung lazily across her stomach, trapping her even though she hadn’t dared move. She stared straight ahead, face damp with tears, every muscle aching from holding herself rigid.
He tilted his head up, studying her. She felt his eyes crawling over her face even though she refused to look back.
“You’re so quiet tonight,” he muttered, voice thick with liquor. “Not as fun when you don’t fight me.” His fingers brushed her cheek, clumsy and almost tender, except for the way her skin crawled under it. “Still….you look so pretty wrecked like this. My pretty girl.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, bile rising in her throat.
For a moment she thought he might finally roll away, stumble upstairs, leave her in the silence she craved. But instead, Alec shifted again, tugging at the blanket until it half-covered them both. He let out another sigh, content.
“I think I’ll stay here tonight,” he said, almost offhand, like it was a kindness. “Don’t want to miss you if I wake up.”
Her chest seized. No. No, she needed a minute to just breathe….
She swallowed hard, fighting the rising panic. His breathing began to steady, already sinking toward sleep, while hers raced like she was drowning. The sour reek of alcohol, of him, clung to her hair, her skin. Every place he touched burned with the certainty he wasn’t going anywhere.
The thought of hours — long, endless hours — pinned beneath his presence made her stomach twist until she thought she might choke.
She wanted him gone. She wanted to claw herself out of her own body just to be anywhere else.
But Alec only hummed softly, nestling closer, as if he belonged there. The night stretched out in front of her, impossibly long.
***
Vienna lay there, staring at the wall. She didn't know how many hours it had been — just that the sick warmth of Alec was still next to her. Asleep, thankfully, from the way his chest rose and fell, the soft snores rumbling from his chest. So relaxed. So at ease. All while every muscle in her body clenched so hard it hurt. She'd been able to worm herself away from him just enough to avoid touching him, and even that felt like the world's greatest gift.
She wondered, for the millionth time, how this had become her life. The last moments of normalcy played in her head in a loop, haunting her. Chatting playfully with Abigail in the library. Talking with her mom on the phone. Texting Zander.
God, it hurt to think about. To think that they were probably replaying the same moments in their minds. Because the what-ifs were just too strong. What if she had hung back in the library with Abi? What if she'd stayed on the phone with her mom? What if she'd gone to meet Zander instead of head back to her dorm?
Any scrap of a chance at things turning out differently, Vienna clung to. There must be a world where this never happened. She tried to count in her head how long it had been. She knew she was kidnapped on May 9. The television helped her keep careful track of the time, so she knew in the morning, it would be June 14. She swallowed thickly. Over a month….
Wait. A month. A month.
A sick, dizzying feeling hit Vienna over the head like a cinderblock. Time seemed to move so differently here, she was so focused on surviving day to day, she'd barely thought about it….
Her hand went automatically to her stomach, as if she could have felt something growing there already. The urge to vomit surged hot and fast, and she had to stare up at the ceiling, take in shaky breaths to calm herself.
No. Not possible. It couldn't be.
She had stopped keeping track of the number of times he'd assaulted her somewhere after twenty. It had started to become too unbearable, too surreal. But she did know that in all those times, he'd never used protection, not once. Never seemed worried about it in the slightest. What were the odds of it not happening at any given day over the past five weeks?
Her mind spun furiously. There was no good option, nothing that guaranteed her safety. But it had been a while since anything had. She dared to look over at Alec, sleeping peacefully. It was better to get it over with, not live with the anxiety choking her any longer than necessary. In the morning, she would say something. Even if it made her heart sink with dread.
***
Like all things that are looked upon with trepidation, the morning came much too soon. The windowless room made it hard to tell, but Alec stirred, glanced at the clock, then sat up and stretched. Vienna lay still, calculating: he didn't seem too hungover, so maybe he wouldn't be in a bad mood. But at the same time, it was a Saturday, he would probably be down here most of the day —
His hand clamped down on her arm. She froze.
"Wake up. Or don't, I really don't care."
It was quick this time. That's all she could really say.
After he was done, Alec got up, the mattress finally creaking as his weight came off it. Left her shivering form in bed as he got dressed. Vienna watched him carefully, like he was a bomb that might off if handled incorrectly.
These in-between moments always felt like a trap: if she stayed in the bed, it felt like an invitation for him to return. But sometimes movement alone could spark his appetite again, encourage him to drag her out to the main room for something even worse. She compromised by sitting up but keeping the covers wrapped around her body like a shield. Alec moved through the small room without a care in the world, filling up a glass of water in the sink, throwing it back like another shot of liquor.
Now was a good a time as any. At least right now he was….satisfied.
"Can I ask you something?" Vienna tried to keep the tremble out of her voice.
"You can ask," Alec replied, looking at her curiously as he refilled his cup in the sink.
"Do you remember….that second day? When you were asking me all those questions? And you —"
"Oh, I definitely remember that day." His smile was sharp, all teeth.
Vienna let the wave of disgust roll through her as she paused, not daring to talk over him. When it looked like he'd just wanted to taunt her, she forced her throat to unlock and continued, "You asked me if I was taking any medicines. And I said birth control and vitamins. And you got me the vitamins, but you never…." She was too afraid to finish the sentence. Too afraid to voice it into reality.
"What do you need birth control for? You afraid you might be pregnant?"
Vienna's breath caught in her throat at how easily he named it, and Alec cocked his head with a grin, attention fully on her now.
"That's right. You haven't had a period at all, have you?"
And there it was. Dread threatened to overtake her, but she shoved it away, tried to stay calm, not get him worked up. Vienna forced herself to nod, the smallest movement, watching for any sign in his face of what might come next. But he was, to her surprise, still smiling.
"Well, this is no good, little girl. Unless you want to have my baby?"
Her stomach lurched. "No."
"Then we've got to think of a way to take care of this." He leaned back against the kitchenette counter, not seeming worried at all. "Easiest way would be to beat it out of you. See how many kicks to the stomach that takes. Could throw you down the stairs a few times." Vienna shrank in her spot instinctively. He seemed to be reveling in the thought of hurting her, and she knew by now he had no problem doing it for real.
"Or," Alec continued louder, "a week without food might do it. Could also be interesting to see how much alcohol you need to down to kill it."
The images forced themselves into Vienna's brain before she could stop them, and when Alec made a move towards her, she couldn't help it: she let out a strangled scream and scurried backwards on the mattress. He stopped. Laughed out loud.
"Jesus, little girl — I'm kidding." He laughed again, a full body sound that made everything in Vienna recoil. "You are not pregnant. No, baby, I plan ahead. Got a vasectomy a long time ago. Shooting blanks. If anything," he smirked, looking over her terrified form with satisfaction, "your body's just so stressed out it's not working properly anymore."
He stepped closer again, voice practically a purr. "I've got that effect on you, don't I?"
Vienna wanted to deny it. But the fact that she could sleep entire days away, never had a true appetite, the fact that her body could now endure extremes she never would have imagined….her period going away from stress didn't seem so far-fetched. And it was certainly better than the alternative.
"Are you sure?" She hated how small her voice was. Hated that she had to ask him for reassurance.
Alec saw it and patted her cheek with condescending comfort. "Don't worry. I've always had lots of plans for you, little girl, but raising a family is not one of them."
Vienna grimaced and instinctually flinched away from his touch. A smile twitched at his lips.
"No. That's not in the cards for you anymore. You've got one job now. And you just get better and better at it."
He was still chuckling when the door closed behind him.
Vienna tried not to gag as his voice rang in her head. It's not my job. It's not. My job is to survive.
Her hands shook. Her face was flushed with humiliation, though she couldn't even pinpoint exactly why. She just felt….small. Stupid. Naive. Worthless. Gross.
That was it, more than anything. Even the idea that she could be….that he could've…..
She pressed the pillow against her face, hard. For half a second she wondered if she could just smother herself.
But no. Because at the end of the day, it wasn't just about her, was it?
Vienna let their faces and names flash through her head. Mom. Dad. Zander. Abi. Daniela. Kaya. And on and on…..
I'm not just a toy to them. Not a thing to use. I'm Vienna. I can still be Vienna.
Time seemed to blur after that. It became something somehow both sticky and fluid, grounding Vienna with unbearable awareness to the present while also slipping through her fingers faster than she could catch it. She kept track of it through the clock, the television, the tiny windows in the main room of the basement when he took her out for those extended sessions. More than once, Vienna had caught herself admiring the quiet beauty of dust floating in the small rays of sun, as if it could take away from Alec grunting and panting on top of her at the very same moment.
Time was easily lost in those early days, when Vienna didn't realize yet what a tether to sanity it was. Entire days could be slept away, her mind and body giving into the numb oblivion they so desperately craved until she was roused by the sound of his footsteps coming down the stairs. Sometimes after he left, she'd be so enveloped by panic that she could spend hours sobbing and gasping for breath without any notion of how many minutes had passed.
Some mornings she clung to the idea that maybe he would kill her after all — the thought came with a guilty rush of relief, though she hated herself for wanting it. Other mornings she willed herself to be numb, to drift somewhere outside her body, because that was the only way to survive his hands, his words, the endless cycle. It didn't work nearly as often as she wanted it to.
Survival meant she had to learn a new language. One she never wanted to know — Alec's. Not in the way of words, necessarily, but of footsteps, of tone, of actions. She learned to brace herself for anger and fists when his feet came down the stairs hard. She learned when it was okay to push back at him, when it would amuse him, and when it would just earn her punishment. But sometimes it felt like it was a learning curve she could never catch up to.
The energy in the air changed before she could even blink. One moment they were sitting, almost normal, as he ranted about his day — and then he was on her, yanking her hair, pinning her wrists, pulling at her clothes. "Wait — wait —" she cried, completely caught off guard. He didn't care. He shoved her face into the mattress, muffling her scream as he tore into her with no preparation. Panic spiked as she couldn't breathe for a moment, and she gasped for air as he flipped her over. But it was only to shove into her again, hands holding her in place as he forced a suffocating kiss onto her lips.
The weekends were different.
There was no clock to count down, no sound of him leaving for work in the morning. He stayed. Hours stretched and folded in on themselves, and she stopped trying to guess how long it had been.
What lingered with her was the way he seemed almost lighthearted. He laughed easily, whistled under his breath, narrated his own enjoyment as if he were sharing a private joke. The sound of her crying never slowed him down. If anything, it seemed to give him more energy.
What unnerved her the most was that nothing about it felt secret or shameful to him. He wasn’t hiding. He wasn’t angry. He was having fun. And she was the toy — not just her body, but her mind, too.
He was making noises deliberately to humiliate her. She knew that. She knew that. But still, Vienna couldn't help but grimace and choke out a sob as Alec moaned, the sound reverberating against her chest. His mouth made a sloppy smacking sound against her skin, and she felt nauseous. "P-please just stop —" she tried to beg, and the groan turned into an outright laugh. "Stop? Oh, sweetheart. Hours before that word matters. I’ll enjoy every second. And it's not like it hurts this time, right?" His hand wedged between their hips, to the stickiness on them both, and shame surged so hot another sob burst out. He laughed again, a grotesque loop as he lowered his lips back to her skin. Every movement was excruciatingly slow, giving them both time to drink it all in.
The television, of all things, became her lifeline. Its flickering light and constant hum were a poor substitute for company, but it was better than silence. She watched everything — sitcoms, game shows, sports, documentaries, infomercials she could recite by heart. For a few hours each day, she could pretend she was somewhere else, anywhere else. The news was harder. She was hit with something that was equal parts dread and longing when her name came up. If he knew it was coming, Alec would invariably be in the basement to watch with her — watching the reporters talk about her “mystery disappearance,” watching her parents’ pleas for answers, watching her watch it all.
He loved boasting about how lost the authorities were, how he'd outsmarted them all. He'd sprinkle in memories of watching Vienna before she'd ever known he existed — so many instances she never knew about, she thought he must be lying, but then he'd drop in a detail, a gut punch that told her it must be true. How she bit her lip while she studied in the library. How she'd worn a blue and green sundress to Zander's last basketball game. How she'd dropped her books one time in the cafe and she and Abi had both bent down to pick them up. Every last thing he'd imagined. And how he could do it all now.
SMACK. SMACK. SMACK. Alec was hitting her hips again and again, in time with his thrusts, and Vienna was sure her skin must be glowing bright red by now. "Please - it h-hurts-" Vienna gasped, stumbling over her words as she realized the admission would just spur him on. And it did. "Good!" he snarled, slapping her again and then holding onto the red flesh, digging his nails into her. "I can beat you black and blue, bitch. All while you fucking beg me to stop."
She quickly learned that for Alec, it wasn't just about the sex. Not only that, anyway. It was about him reveling in his complete control over her, breaking her down over and over, doing whatever he pleased that pushed her to that space that left her crying, begging, screaming.
The rapes almost always brought those reactions out, except on the rare, blessed occasions she was able to dissociate the entire time. But Alec seemed to like to switch things up. Some days he seemed more interest in maximizing any type of violation for her, whether he got physical pleasure from it or not. Other times, it was all about the pain. Vienna began to have visceral reactions whenever he approached the closet doors in the main room, knowing exactly what its doors held. Minutes and sometimes even hours would drag, his laughter and taunts mingling with her cries and pleas like it was the most natural thing in the world. And it always had the same ending: Alec dragging her to one of the beds, or set of restraints, or even just the floor to cap off the day.
Oftentimes, his words were the worst - crude, mocking, smug, unbearably satisfied. They wormed their way into Vienna's head more deeply than any physical torment, ringing in her ears long after he'd left.
"Tastes perfect, feels perfect…. just like I imagined. God, it's like you were made for me." She felt his breath against her skin, making her feel trapped in ways the restraints never could. A sob ripped from her throat, legs shaking, trying to close, and his laugh vibrated between her legs. "That's right. Just like that. Let's see how much more you can take."
At the end of the day, it was hard to decide what was the most painful. Being torn from her loved ones, being treated like nothing more than a plaything, the physical intensity she was forced to endure again and again. But it may have been the way Alec crushed what she knew of the world beneath his fingers. The way he reacted to her tears, her fear, her pain with pure delight shocked Vienna every time, each laugh and taunt made the world shake around her. She had never known a person could be this way.
During the most intense moments, when his laughs and taunts bounced off the walls amidst her screams and pleas, she had trouble reconciling that it was her own voice mixing with his. It sounded nothing like her own, more like a clip from a horror movie, a scene taken from a nightmare. And she knew he loved that.
It was like being buried alive, over and over and over again, and still somehow waking up the next morning. Truthfully, she had no idea how she survived it. The simplest answer was that she had no other choice.
She tried to plead, to beg, but her words slurred with exhaustion. Her throat was raw from screaming, and still he demanded more. “Beg louder,” he growled happily against her. “I want to hear you choke on it. Tell me how bad you want me to stop.”
“I can’t — I c-can’t —” she sobbed, her voice barely there.
“Yes, you can. You can, and you will. You’ll do it all day long for me, little girl.”
One thing became clear: Vienna's life was not her own anymore. She fought the idea that it was ruled by Alec — by his moods, his hands, his visits — but every day he seemed committed to driving her deeper into despair, into helplessness. An average day before might have been going to class, eating a meal with Zander, watching TV with Abi. Now, it was anticipating footsteps above her, counting the minutes until his weight shifted off her, singing songs or sketching landscapes in her head to try and push through the pain and pure violation that had become her daily life.
It was mornings like this. Alec had come down for his usual visit before work. He was in a good mood today, practically giddy, but it didn't make things any better for her. No, instead it meant he wanted to play a game: forcing her to beg for him to stop before clapping his hand over her mouth again and again, enjoying the way her words got muffled against his palm.
"Try again." He grinned, rocking his hips. Humiliated tears streamed from Vienna's eyes as she stammered, "P-please - please stop - it's almost been an hour, you're going to be late for work, please just — mmph!"
Alec laughed, an ugly, delighted sound. "Ohh, I'd be pretty unhappy with that. And you'd be to blame, wouldn't you? You better help me finish quick."
He moved off of her then, took his hand off her mouth, but there was no relief. She knew by now what those words meant.
Ten minutes later, he was finally getting dressed, splashing water on his face at the bathroom sink before heading off to work like nothing had happened. Vienna stayed curled on her knees, arms wrapped herself as the footsteps faded away above. Her new favorite noise sounded: the mechanical scrape of the garage door opening and closing overhead. He was finally gone for the day.
The basement was cold. Her body was wrung out, trembling with the raw, heavy weight of what had just happened. She hated that she could feel every trace of him lingering, that her muscles remembered in ways she didn’t want them to. She felt miserable, used up, like a shell of herself.
But after a few minutes, she took a breath. Sat herself up. At least it was a weekday. At least she had the blessed reprieve of Alec being gone for a few hours. At least her body had a moment to recover. She should take advantage.
The shower was scalding, how she liked it now. In her mind, she organized what her day would be like. Whether it was sane or insane, she couldn't tell, but she had started breaking her days down by hours, themes. Each hour correlated with someone from before. A reminder that life outside these walls existed.
Every morning after he was gone started with a mom hour. Vienna would take meticulous care of herself, even when she wanted to tear off her own skin. She would shower, gently brush her hair, sometimes braid it like her mother did when she was little. Then she'd wash the soiled sheets, remaking the bed with slow, deliberate care, no wrinkles. Clean the bathroom or kitchenette. Try to tell herself one kind thing her mom might say if she were here.
After that was a dad hour. She'd find something to eat, think about what she would have for lunch or dinner. It wasn't possible to really cook like her dad liked to — classic Filipino dishes or cozy baked goods weren't doable with the kitchenette — so oftentimes she'd just pretend, even narrating out loud as if she was on a cooking show. She ate slowly, mindfully, trying to notice flavors or textures she hadn't noticed before. Some days it all tasted like ash.
Next might come an Abigail hour. She'd watch TV. Vienna had almost laughed when she came up with this one, imagining Abi's playful indignation. What, that's the first thing that comes to mind?! But there was a comfort to it, a familiarity nothing else in the basement gave her.
Nearly every day, she did a Zander hour. She'd sit at the table and read, whatever Alec would give her. It didn't really matter what. What was more important was the steadiness of it, how much it reminded Vienna of Zander. Sometimes she'd try to imagine what he might say about a scene, or read a passage in his voice. Even more often she'd stroke her own hair while reading and try to imagine it was him.
And there were plenty of others, too. A Kaya hour — Vienna would do light exercises, trying to give her body some other function. A Daniela hour — she'd play cards by herself, make up new games. A Jay hour — she'd put a random sport on the TV and try to learn the rules.
Anything that made her feel human. Anything that kept her from thinking about what was coming again soon.
Because, without fail, the garage door would open again. Footsteps would descend the staircase. And it would start all over again.
Miller kept his eyes on his report, typing with one hand and taking a sip of coffee with the other. He tried not to grimace at the taste. The coffee had been sitting on his desk for at least an hour, but at this point caffeine was caffeine. Sleep was a luxury he hadn’t tasted in fourteen days.
Two weeks since Vienna DeNova vanished, and every agent in the field office had been running on fumes and adrenaline. Miller most of all.Every time he thought about taking a break, going home for a full night's sleep, the old adage rang in his head: every second counts.
Every second he wasn’t interviewing someone, combing camera footage, parsing phone records, chasing down a half-credible tip - that was a second Vienna spent alone with someone who meant her harm. That was the part people didn’t understand about this job: when things really hit the fan, the clock never stopped, not in your head. He’d been in the office since five this morning, pulling together his segment for the task force debrief. Miller would be going with the rest of the FBI team to meet with other law enforcement agencies involved in the case, to go over every last scrap of information they'd obtained so far. It wasn't much.
As he readied to print the report for his team, his phone rang. Miller froze, then grabbed the phone. With an active case, everyone knew to only call his direct line with something important.
"Miller, tell me what you've got."
"We've got someone on the phone asking for you specifically, but they won't give their name."
Miller raised his eyebrows. This could be something. "DeNova case?"
"They won't say, they just keep saying they need to speak to you."
"Send it through." Miller grabbed his notepad and pen. This could be it - if the kidnapper was going to reach out, it would make sense for them to try and contact him directly, given that he was portrayed as the lead investigator. These kind of perpetrators loved feeling like they had power, and negotiating with or even taunting high-ranking officials was certainly part of that.
"Alright, hang up and I'll send it through."
Miller set the phone down, buzzing with a kind of focused but excited energy. This moment was the reason this type of work was worth it - the moment where everything could shift into place, where he might be able to bring answers to all the people out there grieving, where he could maybe even bring Vienna home. At the very least, he might have some information to share at the cross-team debrief today.
But he had to play his cards right. The phone rang, and he took a steadying breath before picking it up. In a practiced, authoritative voice, he said, "This is Special Supervisory Agent Colton Miller."
"That's a tongue twister. Special Supervisory Agent. Say that three times fast."
All the adreneline drained out of Miller's body and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew this voice — knew the subtle slurring between words — and it had nothing to do with Vienna DeNova.
"Are you calling with information about a case?" Maybe he'd take the hint.
"Cole, dude, give it a rest. It's me!"
"I know who this is," Miller said through gritted teeth to his brother. "Jesus, Conor, why are you calling me at work? Do you have any idea what I'm dealing with right now?"
"Yeah, yeah, important shit as always, Fed." Conor's voice was dismissive, loose, and Miller could practically see him laid out on someone's couch, or a park bench, eyes glassy. He clenched the phone in his hand. "Can't a guy check in?"
Miller exhaled long out his nose. "I haven't heard from you in weeks. Where are you even calling me from?"
"Don't worry about it. Just trying to get back on my feet."
Shit. Here it came…
"Could use a little cash, honestly."
"Conor, you know I'm not going to do that." Miller fought to keep his voice firm. It was like fucking Groundhog Day.
The shift from lightheartedness to anger was nearly instant. Miller knew it was coming, but he still shook his head, jaw locked, as Conor responded. "Oh, okay. I get it. Big Special Agent Miller, so important, saving the world, can't even help his own brother? Doesn't give a fuck if I'm sleeping on the streets?"
"You know that's not it." Miller had to consciously loosen his grip on the phone. "If what you need is a place to stay, come stay with me. I'm hardly ever home now, anyway."
"I'm not asking for a babysitter," Conor spat. Then his tone shifted into something almost pleading. "Come on. I'm good for it. Just like…a couple hundred. To get me by."
"I'm not giving you money just so you can shoot it up your arm."
The response was so predictable Miller could have scripted it himself - a loud curse, and then the line went dead. Miller set the phone back down carefully, as if one wrong move would make it explode. He sighed heavily and scrubbed his hands over his face.
The words rang in his head: saving the world, can't even help his own brother….
Against his better judgment, Miller took out his wallet, looked at the picture inside. The photo itself, showing the two brothers, aged about 10 and 8, had to be thirty years old, but it felt like an ancient relic. Miller stared at it. The picture showcased their personalities, even then: he, Cole, was smiling stiffly at the camera, eyes serious, while Conor was all movement and energy, mouth open, hands flailing, eyes bright. Besides that, they were nearly identical: same dark skin, same short hair, same hand-me-down clothes.
When had their paths diverged so dramatically? Miller had tried to pinpoint it a thousand times, but never could. They'd grown up in that house together, weathered the ups and downs, the men who came in and out, but somehow ended up worlds apart. Maybe it had begun the first time Conor skipped class. Or the first time he snuck a bottle into his room, not even a teenager yet, to deal with the yelling and banging going on downstairs.
Maybe, the voice in Miller's head said slyly, not for the first time, it all started when his big brother left him to deal with it on his own.
A rap at the door drew him out of his reverie. It was Herring, of course, always keeping everyone on track and on time. "We should be leaving for the debrief at the command post in about ten minutes."
"Got it." Miller's voice was clipped as he snapped his wallet shut. There was work to do.
****
The command post was set up in one of the largest conference rooms on the Lakewood University campus. With the students gone for summer break and the crime scene only a short walk away, it was the closest thing to ideal. A central hub for everyone involved in the DeNova investigation - local PD, state police, the FBI, volunteers. In those chaotic first days, the room had overflowed with members of the community signing up for coordinated sweeps: the campus, nearby neighborhoods, the woods.
Every volunteer name had been recorded and run through the database. People liked to imagine civilian searches were about finding clues; really, they were just as much about flushing out egos. It wouldn’t have been the first time a perpetrator had joined the hunt for his own victim.
And it had yielded….nothing.
The word drilled itself into Miller's skull as he walked from the parking lot to the brick building. Nothing. He'd known going into this that clues were limited, but not being able to deliver a single true lead to the community, to Vienna's parents, was eating at him like something corrosive.
"Miller." Grant's voice caught him by surprise. He was lingering outside the door, smoking a cigarette. His one vice, apparently, that Miller had seen in ten years of working with him.
"Hey," Miller went to stand with him. "You supposed to be smoking on a college campus?"
"None of the kids are here, what do I care?"
Miller huffed a laugh. It was something he appreciated about his boss - like Miller himself, he didn't get too bogged down in policies or procedures if they weren't the best thing in the moment. He followed the line just enough to keep Herring sane and the team below the radar of the Bureau.
"Wanted to chat before we go in. None of the Lakewood guys are here yet," Grant was saying.
"Big surprise," Miller muttered, glancing at his watch. The meeting was set to start in four minutes.
"That's what I want to talk about," Grant said, though he grinned. "Those are our teammates, now, just as much as you and I are."
"I wouldn't take it that far," Miller objected. "That Detective Carter, all the guys on his team… it's not even incompetence. It's like negligence."
"Oh, I agree. Guy's more useless than tits on a warthog." Classic Grant-ism. "But it's not doing us any favors to be adversarial with them. At the end of the day, we all have the same goal — bring Vienna home — and that requires working together. You know that."
"Yeah. I know," Miller said begrudgingly.
Grant eyed him carefully for a moment, then asked, "You doing okay? This is a lot for all of us. Big spotlight. Nice family. I know I've been trying not to take it home."
"Fine," Miller replied, trying not to let his voice sound too clipped. He wasn’t about to unpack anything in a parking lot.
Grant gave him the same studying look and Miller just looked back, eyebrows slightly raised. Hoping his face wasn't betraying too much. The standoff lasted a few more seconds before Grant clapped him on the shoulder briefly.
"Alright then. Get in there, I'll be the welcome wagon for the rest of the team."
Miller nodded and went in immediately, glad not to be under the microscope of Grant's gaze any longer. They'd worked together a long time — long enough for Miller to watch the lines in Grant's face deepen and grey start to streak his curly brown hair, long enough that Grant had watched Miller rise to the rank he was at now — and sometimes that came with an uncomfortable familiarity. He didn't need to worry about his feelings right now. He needed to worry about the case, about Vienna.
The room was nearly full as Miller walked in. There was a quiet murmur of voices, a slight crackle of electricity that accompanied active cases. Like they all knew they could be on the precipice of something, but couldn't decide if it would be miraculous or catastrophic.
Herring was keeping herself busy as usual, making sure the projector was working, that there were pens on all the tables that had been pushed together to make one huge conference table. All the other FBI staff was already there, a few state officers, and — to Miller's surprise — a lone Lakewood cop. Donovan. The rookie.
"Thought you'd get here with the rest of your team." Miller pulled out a chair next to him, and Donovan shrugged.
"I've been doing campus rounds, so I was basically already here."
More like he actually cared about being on time. The two made small talk for a couple moments — the case, the weather, how much sleep they'd been getting — when Donovan turned a bit more serious.
"No one's said it, but I've kind of been wondering….is this going to start looking more like body recovery?" He paused, then just asked it outright. "Do you think she's already dead?"
"No." Miller's voice was firm. "Whoever took her planned this down to the detail - he wouldn't do all that just to kill her immediately. We're operating under the assumption that she's alive until we have reason to believe otherwise."
Donovan nodded slowly, taking in the information. "So…. what do you think she's going through right now?"
Miller was saved from having to answer as Herring settled near them, in a seat diagonally across from him. He gave her a nod. "Haven't seen much of you lately."
"I've been busy," she said shortly. Miller couldn't really blame her. She'd been working nonstop with the DeNovas as well as kids from campus. She was the one seeing the devastation this wrought the closest, and while she was alway the consummate professional, Miller could see it in the drawn look on her face.
The door banged open as the rest of the Lakewood PD arrived, led by Detective Carter. Miller immediately sat up straighter. Herring tightened her ponytail and composed her face. They exchanged a single, minute glance. They didn't always see eye to eye on everything, but there was a certain solidarity in being one of the only women or one of the only Black people in a room of white men.
And so it wasn't unexpected when Carter sat down, a fresh coffee in his hand like this was just a normal morning, and addressed Grant alone. "Good to see you, Agent. Is everyone ready?" Like he wasn't the one making them wait.
Grant, always the diplomat, didn't drop any of the barbs that Miller wished he would.
“We’re here to consolidate information and assign next steps. I know everyone’s frustrated, but we need to stay systematic.”
They went through the initial information — the last confirmed sighting of Vienna, her habits, that strange text message — and then onto evidence overview. There wasn't much.
The stretch of road her phone had been found on had no security footage. All they had was her leaving the library at the time her roommate had reported. Miller must have watched it a hundred times already, watching Vienna flounce down the stairs, phone in hand, no idea her life was about to change forever. Forensics found shoe prints and some fibers at the scene, but there was no way to verify who they belonged to, if they even had anything to do with the abduction.
Each sub-committtee presented their reports, with the same dull fog hovering over them: We're doing everything we can. But we haven't made much headway.
After the last team was finished, there was a heavy silence. Miller knew they were all thinking the same thing as him: there was achingly little to go on. Grant looked like he was about to speak and Miller was ready for whatever he had to say, any scrap of hope or motivation to keep them going.
But, of course, Carter spoke first.
"And we've really given up on the Zander Wright lead?"
Irritation flared in Miller's chest, and even Herring's head whipped towards the detective rather sharply. He knew what they were both thinking about: that poor kid, helpless and hysterical in the interrogation room. Before either of them could speak, Grant answered him, voice firm.
"We've established Zander Wright has nothing to do with this. We need to put our focus somewhere more productive."
"Well, then we need to be doing more than this." Carter gestured at the scant evidence board in exasperation. "We can't go up to the community and tell them we've got nothing. Next step's gotta be widen the search, right? Maybe we put out feelers for more released felons in the area. You wouldn't think it, but we have plenty of bad guys around here we could look further into. Burglars, drug users —"
"Drug users? Possession charges have nothing to do with abductions." Miller's voice was sharp. Too sharp. The look that Grant gave him was subtle to anyone else, but it immediately silenced Miller. He sat back in his seat, trying not to let the tension in his jaw show. Grant took over.
"I think you're both right. Expanding the search, absolutely - but we want to be purposeful. Petty crimes like drug use aren't likely to get us anywhere."
Grant began to go over the next phase of the investigation — collaborating with other disciplines like human trafficking prevention, fleshing out background information for persons of interest, canvasing wider areas with state PD — while Miller sat and stewed. Something about Carter, the way he spoke about people, really got under his skin. He thought about Zander at the station that day, lost, terrified, confused. About the way he spoke about the vigil. About how Conor had broken down and cried the first time he'd been arrested on a possession charge. I'm not a bad guy. I just don't know what else to do.
Nope. Focus. He turned his attention back to Grant.
"Meanwhile back at the ranch, we'll be establishing a more comprehensive profile for Vienna. Victomology, trying to see why someone might have chosen her to abduct. Agent Herring has spent hours talking with her family, her friends, her professors, so we've got a good start on that."
Grant's eyes swept over the room, at the dejected slump of some of the officers.
"I know we're all feeling the strain. It's never easy working a case with this many eyes on it and this few leads at the same time. But remember who we're doing this for." He gestured towards the wall, where there was a blown up photo of Vienna with her parents. "Try to block out any outside noise. This is about Vienna. The DeNovas. And we all know how tirelessly they've been working. Vienna is their only child —"
"Only living child," Herring corrected softly. The words didn’t linger long in the air, but they landed like a stone dropped in water - a small sound, widening into something heavy. "They had a stillbirth a couple years before she was born."
A few of the state officers shifted uncomfortably. Even Carter looked down.
Grant cleared his throat, pulling them all back to center. “Point is, we have places to go from here. We use everything we know to build the victimology. Someone chose her. Someone watched her. Someone planned this. Our job is to figure out why - and who.”
Miller straightened in his chair. The fatigue, the frustration, the weight of the last two weeks - it all sharpened into something hard and focused. The DeNovas had already buried one child. They were living every parent’s worst nightmare again, and as long as Vienna was out there somewhere, terrified and alone, Miller refused to give an inch to hopelessness.
Grant moved on to assigning the next tasks, voices rising again, papers rustling. But Miller barely heard any of it. His pen was already in his hand, already moving, already planning the next step, and the step after that.
Whatever it took, however long it took, he would not be the one to walk into that family’s living room and tell them they’d lost another child.
Driving away from Lakewood had felt like agony, like giving up on Vienna, leaving her to the nightmare that had swallowed their lives up. His parents had insisted he come home with them after the vigil, now that exams were finished, his classes complete, the basketball season long since over.
It had resulted in the first real fight he'd had with them in years. There had been shouting, tears, doors slammed, and both his mom and dad had seemed completely shocked. Zander could feel it, even then - the fracture splitting him down the middle, years of latent feelings started to leak out from the cracks. Anxiety. Frustration. Loneliness. Resentment. All the things he'd tried to shove down, to shield his parents from.
But all the energy he'd put into the facade was now invested in Vienna, and Zander found he didn't quite care what his parents thought. Only felt a small twinge of guilt at the flicker of pain on his mom's face when he told them there was no fucking way he was leaving without Vienna.
In the end, he'd had no choice. The dorms were closing for the summer. Every other student seemed to want to get out of Lakewood as fast as possible, Vienna's disappearance casting a dark shadow over the town. The only way Zander could have stayed, his father said in frustration, was if he was living on the streets.
He would have. But no one seemed to get that.
Packing up his room felt like one betrayal of Vienna after another with each suitcase and box filled, but one bright spot had come from it: he'd found, rolled up in his closet, a crewneck of Vienna's. It was periwinkle blue, soft and worn, the name of one of her favorite beach towns splashed along the front. She must have left it there at some point this semester, maybe after an afternoon study session or the sleepovers they liked to have when Zander's roommate was out. Zander had held the fabric to his face immediately, grief and solace colliding - it still smelled like her, like coconut shampoo and sleep.
Some of the FBI agents had been there, on move out day. Zander didn't know what exactly they were looking for. He felt a flare of irritation seeing them - what good were they doing, standing around watching everyone pack? What happened to the lead from the vigil? Why hadn't they found her yet?
As he got ready to haul out the last of his boxes, Zander realized Agent Miller was leaning in his doorway. He straightened immediately.
"Uh. Hey," Zander said awkwardly, unsure.
"Thought I'd come check in once more before you go," Miller replied, face inscrutable.
"…'kay." Zander waited for Miller to expand on that, but he didn't say anything. Just kept looking at him with that purposefully neutral expression on his face. Annoyance tugged at Zander's chest as he realized: Miller was drawing out the silence, hoping he'd fill it. With some feelings bullshit, probably. Tiffany talked about her therapist doing it. And now he was here getting it from a cop.
"You know, I'm fine," Zander snapped, hoisting the last two boxes up at once. Whatever got him out of here quicker. "And I'd feel a lot better if you were out there actually doing something."
Miller's expression didn't even flicker, and Zander's anger grew. He went to shove past him, get the boxes in his parents' car and get the hell out of here. As he did, Miller set a small business card on top of the boxes.
"I hear you. If you ever need anything —" He tapped the card — "just give me a call. I'm not gonna stop working until I find her, Zander."
Zander looked from the card up to Miller's face. Something in his steady brown eyes made Zander's throat ache.
"Whatever," he mumbled, and kept walking.
And now he sat in the backseat of his parent's car like a child, watching the highway blur through the window. He turned Miller's card over and over in his hand before folding it up and putting safely in his pocket.
***
Being home was as unbearable as he'd thought it would be. Time stretched, blurred, broke down. He spent it running, working, staring at his phone for hours on end, waiting for an update, a mention of Vienna's name, anything.
Exercise had always been an outlet for Zander, a way to stay in shape and to release some of the tension constantly simmering under the surface. Now, it felt like a lifeline. His feet would pound the pavement for miles, sweat pouring down his back, muscles burning, blood in his throat. Oftentimes he didn't even know where his legs were taking him, so focused on the thoughts swirling in his brain that he'd end up heaving for breath in some random parking lot or field.
He learned to run on trails, back roads. If Zander saw people out and about, just living their lives — walking the dog, running errands, smiling and chatting — it made the monster inside of him roar so loud he could scream. How everyone wasn't dropping everything to look for Vienna, scanning their surroundings at every second for signs of her, spiraling in fear and dread like he was… It was beyond his comprehension.
It wasn't as if people didn't know. Her face was everywhere. The juxtaposition of it was bizarre - to Zander, Vienna felt impossibly far away, almost like she was in another dimension, floating on the edges of the universe and always out of reach. At the same time, every day it seemed that her story was spreading farther. News segments airing about her "mystery disappearance," her face splashed up on billboards, reporters bombarding the social media of Zander and Vienna's friends with requests for comments or permission to use photos.
Vienna's parents worked tirelessly. The crack in their composure that Zander had seen the night of the vigil remained tucked away as the DeNovas seemed to dedicate every moment they had to the search, appearing on television, releasing statements, putting Vienna's face and name everywhere it could be seen. Zander had always admired Vienna's parents — he'd had several moments where he wished the calm, steady, loving family had been his own — but this was something else entirely. Their love for Vienna, their grief, burned so brightly it made his chest ache. And he wasn't the only one - he knew their dedication was the reason her story was spreading so far, the reason so many people were looking for her.
It made Zander feel proud. Hopeful….. Small. Ineffectual.
He'd always been anxious. He knew that. But Zander really thought, if a crisis came up, he'd rise to the occasion. After all, hadn't he kept it together through Lauren's chemo, through Tiffany's emotional ups and downs, through all the pressures and stressors of school? Yeah, stress might have been eating at him inside, but he carried it well. Was a good brother. Responsible son. Achieving student and athlete. Now it was like he was coming apart at the seams, unable to control his emotions, constantly one moment away from bubbling to the surface.
Every thought, every breath, was dedicated to Vienna. He constantly scrolled his phone for updates, kept it charged and on and in reach at all times, just in case the impossible happened and she somehow called him. Eating, sleeping, breathing all felt impossible - how could he possibly, when she was still out there? Alone somewhere, hungry or cold or scared. At best.
His nerves felt absolutely frayed from exhaustion, from grief, from dread. Every second without news about Vienna dragged endlessly, and as the days crept on he couldn't decide if the silence was a terror or a relief. Every time he saw a new mention of her name, his pulse skittered out of control - convinced he was about to find out that she was either rescued or dead.
When her parents had reached out to him, asking for any pictures or videos or stories of Vienna he'd be willing to share publicly, Zander had jumped at the opportunity do do something. Hours passed as he scrolled through his photos, captioning each photo and video with some context. Miller's words had rung in his head: you made her real….that makes a difference. That, at least, he could do.
There were hundreds of memories saved to his phone from the last two years. Zander took his time going through them, letting them all play through his mind no matter how it made his chest ache. The first batch were group photos from before he and Vienna had started dating, and it made him smile to see how they stood close to each other, shoulders or hands brushing, that coordinated dance when they were "just friends," the clumsy sweetness of it. He clutched her sweatshirt to his chest as he looked through the photos.
The jump when they started dating was obvious: there were tons of pictures of them together. Laughing in matching face paint at the Lakewood FallFest, study session selfies with exaggerated expressions of boredom, holding hot chocolate with pink noses and held hands clad in mittens,her arms thrown around him after another basketball win, posing together on hikes. There was even a selfie of them snuggled together in bed that Vienna had taken, which he chose not to send to her parents, but the memory pulled at something in his chest and he made sure it was saved. Each picture played out like a tiny movie in his brain, remembering the words exchanged, the feeling of her hand in his, the way his heart had swelled. By the time he got to the final photo — something totally random, Vienna smiling with an iced coffee and a peace sign at a campus cafe, neither of them realizing the enormity of the moment — the sky had gone from black to light blue to early morning grey. Zander sent off the final batch of pictures to Vienna's parents, a hollow feeling settling in his bones.
This couldn't be all there was. Pictures, memories, nothing more. Vienna was still out there. He could feel it. She was fighting. There were more memories to be had. He told himself it again and again, a frantic prayer, a desperate plea.
Not for the first time, he typed in the number from Agent Miller's card. He'd drafted a few messages over the last few days — Are there any updates? Why haven't we heard anything yet? There must be more I can be doing. Do you think she's even still out there?
He deleted them each time. Stupid. Like Miller didn't have enough going on. He, Zander, needed to figure this out on his own.
***
The smoothie shop had been his summer job last year, and Zander returned to it again this summer, despite how surreal life felt right now. It was, if nothing else, what he was used to during a crisis. Put on a brave face. Carry on. There was even a comfort in the rhythm in it, chopping ingredients, punching in orders, letting the loud whrrr of the blenders fill is ears. Easy.
Until he saw a girl with long dark hair. Or smelled coconut. Or heard a bubbly laugh. Then the world tilted, and he had to step to the back of the kitchen before anyone saw the look in his eyes.
Once, he'd been in the walk-in freezer, ready to grab another bag of ice, when a familiar tune floated over the speakers. He recognized the song from last summer, one that he'd found rather cloying and goofy until he'd heard it on the radio with Vienna.
Zander had been driving them back from a day at Abigail's parents' pool, all sun and laughter and warm feelings. When the song came on the radio, Zander groaned and reached for the dial, but Vienna had swatted his hand away.
"What are you doing?! This is our song!"
"This is our song?" Zander chuckled, looking at her sideways as he drove. "What makes it our song? The lyrics don't even make any sense."
"Doesn't matter. It makes me happy. That means it's our song."
"Can I pick another?" Zander asked with a lopsided grin.
"Hmm. Audition some for me."
And Zander had sung a medley of ridiculous songs for her, in increasingly high-pitched voices, as she doubled over laughing. Her hysterics were so contagious that he'd had to pull over the car as they both cackled, wiping tears from their eyes.
"See?" Vienna giggled, looking at him with eyes shining. "What other song could do that? It's definitely our song now."
By the time someone else had walked back to the freezer, the song was long over, but Zander still stood there replaying the moment in his head on a loop.
"Hey, man, we could really use some help up front - ah. Zander. You okay?"
The voice broke through the sunlit memory, cracking it down the middle. The ice cold air of the freezer came back, the grey interior, the industrial buzz.
"Fine," Zander grunted, grabbing a bag of ice and moving on. His coworkers treated him like he was made of glass the rest of the day, and it irritated him to no end. As if he needed their sympathy. As if it was doing Vienna any good to have people feeling sorry for him.
It was a little while later when it happened. He hadn’t meant to overhear them. He’d just been at the front of the store, preparing the next order, trying to keep his breathing even, willing himself not to think about Vienna for five minutes. But then the two guys at the counter started talking.
“Did you hear about that girl from Lakewood? Still missing.”
“Yeah. Wild, right? Kidnapped right from campus."
"You think they'll find her?"
Zander stiffened behind the counter, then started gathering ingredients faster. He could turn the blender on as soon it was ready, let the motor drown out their voices. But he wasn't quick enough, and still heard the reply.
"I mean… doubt it. She's gotta be dead by now."
A pause. "Well, you remember undergrad. Maybe getting kidnapped during finals week wouldn't be the worst thing. A little vacation."
They laughed. Actually laughed.
Zander’s jaw locked so hard it hurt. His fingers clenched around the metal cup in front of him. The cold didn’t register, just the pressure, the need to do something. He slammed the cup down on the counter - too hard. The sound cracked through the smoothie shop. A few people jumped, heads turning.
He didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. If he opened his mouth he wasn’t sure what would come out. He just shoved back from the counter and stormed out, ignoring the startled stares that followed him. His apron was left on the floor somewhere in the kitchen, pulled off in a blind rage.
The car was suffocatingly quiet. He gripped the steering wheel, his pulse hammering in his ears. He could still hear their laughter. She's gotta be dead by now.
Something inside him broke. He let out a strangled noise — half growl, half sob — and started slamming his fists into the wheel. Again. And again. Until the leather was stained with blood and his knuckles throbbed.
By the time he stumbled into the house, his hand was shaking, smeared red. He’d rehearsed the lie on the drive home: tripped, fell, scraped it, whatever.
Tiffany was in the kitchen, folding laundry at the table. She looked up the second he walked in, and her eyes went straight to his hand. Of course.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“I fell,” Zander said flatly.
She raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”
He dropped his gaze, flexed his bruised fingers. The silence stretched.
Tiff sighed, setting the shirt in her lap. “Alright. But if you’re gonna lie to Mom and Dad, I’d come up with something better than ‘fell.’ That’s weak.”
Something cracked inside him then - not anger this time, but a jagged relief. She wasn’t buying it. She wasn’t pretending he was fine. She wasn’t letting him off the hook, either, but hey, that's an older sister for you.
“Don’t worry,” he muttered. “I’m already good at pretending.”
For a long beat she just studied him. He half-expected her to push, to demand the truth. But instead, she stood, walked past him to the freezer, and came back with a towel wrapped around ice. She pressed it into his good hand without a word.
Zander swallowed hard. He didn’t thank her. Couldn’t. He just sank into the chair across from her and pressed the ice to his swollen knuckles.
Tiffany went back to folding laundry, humming under her breath. Not asking questions. Not pretending either. Just sitting with him.
Later, his manager texted him.
Hey. I know you're going through a lot right now. But we need to talk about how things are going.
A jolt of anger went through Zander. Going through a lot right now. That didn't even begin to cover it. He answered without thinking.
Don't worry about it. I quit.
***
The family was sitting around the kitchen table for dinner. They hadn't done this regularly in years — the last time, he realized, was probably when Tiffany was struggling so badly — and the transparency of it made him want to roll his eyes. Classic Wright stuff. Pulling out the perfect happy family act when things went sideways. Like pretending everything was fine would make it all go away.
Tonight, his mom had her planner open next to her plate, writing down schedules for the week. It was one of the many tiny actions that infuriated Zander lately - so maddeningly normal, foolishly simple, like you could plan life out like a play. Like if couldn't all be snatched away from you in a second. Like any of that even mattered anymore.
"…And Lauren, sweetie, you'll need a ride home from band practice Wednesday evening?" His mom was asking. Zander tapped his fingers against his own leg under the table, trying to tune it out. The way they thought life could just… go on.
"Zander, what's your work schedule look like this week?"
"I don't know." The answer came out automatically, tonelessly. Tiffany raised her eyebrows at him across the table.
"Well, we're trying to coordinate cars, so it'll be helpful to have. Can you text your boss and ask?" His mom asked.
"Doubt it."
They all looked quizzically at him at that, and he did roll his eyes this time. This wasn't going to be pretty.
"I quit. A couple days ago."
The table was quiet for a moment, then his father spoke first. Of course.
"What do you mean, you quit? Haven't you only worked, what, a week so far?"
"Two weeks." Zander's voice was clipped, forced casualness.
"Two weeks," his father repeated, as if trying to show Zander how dumb it sounded. Zander's heart started to pound in his ears.
"Does this have to do with what happened to your hand?" Lauren chimed in.
Zander shot a glare at her, half-betrayal, half-exasperation. He didn't think anyone besides Tiffany had noticed his bruised, scraped knuckles - but he should have known that Lauren would have. She noticed everything.
"What happened to your hand?" His mother asked at once. Zander kept his hands under the table, starting to shake with a mix of anger and anxiety. It felt like the walls were starting to press in.
"Nothing. I scraped it in the freezer at work —"
"No, it looks like he got in a fight!"
"Oh, come on, Lauren, you know I didn't get in a fight —"
"Maybe you did! You've been acting so different lately anyway —"
"Oh, I wonder why that could be?!" As Zander's voice began to rise, their father cut the bickering siblings off.
"Alright, enough." They both quieted at once, sneaking little glares at other. "Zander, we know you're going through a lot right now. This whole situation with… just a nightmare. We're all thinking about Vienna, we all want her home safe."
Something in Zander's chest loosened, just a fraction. Could it be that his father, of all people, was actually understanding him?
He should have known better.
"…But real life is going to continue, whether we like it or not. Work, school, basketball - all of that is still important. You need to stay focused on what's happening here and now."
"Oh, fuck off."
Without realizing it, Zander was on his feet. His whole body was trembling, a barely-contained storm. The air in the room shifted, his parents and sisters stunned to silence. Even Tiffany, who had slung those words at their parents more than once, seemed taken aback that the words had come from Zander's mouth.
There were a million other things he wanted to say — how could they think he'd care about any of those things right now, how could they care, why was that all they ever saw, why was Vienna the only one who seemed to care about him, about Zander, every piece, and why, why was she still gone?
But his throat couldn't let the words out. He just grunted, "I'm going for a run," and walked out the front door, breaking into a jog as soon as he felt the warm May air.
He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know how long he planned on running, with the sun already dipping below the horizon, casting yellows and oranges and pinks across the sky that Vienna would have loved. All he knew was he couldn't breathe in that house, couldn't breathe anywhere that wasn't pulsing with the same frantic energy that powered his body forward, the urge to know where Vienna was this second, to bring her home.
Even as his lungs burned, Zander pressed himself forward, letting some of the tension release his body with each footfall against the pavement. Running to the steady beat of we'll find her. We'll find her. We will.
perpetually frustrated that i can't read a lot without getting brain fog, meaning i can't catch up on whump stories as quickly :// i've tried the screen reader thing/text-to-speech, but it's just not the same experience with the robotic voice reading it out.
Goosebumps covered every inch of Vienna's skin - not just from the cold or the exposure, but from nauseating anticipation. Every moment was tainted by the crushing knowledge that Alec would be back, that he'd pick up where he'd left off, that he was committed to finding new ways to break her…. It was absolutely unreal, what her life had turned into in not even a week. It felt like a lifetime ago she had left the Lakewood University library, her biggest worries exams and missing friends over the summer. Now here she was, locked up like an animal and abused in ways she hadn’t even imagined possible. A shiver ran down her spine, and the walls seeming to press in as she remembered last night.
Before finally leaving her yesterday — trembling, sweating, soaked in shame — Alec had given Vienna an order. To be in front of the door when he came in the next day. Showered. Kneeling. Naked.
As she sat there, knees digging into the hard floor, Vienna tried to let her mind float away. To something, anything else. But memories of the past few days burned so brightly she felt blinded to anything else. Hands guiding her where he wanted her. Laughter cracking sharp and bright through the air. His voice yesterday, vibrating from between her legs as he nuzzled the soft skin of her inner thighs. You make this so easy for me.
Shame coursed through her, followed by a hot swell of anger. Vienna didn't know if it was towards Alec or herself, and had no time to parse out the feeling before she heard him approaching.
And as the knob turned, she realized for the first time that it hadn't even occurred to her that she could disobey him.
Every muscle wanted to shrink away from Alec walking through the door, the practically gleeful smile on his face as he drank the image of her in. Vienna felt like she was suddenly seeing herself from his eyes - small, nude, kneeling, terrified. Pliant. Obedient.
It's keeping you alive, she told herself fiercely. But another plane of her mind screamed that it was also killing her. Annihilating the part of her that had a voice, that stood up for herself, that dared to love herself, piece by piece.
“I wasn’t sure what to expect, slut, but it looks like you’re a good listener after all. And did you shower for me?”
His voice snapped her back to the present. Vienna nodded stiffly, avoiding his eyes. She had purposefully arranged her hair over her shoulders to cover the red marks her nails had dug in yesterday, but she knew it was only a matter of time before Alec saw them. She'd tried to invent some excuses - that he'd actually somehow made them, that she'd mindlessly scratched herself in her sleep, that they had just appeared for no apparent reason. All flimsy. All bound to be discredited in the first five minutes of him being there.
Sure enough, he was already reaching for her. She couldn't help but give a sharp flinch as Alec threaded his hands through her hair, soft from the wash the night before.
“Very good,” he purred. “Yes, you feel very nice.”
Vienna bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. He shifted her hair off her shoulders, clearly intending to let his touch slip lower - then paused. Lightly ran his fingers over the raw streaks marring her skin.
"Now, what is this?"
All her excuses and stories vanished under his gaze. He studied her curiously, as if he couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or amused, and the uncertainty of it was paralyzing.
"I - I don't know…."
Vienna had to hold back a full-body shudder as Alec traced the scratches, pressing down every so often just to see her flinch.
"Oh, I do. You really can’t keep your hands off yourself, can you?” His grin was sharp, triumphant. “Couldn't stand it last night, huh? Wanted to claw out of your own skin?
“That’s not—” Vienna’s protest strangled before it reached air.
“No, I think it is.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice like he was sharing a secret. “I don’t even have to be here, and look what happens. You fall apart. All on your own.”
The words sank like poison in her stomach. She tried to back away, but he held her in place, studying the marks with fascination, as though they were his handiwork after all. Finally, he took his hands off her.
"Well. I'm afraid we have a problem, little girl. You see, I like my canvases unmarked."
"I didn't mean to." Her voice came out small, trembling.
"Ah. But you did." Alec tilted his head in mock concern. "So what am I going to do with you?"
Vienna's breath caught in her throat, dread choking her.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it was an accident, it won't happen again." Her words come out in a rush, and she winced at how pitiful they sounded. Still, she added a small, "Please."
Alec smiled again. The shape of it was cruel, mocking, the type of smile that Vienna had never seen before. He crouched in front of her, close enough that she feel the sick warmth radiating off him.
"You're so sweet. Aren't you?" His finger traced along her cheek, catching an errant tear, smearing it along her skin. "God, I knew I picked right. And know the best part? I was watching you long before this. Weeks. You walking across campus, sitting in that little café with your books, headphones in, tapping your pen like you were the only person alive. I sat close enough to hear you humming sometimes. Nobody looked twice at me. Nobody wondered what I was doing there.”
Her chest tightened, nausea swelling in her throat. “Stop,” she whispered. “Please don’t tell me this.”
He ignored her, grinning. “First thing I noticed? Your body. You’re young, healthy, the kind of girl who doesn’t even realize she gets stared at. Jeans hugging your legs, shirts a little too modest like you didn’t want attention but you couldn’t help it. You’d shift in your seat, tug at your sleeves, clueless.”
“Don’t -” The image of herself bloomed in her head, twisted, distorted. "I don't want to hear this."
But Alec didn't stop. “But then I saw more. How wholesome you were. Always smiling at the barista. Always saying thank you. You had this…innocence about you. You thought you were safe. And that’s when I knew.” His eyes glittered. “I wanted to see what it would be like to break that. To take all that light and grind it out of you.”
A dry sob burst out of her, her shoulders trembling. “Please, please stop,” she begged, her voice splintering.
He only chuckled, the sound low and pleased. His hand tipped her chin up until she met his gaze. His voice lowered dangerously.
"And now here you are, trying to ruin my masterpiece."
Vienna's breath hitched. The thud, thud, thud of her heart felt impossibly loud in her ears. Something was twisting inside her with each word, sharp and ugly.
"I guess you'll have to make it up to me."
Alec stood back up, hands working at the buckle of his pants. "You did follow my instructions, so I'll give you one more day of break. But don't worry - there's still plenty of ways to have fun."
He paused there, grinning smugly down at her. Static seemed to fill Vienna's head, and she didn't move. Didn't even blink.
"Suck."
His voice was firm. Vienna’s stomach lurched. Disembodied voices, quick flashes of memory flickered through her - giggling on the phone with Kaya after her first kiss; her mother’s steady whisper after her first heartbreak, you deserve someone who treats you with nothing but kindness; Abi threatening to slash a guy’s tires after they got cat-called, all bravado and loyalty; lying in her narrow dorm bed as Zander murmured, I only want to do whatever you want to do.
"No."
Her voice came out before she even realized she was speaking. For a moment her heart stopped, but then it was as if it began to beat harder, stronger. It felt right to say.
Alec's eyes narrowed. "What did you just say to me?"
“I said NO. I’m not going to suck you.” Anger was spilling out of her like a cup overflowing, all the shame from the last several days rearing back to face its true owner. Her eyes shot fire up at him and she scooted backwards in the floor. “I’m not going to and you can’t make me. You’re disgusting, you’re evil, you’re old, and I’m not -"
Something in his expression cracked. There was no trace of amusement or lust or smugness now - just pure rage, raw and ugly.
He lunged.
Vienna shrieked, instinct taking over before thought. She scrambled upright and threw herself at him—wild punches, clawed hands, kicking feet. She felt her nails rake across his cheek, felt her fist strike something solid. She had no plan, only the blinding need not to be touched by him again, even if she had to fight for her life —
His arms shot out, shoving hard, and Vienna collided with the nightstand behind her. She nearly lost her footing but came at Alec again with a kick aimed right for his groin, but he was ready for her this time - he grabbed her leg and jerked her off balance so she fell flat on her back to the floor.
The air rushed out of her lungs and for a moment she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move. It was all the time Alec needed. He was on her at once, dragging her up off the rug and pinning her to the bed.
No. Adrenaline still raced through her veins, and even as she gasped for breath Vienna continued to fight, writhing and thrashing, desperate for escape. Alec grabbed her arm and twisted it backwards brutally. Pain and panic shot through her, so sharp that she screamed, feeling that her arm was going to break in his grasp.
"Then stop."
The fight was over. The flash of hope, of determination, faded out of Vienna as quickly as it had come, replaced by a nearly oppressive sense of dread. Terror pinned her more effectively than his hands. Alec released her arm, but the strained, throbbing ache remained. His weight crushed her down, his fury making him seem impossibly huge.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, bitch? Telling me no? Insulting me? Trying to fight me?”
His angry red face was inches from hers, puffing hot air into her face. Vienna felt like she was being crushed under his immense weight, still struggling to breathe.
“And here I thought I was being nice, giving you a little break. Guess you can’t appreciate that, huh? Maybe I need to show you how evil I can really be.”
He drew back only to backhand her across the face, so hard that her ears rang. She choked out words.
"P-please — I'm sorry —"
He just hit her again. Vienna tasted blood in her mouth.
Oh God. What was I thinking?
As if she'd ever stood a chance fighting him. As if he couldn't snap her like a twig. As if he cared at all about what she wanted or felt. Reality hit, cold and sharp: this wasn't her world anymore. It was Alec's. He decided if and what she ate, what she wore, if she lived or died. And she had just provoked him to anger.
"Get up."
Alec didn't even wait for her to try and rise. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her off the bed, towards the door, yanking at her roots so fiercely she stumbled behind him, terrified he would rip the hair right from her scalp.
But when he led her to the restraints hanging from the ceiling once again, every muscle seemed to lock in fear.
"Wait - please - I'm sorry -"
Her wrists were already bound above her, and he manipulated the chains so her toes dangled above the ground. Her shoulders screamed in protest, but the terror coursing through her was even worse. I should have just done it. The thought hit her like ice cold water. Whatever is about to happen is going to be so, so much worse.
Without conscious effort, her eyes were tracking Alec walking towards the closet, and her fear spiked impossibly higher.
"No, no - Alec -" Her voice cracked on his name, it felt wrong in her mouth, but she needed to appeal to him. "Alec - please. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I was just scared, I'll do whatever you want!"
"You think you're sorry." When he opened the closet door, Vienna saw just a peek of the contents inside, and it made her wish the floor would open up and swallow her whole. "You've never known what sorry is, Vienna. But you're about to."
He was walking back towards her, and in his hands was a whip. Her brain rejected it immediately. Not real. Not real. Not something that happened to people in real life. Not to her.
The first blow stole her breath. The second made her vision go white. By the third, she was already screaming, wordless and desperate. It didn't stop him. It didn't even slow him down. All her other senses seemed to dull out until she could feel nothing but the pain, stinging and burning, lashing against her again and again. Her body moved of its own accord, desperately twisting in an effort to protect itself, but any movement just seemed to open up further targets for the whip. In some distant plane of her mind, she recognized that Alec was targeting specific parts of her body — her hips, her thighs, her chest — and the humiliation piled on top of the agony was crushing. Noises of him cut in through the haze, above her own screaming. He was laughing. Grunting with effort. Taunting her.
"That's right, bitch, dance for me!"
"You think you're sorry now? How about now?"
"Not so tough anymore, huh?
Hits started to dance up and down Vienna's back, again and again, almost musical in their cruelty, and she thought her throat would rip open from shrieking pleas. It wasn't like the pain of the previous days, a byproduct of what he actually wanted: it was the entire point. She had never endured something like this, actions meant purely to hurt, and somehow it made each strike sting even more. Finally, when her screams and struggles wore out to whimpers and weak jerks each time he hit her, exhausted from the ordeal, Alec stopped.
He released her wrists from above her and Vienna crumpled to her knees, her entire body trembling and heaving as if she'd just run a marathon. She had squeezed her eyes shut for the last several minutes, and she opened them with great trepidation, expecting to see her skin shredded, flayed open. Instead, she blinked in faint surprise: while her body was covered with angry red welts, throbbing and stinging, the skin had barely broken. There were several spots where small red beads of blood rose to the surface, but nothing like she expected. The incongruity between it and the chaos of her mind was dizzying.
The whip hit the ground with a loud thump, and Vienna jumped. Alec walked in front of her, sweat dripping down his temple. When he spoke his voice was low, dangerous, and she knew it wasn't over yet.
"And you thought I couldn't make you." He looked her over for a long moment, eyes glittering with satisfaction at the look of agony criss-crossing her body. "I always get my way in the end, little girl. You just decide if you want it the easy or the hard way."
Vienna looked up at him through swollen, bloodshot eyes as he began to undo his pants again.
"I wouldn't mind whipping you some more, by the way, if I have to. That was very fun. I love the little noises you make. So….are you ready?"
And Vienna nodded.
****
The next day came too quickly. The night had passed in a blur of pain and bone-crushing shame, but below it all was the constant, debilitating thought: he'll be back soon.
She had still been in bed, examining her injuries. Alec had varied the force in which he'd beaten her, so everything was recovering unevenly. Some marks were still just as red and angry as the day before, while some were almost completely healed. Others were darkening into nasty bruises, purple and blue against her skin.
And then, the noise she was beginning to dread more than anything in the world: Alec's footsteps descending the stairs.
She sensed it immediately: his pace was too quick, his tread surprisingly light, like he was dancing his way down to her. Her stomach twisted. Excited. Eager.
He was on top of her within seconds of walking in, letting the door slam behind him.
"Enough waiting." His breath was hot against her neck, hands working at her clothes with terrifying precision. "Break's over, little girl. The way you squirmed yesterday….how you screamed for me…you've had this coming."
It was not defiance or anger that moved her this time, but pure panic: Vienna’s hands shoved against him, desperate, trembling. His chest was solid and unyielding, and the low rumble of his laughter rolled through the room like a physical weight.
“Please… please, Alec, don’t -” she gasped, voice breaking, trying to scramble back.
“You really think that will stop me?” he said smoothly, each word deliberate, a slow taunt. “Look at you… pathetic.”
She twisted, clawing at the bedspread, and nearly tumbled to the floor. She scrambled for the door, but a sick feeling wove beneath her desperation: this was hopeless. Her fingers scrabbled desperately at the doorknob. Locked. Panic clawed her chest. Alec watched her from the bed, leaned back on his elbows, entertained by her distress. He rose casually, walking leisurely to her like a man who had all the time in the world.
“Try again,” he said, dragging his fingers over hers as she rattled the knob, “it’s all locked up tight. Nothing’s going anywhere.”
Her stomach plummeted, but she darted into the bathroom anyway, slamming the door behind her. Cold tile bit her feet, the faucet dripping somewhere behind her like the echo of a countdown.
“I… I’m begging you,” she said, voice tight. “Please… just let me -”
“Oh, let you what?” His voice slid under her skin. “Go? Hide? You think that little room makes a difference?”
Vienna pressed herself into the corner, breathing fast as he opened the door. Every whip mark from yesterday seemed to throb in double time as she realized she was once again obeying him. But as Alec came into the bathroom, his head was tilted in amusement, an almost charmed smile on his face. It hit her with ice-cold clarity: it wasn't about what she did. Not really. She was at the whims of his mood. Today, maybe she was lucky. But tomorrow? She could never know.
Giddy excitement was radiating off Alec as he cornered her, hands twitching as if he couldn't bear to not be touching her. His fingers clasped around her wrists.
“No! Please—please! I don't want to!” she cried, voice cracking, every syllable a frantic prayer.
“Cry all you want. You're mine.” he said, pressing closer. “I own this. All of it.”
Her body shook, terror and revulsion intertwining, and he dragged her to the floor. Her chest was pressed to the cold tile as today's lesson crashed in: no corner, no door, no wall could protect her. Not here. Not from him. The pointlessness of her fighting and pleas, the inevitability of it all, drained every ounce of fight from her body. He was shoving, grunting, and all her body could do was jolt limply beneath him.
Vienna didn't know how long it was until he finally rose off her, but eventually he did, giving a final, humiliating slap to her hip before striding out the door. He was gone, and she was left lying on the ground shivering, aching, completely decimated once again. Cold tile beneath her cheek, reminding her she was still alive. For better or for worse.
Her vision unfocused, the baseboard bleary through tear-filled eyes. The spark of hope was still inside her — tiny, flickering, but real — but it was different now. It wasn't hope for rescue, or hope that she could stop Alec from hurting her. It was the faintest wish that a small scrap of herself might survive him.
But, face down on the hard bathroom floor, even that felt like an almost impossible dream.
You need to stop telling yourself it can't get any worse. The thought shot like an arrow through the haze in Vienna's mind. She was sitting on the bed, knees pulled to her chest, her body still trembling with aftershocks she despised. It can. It can always get worse.
This was the latest lesson she had learned. Because after the first time, she had assumed that must be the depths of despair. Lying there bleeding, alone, every illusion of safety absolutely shattered.
But it wasn't. When the next day came, the endless marathon of abuse, she figured that must be it. Her body, her soul, felt completely battered, and she thought there was no way she could sink further.
But again, she'd been wrong. Because having to lie there last night, bodies close like lovers, Alec's hand pressed against her, Alec proving he could take away her loved ones with the click of a button…that had to have been rock bottom, then.
But it hadn't been. Because today had happened.
It wasn't the same as the first two days. There was no bruise, no blood to bear evidence of the brutal violation that had occurred. No one would know by looking at her.
But Vienna knew. She would never forget.
Her hands balled into fists. There was still a slight ache in her jaw.
She jerked back, coughing and sputtering.
"Jesus, you're terrible at this." But his voice was calm, pleased. "I thought you said you did it for your boyfriend? Shouldn't you be a little more used to it?"
"I - he didn't - he never made me do it like this."
Alec smirked, holding tight on his grip in her hair. "He was too soft on you, then. Holding back. God, I bet you pissed him off."
Defensive fury rose in Vienna, for the insinuation that Zander was anything like the monster in front of her. She shook her head as much as she could within his grasp.
"He's not -"
But Alec used his grip on her hair to shove her face back towards his crotch.
"Not what? Hm? Not as big as me? That I believe."
Vienna said nothing, shame and rage swirling inside her chest. Anything she said, he twisted, made crude and disgusting.
"Now open your mouth. Clearly you need more practice."
The memory made her want to crawl out of her own skin. It was degradation she hadn't known possible, a disgust that seeped into her veins like poison.
But, as seemed to be becoming a theme in her life — her life. Was this really her life? — what had come next was even worse. Even thinking about it made her flinch, as if her mind had brushed against a hot stove.
She'd figured he'd been done. Alec had tucked himself away, the ever-present amusement on his face more pronounced than ever. But then he'd guided Vienna to the bed. Put her back in the restraints. When she'd struggled, protested, he'd just shushed her with a smile.
"Don't worry. This won't hurt. I just thought I'd return the favor."
Vienna's stomach lurched violently. That feeling, not pain but somehow a thousand times worse, intimate and invasive and overpowering….she couldn't just forget that.
It was no use. Every memory, every ghost of sensation seemed to burn even brighter - the scratch of his stubble against her inner thighs, the vibrations of his moans right against her skin, the burn in her wrists from tugging at the restraints…
Stop. Vienna's own voice rang through her head, unbidden. Just remembering felt unbearable, her body trembling like it was still living the moment. Her chest squeezed tight; she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, her heart slamming so hard against her ribcage it made her dizzy.
The worst part was how long it had lasted. Alec had forced it longer than she could bear, her body wrung out over and over again until it felt like she had nothing left, soaked in shame and humiliation. When he'd finally untied her and left for the evening, she'd thought it was over.
But she had been wrong again.
Because anywhere she looked, she could still see it, still feel it — his head nestled between her legs, shrill protests and dark, taunting laughter ringing throughout the room —
A strangled howl escaped her lips and she shook her head frantically to dispel the image. Her heart hammered so hard in her chest she thought she might be sick. It was a sensation she'd never experienced before, trapped in a memory, in a feeling that was completely unbearable.
Vienna wrapped her arms around herself, rocking her body in a pitiful attempt at comfort. The memories just surged louder - Alec tracing her with his mouth, tongue flicking, teeth grazing, until every nerve ending was screaming, yet somehow she could not twist away, could not shut it down —
She didn't even realize she'd done it until the sharp sting registered. Vienna gasped, flinched, as she realized she had dug her fingernails into the skin of her shoulders where she'd been hugging herself. It hurt…but the thoughts retreated a bit. The relief was almost staggering, phantom sensations beginning to fade. She bit her lip, dragging her fingernails down here arms, watching the red trails left in their wake, letting the physical pain — simple, clear, straightforward —take center stage in her mind.
He wouldn't like that. And the thought made her even angrier - because it's not that he wouldn't like that she was upset or hurt. He simply wouldn't like the way the marks looked on her skin. Not if he didn't make them.
A sob ripped itself from Vienna's throat. How was this real? How had she ended up in this situation?
She hated Alec. She hated herself, for drawing his attention. She hated her body, for feeding his pleasure.
SMACK.
Her own palm came down hard on her thigh. She choked out a sob and hit herself again, again, nails scratching against her arms, wishing she could crawl out of her own skin. Every strike and scratch was painful, but felt deserved. Vienna couldn't articulate exactly why. Like she was punishing herself just for existing.
She didn't know how much time had passed when she finally forced her hands to be still. All she knew was that the memories were no longer front and center in her mind. Instead, her attention was zeroed in on the way her legs throbbed and burned, the few spots on her arm where her nails had managed to draw blood.
Oh God. What did I do?
Vienna curled in on herself, drawing her knees to her chest. She rubbed her hands along her shaking, inflamed arms, whispering nonsense to herself. "You're okay. You're okay. It's okay."
She let herself lie there for several more minutes, until the trembling finally subsided, or at least lessened. Shaky gasps filled the still of the room as she forced herself to breathe in and out.
He's already hurting you enough. You don't have to do it, too.
The thought broke through as if someone else had spoken it into her head. Vienna closed her eyes, let it wash over her. She gently ran her fingers over the red welts in her thighs.
"I'm sorry."
Her voice was a quivering whisper. It felt absurd to apologize to herself… But that's the only comfort you're getting right now, the small voice in her head reminded her, and she swallowed thickly.
She didn't know how to do this. All her life, she'd been lifted up — by her parents, her family, her friends, her teachers, Zander — buoyed by the absolute confidence that she'd always have a safe place to land. Now, lying here alone, ears still ringing with the memory of the most violating, cruel act imaginable, she felt utterly alone. Vienna felt like someone had taken a scalpel to her sense of self, peeling off everything that held her upright and strong and leaving her instead to fester in humiliation and pain and horror.
It's all still there. The voice was gentler this time. Inside.
She exhaled long and slow, like the ocean tide easing back into rhythm. At first, the memories flickered weakly like images on a faulty projector, but the more she pressed on, the stronger they became: her mother braiding her hair while she leaned against the couch, Abigail's laugh spilling down the hall of her their dorm, the gentle rhythm of snapping peas with her grandmother, summer night air through the window in her bedroom as she and her friend Kaya whispered childhood secrets and dreams, cicadas singing in harmony.
It's there. It's still real.
She let her mind linger on one recollection in particular, trying to allow the ease and warmth of it to wrap her up like a blanket.
She and Daniela had been young — seven, maybe eight — flush with the thrill of being able to ride their bikes around Vienna's neighborhood alone for the first time. The sensations were so vivid, though this time not in a way that terrorized her - the breeze in her hair, Daniela's giddy giggle, the smell of cut grass and sprinklers. It had been like real freedom, the whole world open in front of them. Even though it'd only really been a block or two.
And then - Vienna had fallen. Tumbled off her bike as she tried to round the corner towards her house, skinning her knee against the rough asphalt. She'd walked her bike home, sobs coming out in gasps as Daniela awkwardly patted her shoulder and said, "At least you wore your helmet!"
By the time she'd walked through the front door, blood trickling down her leg, she'd been absolutely hysterical. Her father had rushed to the front door at the sound of her wails, eyes softening when he saw how small the injury really was.
He'd carried her tenderly to the kitchen table, sat her down, gently dabbed the scrape with a damp paper towel. She couldn't remember his words, not all these years later - just that they'd consoled her, made her smile, made her giggle. By the time he was pressing the bandaid to her knee the pain was all but forgotten. The rest of the afternoon was awash with golden light in her memory, Vienna and Daniela baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with her father's assistance while he hummed You Are My Sunshine.
Here in the basement, Vienna forced herself up. She padded over to the kitchenette, wetting a paper towel in the sink and gently wiping it along her scratched arms. She thought of that little girl from years ago, how instinctively she'd reached for help, so sure that love would always be right within in reach, and her throat ached.
"I'm sorry," she whispered again. She spent several minutes soothing the aching skin of her arms and legs with warm cloths before gently combing her hair, brushing her teeth, pulling on soft clothes. All the while, she sang the familiar tune under her breath, heart aching somewhere between grief and love. The song faded on a whisper, and for a moment she could almost feel it - a little sunlight, still, somewhere beneath the dark.
True to his word, Alec did not visit her throughout the next day. Vienna spent most of it in bed, her body aching in places she hadn’t known could ache. Her mind oscillated between brutal, too-vivid flashbacks and long stretches of blankness - a kind of merciful buzzing void she let swallow her whole. After the sustained pain and terror of yesterday, Vienna felt grateful for the nothingness and didn’t try to fight it, lying still and staring at the wall for hours at a time.
Every so often, a small voice would hiss in the back of her mind: this is the same bed she had already been raped in. Twice. Each time, a wave of nausea would almost overwhelm her before she turned to her other side, forcing herself to numb out again.
By the evening, she had vaguely registered that she was hungry and was sitting at the small table behind the bed eating a bowl of cereal. Even sitting in the chair seemed to accentuate the soreness between her legs, but sitting up helped her feel a bit more human. It was so bizarre to be have been inside this long without seeing the sun or be able to run around.
And then, footsteps outside the door. Vienna froze, every muscle taut and tensed like a rabbit in the presence of a fox. The electronic beep of the lock made her stomach drop, and then the door swung open. As he entered, Vienna dropped her spoon and any meager appetite she had had disappeared.
Alec closed the door behind him and looked at her with an appraising satisfaction.
“You’re eating? That’s good.”
Vienna nodded, avoiding eye contact with him. She had dressed herself in only a large t-shirt and a pair of underwear. The thought of pulling on pants over her bruised body had felt out of the question - but now, sitting here before him, she felt unbearably exposed.
“How we feeling today? Hm?”
The question, posed by the man who had raped her no less than five times the previous day, felt utterly absurd and Vienna didn’t answer. Just looked studiously at the floor and hoped he’d leave. She was startled to attention as he swiped the cereal bowl away from her and hooked his fingers in the collar of her shirt, yanking.
“Excuse me, I asked you a question,” Alec snapped. “When I ask a question, I expect a verbal response.”
“O-okay!” Vienna whimpered. “I - I feel -“ Her thoughts, already foggy, now felt completely scrambled with fear from Alec’s quick turn to anger and she already couldn’t quite remember what he had asked her. “It…I…hurts,” she stammered.
Alec laughed, releasing his grip on her shirt. “Well, yeah, I’m sure it does. We had quite the day yesterday, didn’t we?”
“Um, yes,” Vienna said automatically, not wanting to leave the question unanswered. Alec laughed at her again.
“Get on the bed.”
Vienna's heart plummeted and she felt the blood drain from her face. Her eyes finally met his, frantically scanning his expression. “But you said -“
“I’m not going to fuck you.” Alec cut her off with impatience. “Have a little faith, why don’t you? I just thought we would watch some TV.”
Watch TV? The idea felt so grotesquely domestic, almost mocking in its casualness.
“I - I can watch from right here." Her voice was tiny, pleading. Her stomach lurched at the mere thought of getting back into the bed in his presence, and she couldn't help but feel every inch of her exposed legs.
“You’re gonna be on that bed by the time I’m done turning this on, or I might just change my mind about giving you a break.” Alec grabbed the remote from the dresser. Her chair scraped back instantly. Despite her unease, anything he had planned had to be better than another rape. She perched on the edge of the bed, heart racing.
Alec flicked the TV to the channel he wanted and turned back to look at her.
“That’s what I thought. Now - lie on your side. Facing me."
Vienna slowly obeyed, wishing she could know what he was thinking. She got her answer a moment later when the mattress dipped. Alec slid behind her, pressing his solid weight flush against her back. His arm circled her waist, pinning her in a perverse imitation of intimacy.
“No,” Vienna whimpered, squirming away.
“Ah ah.” Alec’s voice was sing-song mockery. His arm tightened, pulling her closer. “You’re staying right here.”
Revulsion surged through her, her skin crawling under the heat of his body. Every memory from the previous day that she'd been trying to suppress rushed back in. She held herself rigid, fighting the panic clawing up her chest. Breathe. Breathe.
But then his hand began to move. Tracing idly along her thigh, as if drawing patterns into her goose-bumped skin.
“Please stop, I don’t want to —" Vienna tried to struggle out of his grasp again, nausea rising in her throat.
“Stop.” The edge of irritation in his voice chilled her enough that she did. “I don’t care about what you want. Lie still.”
Vienna swallowed thickly and forced herself to obey. She could feel every inch of him right against her back and it felt like a threat. She knew he could do more to her if he wanted — he’d made it clear he could do anything to her that he wanted — and the last thing she wanted was for him to change his mind and escalate things. It took all of her self-control to lie there rather than slapping his hand and jumping up.
She tried to focus on what was on the TV — a game show, laugh track tinny in the background — as he lazily trailed his fingers along her thigh and hips. Her hands curled into fists and she closed her eyes in anguish as he touched her bare skin so easily, almost lazily.
When Alec slipped his hand up Vienna’s large shirt and cupped her breast, she couldn't help but let out a mix of a sob and gasp. His palm against her felt like too large, too hot, like if she looked down at her skin there would be raw red trails from his touch. Alec gave a low chuckle in her ear at the reaction, warm breath washing over her, and he began to pepper light kisses around her ear and neck. Hot tears stung her eyes - the whole thing felt so sick, the most twisted parody of affection. It went on and on, Vienna cursing herself every second for not screaming, for not slapping him away - but too petrified to try.
But when his hand dipped lower, fingers brushing deliberately over her stomach, she instinctively grabbed his wrist.
“What’s the matter?” Alec purred. “You’re not enjoying this as much as I am?”
Vienna could feel him half-hard against her. Terror spiked, the soreness between her legs seeming to throb harder. Not now. Not again. Please.
“Let go,” he murmured. The softness of his tone carried a blade’s edge. “I promised I wouldn’t rape you tonight. Unless you want me to reconsider?”
Vienna swallowed thickly, eyes fluttering shut. He would do it. He would do in an instant, if she gave him the slightest excuse. Her fingers trembled as they uncurled from his wrist.
Alec hummed appreciatively and slid his hand down further so he was cupping her over her underwear. Her body recoiled involuntarily, squirming into Alec behind her.
“Mmm. You’re rubbing against me,” he teased. “Feels pretty nice.”
There was nowhere to go - moving forward meant feeling his hand squeezed her clenched thighs, moving backward meant pressing her hips against his crotch. Each felt equally unbearable, equally threatening. Claustrophobia wrapped its tendrils around her throat, making every inch of her skin crawl. Vienna let out a choked cry and began to writhe in his grasp, desperate for freedom.
“Hey!” Alec snapped sternly. His fist tangled in her hair and yanked hard. “You need to calm down. I’m barely doing anything to you.”
The sharp sting in her scalp shocked her still. She lay there rigid, teeth clenched, every cell in her body screaming. Still, the threat of rape and pain and punishment forced her to comply. She tried to prepare herself for whatever Alec was going to do to her….but nothing happened. He didn’t move his hand away, but didn't go further - just let it rest, possessive and violating.
Constantly, she reminded herself that it could be so much worse. It didn't hurt. He wasn't moving. In fact, he seemed engaged in the game show on television, calling out answers or muttering about the contestants. It was obscene, the way he treated her as background entertainment, like a cat idly pawing a caught bird while watching something else. And Vienna did nothing but lay there, hating herself for not trying harder to break free, for not seeing this coming. For believing a "break" would mean anything at all.
Her self-loathing stream of consciousness was broken as she suddenly saw her own face appear on the television.
“Finally! This is what I was waiting for,” Alec said, reaching to turn up the volume with the remote with his spare hand. His other hand did not move.
“The search for missing Lakewood University student Vienna DeNova continues into its fifth day,” the news anchor announced. Vienna stared wonderingly at the photo displayed on the screen. It was the same photo they had used a few days ago, but something about it now looked foreign, wrong. Was that smiling, sparkly eyed girl really her?
“The twenty-year old is suspected to have been abducted on May 9 while walking on Lakewood's campus,” the broadcast continued.
“Well, they’ve got that part right,” Alec chortled. The broadcast mentioned that the FBI was now involved in her case, and even as Alec scoffed, “Good luck,” Vienna felt a small flutter of hope in her chest.
The news segment gave a run down of the known details of her abduction — the text message, her route from the library to her dorm — while showing footage of police officers and volunteers searching the woods and neighborhoods.
“Look at that." Alec's voice was calm, mocking. Utterly confident. “They have no clue what they’re doing. You know what that means, right? No one knows where you are.”
Icy cold fear coursed through Vienna, turning her to stone in his arms. There was no denying it, he was right. She felt a million miles away from the images onscreen.
“Tonight, the Lakewood community has gathered to hold a candlelight vigil and pray for the safe return of Vienna,” the broadcast continued, now showing a drone shot of people gathered on Lakewood's campus - hundreds, thousands. Vienna's breath caught in her throat. The icon in the corner of the screen said Live. It was happening right now, her community uniting for her, holding her steady like the roots of a tree.
"Look at all those people." Alec's voice was breathless, excited. The camera panned closer now, showing the teary, drawn faces of Vienna's classmates. Her chest tightened as Alec continued, almost giddy. "You see? Can't sleep, can't eat, can't breathe because of me. Because of us."
Us. The word hit like acid.
What came up next made Vienna’s heart lurch, and she couldn’t help but let out a small whine. It was her parents. Her mother and father standing united on a stage, flanked by blow-up photos of her.
“Awww, they look so sad,” Alec said mockingly. He watched fervently, as if their misery was his favorite movie. “What do you think they would say if they could see you now, all pressed up against me?”
The answer came so readily to Vienna that she said without thinking, “They’d say they love me no matter what and that everything will be okay.”
For a moment — just a moment — Alec seemed to hesitate. Then he snorted, "Okay, sure," and pressed even closer against her. Still, Vienna felt a small light of hope in her chest. She knew, without a doubt, that this is exactly what her parents would say. That they would wrap her up in their arms, accept her, keep her safe. The thought — no, the conviction — lit a warmth inside of her that could not be doused even by Alec's mocking words and invading hands. She held onto the feeling as tightly as she could as the broadcast continued.
As the broadcast rolled through vigils, volunteers, her parents’ tearful pleas, Alec made her identify each face. He mocked her, sneered at the search, jeered at her parents’ grief. Each barb dug into her, but at the same time, seeing the sheer number of people fueled the fragile ember of hope inside her.
When Zander appeared, the ember nearly flared into a flame.
Alec noticed instantly. “Ah, and who is that?” His voice dripped with satisfaction.
Vienna said nothing, feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of her by the force of pure longing. It was the first time she had seen Zander's face since she'd been taken. The urge to go to him was so strong that she had a sudden visual of slipping out of Alec's grip, crawling through the television, and clinging to Zander. Every piece of her heart ached for the vision to be real.
"Did you hear me? Tell me who that is," Alec commanded.
Vienna could barely speak. “Zander.”
Her captor chuckled at his sorrowful face. “Oh, he’s devastated. Poor boy."
Alec wasn't wrong: Zander looked more desperately sad than Vienna had ever seen him. There were dark circles under his eyes, and looked up at the camera and crowd with a palpable sorrow. Alec continued, "Can't blame him. I'd be sad too, if I knew I had missed my chance with this." Vienna had to swallow the bile rising in her throat as Alec wiggled his fingers against her.
The one blessing in Alec's obsession with the broadcast was he quieted as each person spoke, taking in their words with a power-hungry glee. Zander's words came out stilted, unnatural, and Vienna's heart ached for him.
"Vienna and I have been together for almost two years. She's become one of the most important people in my life. I love her, and I won't give up until she's home."
"He only thinks that." Alec 's breath was hot and humid against her ear. "If he could see you now…he wouldn't want you back. Trust me."
"That's not true," Vienna protested, though her voice wavered. "You don't even know him."
"Oh, but I know his type. All-American boy, popular, gets everything he wants, future all lined up for him. This little complication —" he gave her a squeeze, obscene emphasis — "is the last thing he wants. I'm sure he'll found a new shiny girl in no time. Someone to fit with his plan."
His description was laughably off-base, but Vienna's throat still closed. Not true. Not true. Can't be true.
Onscreen, Zander had stopped speaking. He was putting his speech paper in his pocket. For a moment, Vienna's heart sunk miserably — had they talked right through everything? — but then he began to speak again. His voice rolled out smoother, and every single word buoyed Vienna, tangling hope and grief and love in her heart until tears trickled down her face, for once not of pain or helplessness or humiliation. Even Alec was silent, and she could feel a shift in the way his chest rose up and down against her back.
"….I love you, Vee. No matter what." Zander finished, and Vienna felt lighter than she had in days.
"See?" Her voice came out like a child's petulant whine, begging to be proven right. It was as much a plea to herself as it was to Alec. No matter what. No matter what.
"Please. He's just performing for the cameras. I didn't expect anything less." But his voice was stiff.
When her parents took the stage once more, Vienna nearly smiled. Smiled. It felt ridiculous, but seeing them all — her parents, Zander, Daniela, Abi, the entire Lakewood community — had given her a nearly indefinable sense of comfort. Like maybe she could survive this, if she could just hold on.
Her father was speaking. "…we raised our daughter to be resilient, to be brave. And we believe in her strength now more than ever.”
Hope and determination surged in her chest at his words - but then she heard Alec's chuckle. "Brave, huh? Resilient? Obviously he has no clue what you sound like when you beg." His voice shifted into a mocking falsetto. "Oh God please don't please no please stop!"
Vienna's stomach curdled and tears stung her eyes, humiliation cutting sharp and deep. She fixed her eyes on the television, on her father's soft but steady voice, trying to let it drown out everything else. But Alec's voice lowered dangerously, hissing in her ear.
"None of them should want to find you. You know why? Hm?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Anyone who tries… I'll kill them. In a heartbeat. Happily."
Her heart clenched. He couldn't - he wouldn't.
"And it would be your fault, Vienna. Your fault."
She shook her head and he just pressed harder, fingers digging in to the fabric of her underwear, body flush against her own. Her father wasn't speaking anymore. The broadcast was wrapping up. Alec clicked the television off, the picture dissolving into black.
The silence settled heavily in the room. It almost felt like being snatched from her life all over again, the faces and voices of her loved ones vanishing with the click of a button, reminding her that all she had right now was this.
The room was quiet for a long moment before Alec spoke again.
"You know why I've kept my hand right here for the past hour, right?"
Because you’re a disgusting psycho, was Vienna’s immediate thought, but she knew better than to say it.
“Because it’s mine,” Alec said. “You need to learn that I can touch you wherever and whenever I want. Consider this the first lesson of many.” He pressed his hand so firmly and tightly against her that a small gasp escaped her lips. “How does it feel today? Is it sore?”
“Y-yes.”
“Mmm, yeah. Who made it sore, little girl?”
“…you did."
“By doing what?”
Vienna said nothing for a moment, the words dying in her throat. But when Alec dug his fingers harder against her delicate flesh, she squeaked and answered, “By raping me!”
"That's right. All me."
Vienna didn't say a word. The silence spiraled horribly for one more moment before his voice rumbled again in her ear.
"Give me a kiss and I'll take my hand away."
Vienna paused only momentarily before twisting her upper body to face him. Anything that would get his disgusting hand out from between her legs.
"Eager, huh?" Alec smirked. A shudder of repulsion overtook her as he planted his lips firmly on hers. Disgust coursed through her as she felt his lips twitch in amusement. Vienna tried to pull away, thinking she had fulfilled his request, but he grabbed the back of her head to keep her in place. He forced his tongue into her mouth and slipped his fingers beneath her underwear.
“No!” Her cry of protest was muffled almost beyond recognition by his insistent mouth and tongue, but her desperate tone and struggles to get free were clear. Alec chuckled against her, scooping his tongue around her mouth. Vienna grabbed at his wrist again as he started rubbing her.
His teeth nibbled on her lower lip before he finally pulled back and let go. A second later, he withdrew his hand as promised and released her all at once. Vienna pushed away with him with such force that she tumbled back off the bed onto the floor in a heap. Alec laughed, delighted by her frantic retreat.
She clambered backwards until her back was against the dresser, chest heaving, trembling, humiliated. And yet, in some fragile corner of her heart, she still held onto the look on Zander’s face. Her parents. The hundreds of people searching. The promise that someone, somewhere, still hadn’t given up.
Alec swung his legs off the bed, stretching like he’d just finished a workout. The sight of Vienna huddled on the floor only made him grin wider.
“Look at you,” he said lightly, almost admiring. “Scared little rabbit. Pathetic. But sweet, too. You’re learning.”
Vienna’s lips parted, but no sound came. Her throat locked tight.
“You felt that, didn’t you?” Alec pressed, standing now. “How much they love you. How broken they are without you.” He gestured vaguely toward the darkened TV. “A year from now? They’ll still be talking about you. Maybe longer. You’ve made me famous without even trying.”
He laughed, genuine and delighted, before crouching low in front of her. The sudden nearness made her shrink back against the dresser.
“I could walk out there right now, stroll down the street, buy a beer, and not a single soul would think to stop me. Because they’re all too busy crying over you.” His grin sharpened, wolfish. “And meanwhile, you’re down here. Mine. Doing whatever I want.”
Vienna squeezed her eyes shut. If she didn’t see him, maybe she could pretend he wasn’t real. “Don’t do that,” he snapped suddenly. His fingers caught her chin, forcing her face up. “Look at me.”
She obeyed, trembling.
"That’s better.” His voice dropped to a mock-coaxing whisper. “This is the truth, little girl. They can weep and pray and search all they want. None of it matters. The only reality that matters is right here. Me. You. This room. That’s all there is now.”
Her tears welled faster.
Alec smiled at them like they were a gift. He patted her cheek once, almost affectionate. “Good girl. You’re catching on.”
Then, as if it were nothing, he stood and dusted off his hands. “I’m gonna sleep like a baby tonight. Don’t stay up too late thinking about your adoring public.”
He chuckled at his own joke, then strolled to the door. The lock clicked shut behind him, leaving Vienna collapsed on the floor, her breath ragged.
For a long time she stayed there, unmoving, until she could drag herself back into bed. But she did not close her eyes. Not with his voice still echoing: The only reality that matters is right here.
It wouldn't take too long before Zander realized that tossing a basketball repeatedly against a shared wall was not good dorm etiquette. But in the first two weeks of his freshman year, he was still learning the ropes.
His body was lit with a nervous energy, but for once it was the good kind. The kind that made his heart flutter, that made a boyish smile tug on the corner of his lips. He would almost describe it as having butterflies, if that didn't sound more like something his twelve-year old sister would say.
As he continued the rhythm of bouncing and catching the ball, he was speaking with his other sister, Tiffany, on the phone. She'd been checking in with him every couple of days since he'd gotten to Lakewood University, clearly picking up on the anxiety he'd been grappling with since his arrival. To be honest, it felt a bit overbearing…but when Zander thought about everything she'd been through in the last year or so, it was hard to brush her off. Tiff, of all people, understood how important it was to watch out for people's mental health. And she was probably relieved to have someone to talk to outside of their parents and younger sister. She was continuing in his ear as Zander caught the ball again.
"You sound…lighter. Less like you're about to drop out after two weeks. Things going better?"
"Well…it's gonna sound stupid. You have to promise not to laugh."
"As your older sister, I would say it's my job to laugh at you. But I'll do my best. Go on."
Zander snorted and rolled his eyes affectionately. "Real reassuring, thank you. It's just… I don't know. I met someone really cool."
"Oh?" Just from that one syllable, Zander could tell that Tiff immediately sounded ten times more engaged. "Tell me more."
"Okay, fine," Zander said, as if he wasn't bursting at the seams to talk about it. "There's this girl in one my classes. Vienna. We ended up walking out of class together yesterday and we talked for like, an hour." He smiled, recalling the memory. "Just about…I don't even know. Nothing, really. And everything. And she's so nice and funny and warm…I just feel good around her."
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, and heat rushed to his cheeks as he imagined how Tiffany's face must look right now. "I said don't laugh."
"I'm not laughing, Zan," Tiffany said. "I think that's awesome. I just…" Her voice trailed into a snicker. "Okay, I'm not laughing at you. But I think I've met her before?! Last summer, when I did that Special Olympics thing in Winhull, there was a girl your age named Vienna there volunteering. And she was definitely super sweet. And cute," she added playfully.
Zander sat up straight, clutching the ball in one hand. "What! You never told me you knew her!"
Tiffany did laugh at that. "What, am I supposed to tell you about every seventeen-year old I meet?"
"Not everyone, but someone like her…."
Zander immediately wanted to pester her for details, but held back. The last thing he wanted was this little crush getting back to his parents. Besides, he had a feeling it would be fun to get to know Vienna on his own.
"So…" He hesitated only slightly. "How have you been doing?"
The question was loaded, and they both knew it. Still, Zander kept his voice light, as if it were a casual inquiry. As if they weren't both thinking about Tiff's spiral over the last year. The days on end she didn't get out of bed, or the night she'd scream-sobbed to their parents to let her die, while Zander desperately tried to distract Lauren in another room. He swallowed the memory. No one in his family had ever spoken about those details.
Tiffany sighed just slightly before responding, "…Better. The medicine is helping. Definitely wasn't expecting to do my senior year from home, but it is what it is."
"Yeah." He had no clue what to say to that, and his discomfort steered the conversation in another direction. "And everybody else? I know Lauren's scan is coming up soon, it's almost September."
“Oh, Lauren's as chipper as ever. But Mom and Dad are nervous, obviously. Doesn’t matter how many years it’s been - remission never feels permanent, you know?”
His mind immediately flashed to hospital rooms and tense voices and IV drips and nights of him and Tiffany home alone. "Yeah. I know.”
Her voice softened, almost fond. “At least they’ve got you. The easy one.”
The words landed like a stone in his chest. He forced a laugh anyway. “Guess so.”
"Anyway….this Vienna. Do you think it could be a real thing?"
—
Nearly two years had passed since that conversation. Memories swirled like reflections on water, shining and blurry and slipping through his fingers - Vienna's smile the next time they'd seen each other on campus; their knees nervously pressed together on their first date to the movies; Vienna wearing his varsity jacket, laughably oversized, in the stands during basketball games; holding hands under the table when she visited his house over fall break; sitting out at the Lakewood pier at night and talking for hours while looking at the stars. Zander had counted all of them among his best memories, the happiest time of his life.
Now every single one hit like a a tidal wave, devastating and grounding all at once. Recalling them made Zander feel like he was drowning, shoving Vienna's face to the surface while he choked on salt water.
He would do it, though, it that's what it took to bring her home. Over and over and over.
Time stretched like putty, sticky and bitter. Every second without an update felt like a lifetime, every minute panic-inducing. Zander had gone from desperately hoping that someone would say this was all a misunderstanding, to wishing that Vienna would be returned scared but okay, to praying that she just be alive somewhere. Anywhere.
That first night, after the surreal, maddening experience at the police station, he'd dragged himself back to his dorm, forced to explain to his gobsmacked friends where he'd been and what had happened. They'd stayed up all night, staring at their phones waiting for an update. There was nothing.
The second day is when reality really sunk in. The news ripped through campus like a wildfire, rumors and panic sparked by every whisper. There was word that finals would be postponed, if not cancelled, dorms completely shut down for the summer. Law enforcement lingered by the stretch of road where Zander had found Vienna's phone and he'd found Abigail standing there outside the police tape, for once speechless. He just went and stood beside her, both of them holding silent vigil. When he returned to his dorm later that night, his roommate Jay had left a bag of takeout on Zander's desk, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since Vienna had gone missing.
The third day was the worst. He'd heard from Vienna's parents - they wanted him to speak at a potential awareness-raising gathering on Sunday. Sunday. It had been Friday then, and the thought of this nightmare extending into the next week was unthinkable. Zander had absolutely no idea how the DeNovas were standing upright, let alone planning events. Later that night, he was hit by an inexplicable, overwhelming rush of terror. His heart pounded so hard he thought it might explode, his entire body shook, and he ended up running to the bathroom to vomit. He sat there on the cold tile floor, covered in cold sweat, teeth chattering, absolutely convinced something terrible was happening to her at that very moment while he sat helpless.
The feeling lingered into the fourth day like a hangover, and he couldn't take anymore. He was restless, agitated, skin crawling in terror of the unknown. Jay had taken him to the basketball court to run off some steam, and Zander pushed himself on drills until he tasted blood in his throat, until Jay nervously asked if maybe they should take a breather. He couldn't, wouldn't return to his room that night to rest - he walked around campus endlessly, half of him really believing he'd find Vienna hidden in some corner, until campus PD stumbled upon him and had him return to his dorm.
And now, here they were. Sunday. Vienna had been missing without a trace for five days.
The vigil was planned for that evening. Even though the semester was technically over, most students had stayed to take part in the event, the entire campus, entire town, struck by Vienna's disappearance. The same phrase, repeated over and over again: This kind of stuff doesn't happen here. I can't believe it happened here.
But it had.
People were coming in from out of town, too, Zander's parents and sisters among them. He was walking to his dorm parking lot to meet them now, his first time seeing any family all week. They hadn't been able to come down before. He hadn't really expected them to. He knew they were busy.
Still, the sight of them made something inside him buckle. The four of them stood in clump outside the dorm building, all brown hair and somber expressions. Zander wasn't used to being on this side of the equation - all his life he'd been the supportive one, willing to be whatever any of them needed. Being the reason they were here felt strangely vulnerable.
"Hey guys." The greeting felt bizarrely casual, but he didn't know what else to say. His mother got to him first, putting her arms around him. He could feel the tension in her body, the stiff way she held him, like it would keep all the pieces together.
"You okay, sweetie?"
Her voice was clipped, tense, and his answer came out as easily as it always had:
"Yeah. I'm fine."
It was a lie he'd told his family a thousand times, but today it tasted wrong on his tongue, bitter and poisonous. For a moment, he almost took it back, almost admitted how much he felt that he was about to break apart - but then he heard his mother's quiet sigh of relief and knew he couldn't.
Zander swallowed the lump in his throat as his mom let go. His father's mouth was a tight line, and he simply clapped Zander on the shoulder. The message, Zander felt, was simple: hold it together, son.
Tiffany was next. Her eyes were rimmed red, arms crossed tight across her chest. Zander's pulse immediately quickened. She didn't need any extra stress, not when things had been getting better.
"I'm fine," he said again, and Tiffany gave him a tight nod.
Lauren threw herself at him, hugging him tightly. As usual, she was the only member of the Wrights not tamping down her emotions like a spring waiting to snap.
"I can't believe this is happening," she said tearfully. "I'm so sorry, Zander. This is - this is awful -"
"Hey, it's okay." It was the only time the word hadn't felt like self-betrayal. Zander rested a gentle hand on the back of his younger sister's head, forcing his body to relax so she could feel it too. "It's…it's why we're here. So we can do something."
Lauren held him for another moment before leaning back. "So… what is this going to be like? I've never seen one in real life before."
"Me neither," Zander said, his heart plummeting. How was this real? He looked at his parents helplessly, but they didn't seem to have answers either. "All I know is… everyone's gonna get candles to hold. And me and her parents and some other people are going to talk. And…and we'll all sing a song."
When he said it out loud, it sounded ridiculously simple. As if any of that would bring Vienna home. But Lauren looked heartened, and he forced a small smile in return.
—
Because he was speaking at the vigil, Zander had been instructed to meet with the others beforehand in the student union off the quad. The sun was dipping below the horizon as Zander opened the door, a leaden feeling in his stomach.
The DeNovas were already there when he walked in to the designated meeting room. A strange feeling almost like shame rose up when he saw Vienna's parents, and he ducked his head as if to avoid eye contact. But they'd already seen him - Mrs. DeNova was striding towards him immediately, her husband not far behind.
When she wrapped him in a hug, wordless and warm and sincere, he nearly broke right there. It was the first time all week he'd felt like he had a safe place to land, somewhere he could set it all down - and then he remembered who was holding him and felt ridiculous.
"I'm okay." His words were muffled because of his head dropped on her shoulder, and Mrs. DeNova let out a noise between a scoff and a sob.
"No, sweetie, you're not. Of course you're not. But at least we're here together."
"Yeah." The word came out as a croak. When Mrs. DeNova finally released him a minute later, Vienna's dad was there, silently holding out a tissue. Zander's stomach lurched for a moment — he hadn't even realized he'd been crying —but Mr. DeNova's quiet demeanor and calm expression soothed the awkwardness.
"Thanks," Zander said softly, his chest burning with something undefinable.
Within the next five minutes, they were all gathered there - Zander, the DeNovas, Vienna's cousin Daniela, Abigail, and both Agents Herring and Miller. When he first saw Agent Miller, Zander had bristled with defensiveness, practically feeling a steel wall slam up between them.
Stop being such a baby, he chastised himself immediately. Miller had been the first one to believe him, after all, down at that station where they were all convinced he'd hurt Vienna.
But he was also the one who really saw Zander break. Who watched patiently as Zander shouted, shook, cried like a child. And Zander could tell by the appraising, almost pitying expression on Miller's face that he hadn't forgotten a second of it either. When Zander met his eyes, Miller gave a quick nod and looked away, gaze settling on Agent Herring at the head of the table as she began to speak.
"I'm really glad you all are here." She looked at them one by one, voice excruciatingly gentle. "This is going to be a big night - but I don't have to tell you how important this is. The more we get Vienna's name and face out there, the more likely we are to hear something that will help bring her home."
"Exactly," Mr. DeNova said softly as Mrs. DeNova bobbed her head in agreement, their hands interlocked like they'd fall apart if they let each other go.
"I know I've spoken to each one of you about this - what to expect, how to prepare." Zander blinked. He had no memory of that. But he supposed it had happened at some point in the blur that was the past week. Herring was continuing, "I just want to go over things briefly once more, and anyone has any questions — anything at all — please just let me know."
As she went on, Zander did vaguely remember some of the main points: keep things short and positive, focus on Vienna and not the crime itself, try not to worry about the crowd or the cameras. Just act as if you're speaking right to Vienna.
"…because there is a possibility that she'll be listening." Agent Herring's voice was profoundly gentle, but the statement still sent a ripple around the table. She let them digest it for a moment, and added, "Which means whoever took her may be listening, as well."
A tiny squeak came from the chair next to him - Abi was pale, looking somehow smaller than Zander had ever seen her.
"I…I don't know if I can do this," she whispered. Zander felt a surge of both compassion and irritation. He understood her discomfort — thinking about whoever took Vienna made him sick — but it was the least they could do.
"Hey." Daniela's voice was soft, calming. "You can just stand with me. I'll do all the talking. Promise."
When she reached to squeeze Abigail's hand, her reassuring smile was so much like Vienna's that Zander had to look away, throat tight.
"And I want you to know that you're absolutely safe." Agent Miller spoke from the corner, quiet but sure. "We'll have officers all over the crowd. Uniformed and plain-clothed. We don't expect anything to happen, but just to keep an eye out for any…unusual behavior."
They think he'll be here. The thought shoved its way to the front of Zander's mind before he could stop it, and he had to bite his lip from saying it aloud. He didn't want to disturb any of the others. He finally met Miller's eyes, and a pulse of understanding seemed to pass between them. Without looking away, Miller added, "And I'll be standing by the stage the whole time. If there's anything you need."
As the crowd gathered outside and they got ready to take to the temporary stage, Zander couldn't ignore the twisted irony: just about a week ago, his biggest worry had been going onstage with his basketball team at Springfest, and the only one who could calm down had been Vienna. Now, here he stood, ready and willing to speak in front of Lakewood and beyond, just for the fraction of a chance of reaching her. He was struck by the fact that he wasn't even nervous. None of that seemed to matter so much right now.
Even so, the sheer size of the crowd took the breath from his lungs when they walked outside. It was the size of the entire Lakewood student body, easily, along with what must have been hundreds of members of the Lakewood and Winhull communities. It seared something into Zander's brain, strong and unforgettable: they weren't alone in this. Vienna wasn't alone.
Zander found himself drawn to standing next to Miller, the agent's steadiness helping him stay upright. The vigil started with a moment of silence. Candles flickered. Girls hugged one another. Quiet sniffles rose up every so often. And Zander watched as Miller's eyes crawled over the crowd, calm but absolutely scrutinizing.
Zander followed Miller's gaze, wondering what exactly he was looking for. The thought of Vienna's kidnapper being here, among the community like he was one of them, made Zander want to harness the flames from the candles and burn everything to the ground.
He only caught snatches of what the others said. It was almost too painful to listen fully.
Mrs. DeNova, voice heartbroken but firm: “Vienna, sweetheart, if you can hear this - hold on. We are searching for you every second. We will never stop. You are not forgotten, not for a breath.”
Daniela and Abi were next, hands clutched together while Daniela read from her little notebook, voice absolutely quivering. "Vienna is more than a cousin. She's a best friend, a sister. She makes everyone around her better. We….we just want her back."
And then it was his turn.
Every step up to the stage felt like trudging through molasses. The sound of the crowd seemed to fall away, as if it was coming from underwater. Zander looked down at the paper shaking in his hands. Herring had looked through each of their statements carefully, making small adjustments. Zander's slightly irritated impression had been that she wanted them to speak from the heart, as long as speaking from the heart fell within the FBI's carefully constructed guidelines. Zander began to read the first few lines, summing up how they'd first met, what their relationship had meant to him over the last couple years. His voice came out robotic, like it didn't belong to him at all. He paused. The words swam in front of him. They didn't sound like him. They didn't sound like Vienna.
Zander folded the paper up. Slipped it in his pocket. Cleared his throat slightly as he looked out at the crowd.
His eyes roamed the crowd as he gathered his thoughts. He didn't know who he was looking for — his mom, Jay, anyone — but his gaze landed, inexplicably, on Agent Miller. Zander expected disappointment, frustration - but Miller just gave him a brief nod. Steadying. Approving.
The single gesture galvanized him. Zander's voice strengthened and he pressed on.
"I was supposed to come up here and read something official,” Zander said, the paper long gone. “Something about how Vienna’s smart and driven and… all the stuff people say when someone they love is missing.”
He swallowed, glancing toward the candles flickering along the stage. “But that doesn’t really say who she is. Vienna’s the kind of person who — if she saw a lost dog on the way to class — would be late without even thinking about it. I actually watched her do it once. This little terrier got loose by the dining hall, and everyone else just walked by. She dropped her backpack, sat right down on the sidewalk, and waited until it came to her. Talked to it like it was a scared kid.”
His mouth twitched, half a laugh. “She ended up missing her exam. Didn’t even complain about it. Said, ‘He looked more nervous than I did.’ That’s Vienna.”
He took a breath that trembled at the edges. “She wants to be a special ed teacher. I’ve seen her with those kids - how patient she is, how she makes them laugh when no one else can. She sees people. Really sees them. So I just… I can’t believe the world could lose someone like that.”
The crowd was quiet. He looked down for a moment, then back up, his voice softening.
“If she can hear me, I just want her to know - we'll never give up. We’re still looking, still hoping, still believing that the same girl who could calm a frightened dog or a nervous kid is fighting her way back home right now. And we’ll be here when she does. And - I love you, Vee. No matter what."
He nodded once, eyes glassy, and stepped away from the mic.
When he walked offstage, the rest of the group was staring at him with watery eyes, and for a moment he was afraid he'd done something wrong. Then Mrs. DeNova hugged him again, so forcefully it almost knocked the wind out of him, and he knew it was all right.
Mr. DeNova was set to finish the event, and his words floated into Zander's ears like a vow.
“We raised our daughter to be resilient, to be brave. And we believe in her strength now more than ever.”
Zander closed his eyes, tongue pressed against the back of his teeth. You can do this, Vee. You can do this. Just hold on. We're coming.
—
The crowd had thinned, candles burning low or gone out completely. Voices drifted in soft threads across the lawn, the kind of murmurs that came after too much crying. Zander stood a little apart, the paper still folded in his pocket, watching as volunteers began stacking chairs. His ears rang faintly, like his body hadn’t caught up to the quiet yet.
Mrs. DeNova was the first to break. She’d picked up one of the leftover flyers, Vienna’s smiling face looking out from the page, and for a second she just stared at it. Then the sound that came out of her didn’t sound like a cry so much as something ripped loose. Mr. DeNova was there in an instant, pulling her against him as tears streaked down his own face, but the sobs kept coming - short, gasping, like she couldn’t get enough air.
Zander’s throat locked. He’d watched them keep it together all evening; seeing them collapse felt wrong, like the ground had given way beneath everything. He wanted to go to them, to say something — anything — but the sight of their grief made it impossible to breathe. He turned away before anyone could notice the tears standing in his own eyes.
He made it just around the corner before he heard someone say, “You can take a moment to feel it."
Miller had followed him down the sidewalk and casually strolled behind him now.
Zander stopped short. "You didn't have to…you should be with her parents."
Miller didn't reply for a moment. Just studied him. "You did good up there, you know."
Zander shook his head roughly. "I don't even know what that was all for. What I actually did. Should've just….stuck to the script."
"I'll tell you what you did. You made her real."
Zander frowned, not following.
"Too often….people just look at a missing person as a photograph, or a headline. Or a cautionary tale." His jaw set. "You changed that. You showed that she's as a full person. And that makes a difference, believe me."
To Zander, it felt like pity. "That's…nice of you."
Miller arched an eyebrow. "It's more than nice. It's true. Look at this."
He pulled his phone from his pocket and turned the screen toward Zander. A video was already circulating - Zander’s voice unsteady but clear, the moment he’d folded the paper and started actually speaking from the heart. Beneath it, the caption read ‘Friend of missing student speaks at vigil’ - and her name was trending.
Zander stared at the screen, watching the numbers climb, the comments flooding in. Something tight in his chest loosened a little.
“She’d hate that,” he said quietly. “All the attention.”
Miller gave a faint smile. “Probably. But it might help bring her home.”
They stood there a moment longer, the last of the crowd dispersing around them. Two agents walked past, murmuring to each other. Zander caught a scrap of their conversation “—might’ve been a match, near the quad cameras—” before their voices dipped out of earshot.
He turned instinctively toward them, heart thudding. “What was that? Did they—?”
Miller’s expression didn’t shift. “Nothing confirmed,” he said evenly. “Go home, Zander. Get some sleep.”
But his voice carried the slightest tension that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Zander lingered, scanning the edge of the crowd, the dark shapes moving beyond the candlelight. For the first time all week, something like adrenaline pricked at the back of his neck - hope, sharp and disbelieving.
The rest of the night spiraled into nothingness. Even by the next day, it all felt like a blur, and Vienna barely remembered how she got from one moment to the next. All she knew was that at some point she had gotten out of the shower. She had dressed, using the clothes she had sworn to herself she'd never wear. She had collapsed back into bed, the bloodstained sheet pulled to the floor. And she had somehow fallen asleep, body curled tight, wrapped in a thin blanket she'd found in the dresser.
Vienna's exhaustion was so profound that her sleep had been deep, mercifully dreamless. She awoke suddenly the next morning, and for one wonderful, fleeting moment she didn't remember. Then, the piercing, unfamiliar pain between her legs brought everything back. Without meaning to, she let out a miserable whine and pressed her thighs together, even though it hurt. She closed her eyes again, clenching them tightly shut in the hope that she could just fall back asleep. The brief respite of being unconscious, of being blissfully unaware of her hellish situation, was so enticing.
But now that she was awake it was no use: it seemed like each second of the previous evening was playing rapidly through her mind, a supercut of terror: the feeling of the restraints tight around her limbs, the knife cutting through her clothes, his hands, his skin, his breath… she wished with everything in her that it had been a nightmare, that she would wake up safely in her own bed, but the soreness all over her body reminded her it was all too real.
Vienna reluctantly opened her eyes and looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. It was 8:32 in the morning. If she were home right now....what day was it now, even? Saturday?
A lump formed in her throat. It was supposed to be the first day of her summer vacation. She and her cousin Daniela had been looking forward to it for weeks, finally reunited after months apart at school. Zander's hometown was close enough that last year they'd been able to meet up at least a couple times a week and they'd been planning that again, looking up festivals and breakfast spots and hiking trails to meet at. And her parents. As much as she loved Lakewood, she'd been so looking forward to being home with them, falling into their familiar, happy routine.
What had felt so simple just a few days ago now seemed like a beautiful, impossibly far away dream. Could that ever be her life again, after this? She closed her eyes again, not to sleep, but to focus her imagination on the faces and voices of all of her loved ones: her family, her friends, her professors, her classmates....Vienna ran them through her mind over and over, each time giving a prayer she would see them again soon. But every so often, a terrible image of Alec intercut her mental slideshow - sneering above her, laughing at her, hands all over her, his body rocking in rhythm against hers....what was today going to bring?
As if summoned by the thought, a door slammed above her. Vienna shot up immediately - she knew that sound by now. He was coming back down to the basement, back down to her.
Her heart fluttered so rapidly she thought she might be having a heart attack. Footsteps were approaching the door now. She didn't know what to do. Her brain screamed at her to get ready to fight, to hide, to run, but her body didn't seem to get the message. All she could do before Alec entered the room was wrap the thin blanket around her body, covering every inch of herself but her head as she cowered on the bed.
When Alec walked in, just seeing him again made Vienna feel as if the wind had been knocked out of her. She felt unbelievably small and helpless in his presence as he looked her over with a smug grin.
"Well....good morning."
Vienna said nothing, her chest rising and falling heavily as Alec closed the door behind him.
"How did you sleep? Mm? I gotta tell you, I slept like a baby."
He was so casual it sent a chill down her spine. How could he be acting like this after last night? After he'd torn a piece out of her soul and crushed it?
“Then I woke up, remembered you down here waiting for me, and man, it was like Christmas morning. You don’t look as excited to see me, though. Do you?”
Again, Vienna did not answer. He was crazy, this man. He was a psychopath. The more scared she was, the more pleased he seemed to be.
"You know, you're going to have to talk to me eventually."
Alec grabbed a chair from the small table behind the bed and pulled it out, straddling the back so he was facing Vienna. She was forcibly reminded of how he'd straddled her while she was bound to the chair yesterday, and her stomach twisted.
"I wanted to talk this morning, and you'll probably want to as well, because as soon as we're done, we're going to get started."
Get started? What did that mean? Was he going to....not again. Or did he mean...
"Are you going to kill me?" Vienna blurted it out almost without meaning to, clutching the blanket around herself so tightly her nails were digging into her palms. Alec did not reply at first, but a grin started to twist on his face.
"Because if you're going to kill me, just - just do it now and get it over with!" Vienna meant for her voice to be fierce, but it came out shrill and anxious instead. She flushed as Alec fully smiled, seemingly amused.
"I already told you, I have no interest in killing you. What, you don't believe me?"
"Why should I believe anything you say?!"
He watched her with the same amused expression, as if every word was entertainment.
"I haven't lied to you once since you've gotten here, Vienna."
She cringed at the sound of her name coming out of his mouth. He'd said it before, but it felt different today, crude and predatory and wrong.
"Yes, you have! You said you didn't want to hurt me!"
Alec cocked his head like a curious child. "Did I? When did I say that?"
"You -" Her voice died in her throat. She had been so sure that he'd promised it…but when she tried to conjure up the memory, she came up blank.
"Am I supposed to have said that when I told you I was holding you for ransom, too?" Alec sneered. "No - that was all your invention. Desperation is a crazy thing, huh?"
Shame rose hot and fast in Vienna's face. Because she realized - he wasn't wrong. Her fear had been so strong that she'd allowed herself to believe what was clearly not reality. Alec didn't even have to say the words for them to immediately ricochet around her head - foolish, naive, stupid. And now, she was paying for it.
Alec was still talking. "It was nice to have you believe all that, though. It wouldn't have been so fun last night if you really knew what was coming."
Fun. As if it had been a game, light recreation, not the most devastating moment of her life.
"So, I haven't lied. I'm not going to kill you." Alec finished simply.
"Then...then what are you going to do?" Vienna asked in a small voice, hoping against hope that now that he'd have his way with her, he would let her go.
Nothing could have hit worse than the words he spoke next. His tone, smug and satisfied, only made it worse.
"I'm going go keep you."
For a moment, everything disappeared. All that existed was her aching body, his terrifying closeness, and those words floating between them. The walls pressed in as if forcing them all closer together, claustrophobia and nausea rising in Vienna's throat like acid. No. No no no.
A part of her, twisted and guilty, had clung to the hope that maybe once he got what he wanted — money, revenge, something — he’d be done with her. Maybe he’d kill her afterward, and that thought had been terrifying, but at least it had an end.
Now she understood there wasn’t an end. Not unless he decided one.
She was glad to be alive. And horrified that she was still breathing the basement air. Because that meant he was going to keep doing this. Over and over. Until there was nothing left of her.
"And before you ask, I'm going to keep you for a nice long while," Alec was continuing cheerfully. "You're the exact type I wanted - sweet, innocent, healthy. Built to last.”
"You can't!" Vienna burst out, her body shaking all over. She knew she should feel more relieved that he wasn't going to kill her, but in this moment, it seemed like a fate worse than death.
Alec laughed. "Who's stopping me? Hmm? You see anybody breaking this door down to save you?"
Vienna swallowed thickly, her eyes darting to the door, thick and impenetrable as ever. Let someone come... she thought desperately. Anyone....
"No one is coming," Alec said, and she was disturbed by how he seemed to read her mind again. "No one is going to stop this, or stop me from raping you again. And again. Nobody can."
His frank words sent a terrible chill down her spine. Vienna forced her eyes back to him. This couldn't be the way it was going to go. Maybe.…maybe she could talk him out of it.
"Please - my parents. I'm their only child. They need me back. This will kill them!"
Her eyes filled with tears as she acknowledged the reality of what she was saying. She had known, always, that she was her parents' world, that they loved her more than anything. What would happen to them if she really never came home?
"Maybe," Alec said lightly. "That's their problem."
"They'll do anything if you let me go," Vienna pled. "I - we could make it work. I wouldn't tell anyone about last night. I can say that you - that you were nice to me. And they'll give you however much money you want."
"I don't care about money," Alec said with a taunting smirk. "I think you know what I want."
"I..." Vienna groped desperately in her mind for something that would get through to him. "I told you last night. I've only really done that a handful of times. I won't...I won't be good at it. You-you could find someone who w-wants to do it with you."
Alec's grin widened. "Maybe you're still not understanding. Let me make myself clear. Your struggling, screaming, begging last night? That's what I'm interested in."
A full body shiver overtook Vienna at his words. He wanted to hurt her. He wanted her to suffer. She had never felt so vulnerable or defenseless in her life. She didn't know what to do, and couldn't help but continue to beg.
“Please, you don’t have to do this…”
“I know I don’t have to - I want to do this. I get to do this.”
Vienna didn't know what else to say. She had never heard anyone speak like this before. It seemed like nothing was going to change his mind. She began to breathe heavily, unable to stop the panic overtaking her. Alec seemed to enjoy this, and continued, "I get to keep you. I get to touch you everywhere. I get to tie you up and fuck you however I want. I get to hurt you."
The words hit her like spears of ice. She finally broke down in tears, heaving, full-body sobs.
"I - I ca - I can't!" She wailed. There was no way she could survive this.
"Maybe not. But I can. And I'm going to make you." Alec said pleasantly. She simply wept harder, and he continued, "You know, it took a lot of self control to not to touch you these last few days. I can't tell you how many times I thought about just tearing off your clothes and going at it. We're going to make up for lost time today. And I don't work today, so we have all day to catch up."
Alec smirked in satisfaction as Vienna continued to cry, now rocking on the spot in an effort to soothe herself. He let her go on for a minute, and then said, “Alright, that’s enough. I need you to calm down so you can listen to me.”
Vienna gave no indication that she heard him, his crude words taking up too much space in her brain for anything else. For the first time he began to sound irritated.
“Hey - calm down. Or I’m going to start getting angry, and you aren’t gonna like that. Deep breath.”
Vienna looked up at him fearfully and obeyed, sucking in air and clasping her hands to her mouth.
"Another one. In and out."
Vienna took a shaky breath, forcing herself to swallow her tears. He was right - if he was like this in a good mood, she definitely didn't want to see him get angry. He nodded approvingly.
"Like I said...I didn't lie to you. And all my rules remain the same. You are going to stay clean, well-groomed, and fit for me. You'll have access to food just like the last couple days. I'll be giving you more clothes and bedding, too. You'll have some things to pass the time - the TV, doing my laundry. Maybe if you're good, you can have some books or games or something. But mainly," he smiled, unbearably smug, "you'll be waiting down here for me. Whatever I want. Every day."
Vienna bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying again. Every day felt beyond her comprehension.
"You're going to be good for me. If you want to cry, or beg, or struggle a little - fine. In fact, I'll like that. What you're not going to do, is try to escape, or try to really hurt me. If that happens - well, you know I don't want to kill you, but I’ll have to punish you. And I’ll make sure it hurts. Bad - worse than anything you’ve felt before, believe me."
He let the threat hang in the air a moment, her imagination already running wild. "I'll remind you: you're in the basement of my house, which is soundproof, with multiple locks, with no neighbors around for at least a mile. Trying to escape would just be stupid. Do you understand me?"
A strange buzzing filled Vienna's ears. All her strategizing, calibrating, furious calculating - for nothing. It didn't matter. He didn't care. She wasn't getting out of here unscathed. She forced herself to nod stiffly.
"Use your words."
Alec's voice was dripping with condescension, but there was also an edge of threat to it. Vienna whimpered, "I understand."
"Good. Now…take that blanket off yourself. I want to see you."
Vienna's stomach plummeted. "Wait, I - I have a question." She needed to keep him talking. Anything to prevent what was coming next.
"Alright, make it quick."
"I - um -" Vienna's mind scrambled anxiously. "Wh-where are we?"
"I just told you. My house." Alec arched an eyebrow.
"Yeah, but - what town?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Do you - do you own the house?"
"Yeah?" Alec said, bemused. She knew he was seeing straight through her.
"Okay...um...how long have you owned it for?"
"Alright, now you're just stalling," Alec sneered. "No more questions. Take the blanket off."
"Please, don't make me," Vienna whimpered, clutching the fabric tighter around herself.
"Would you rather I come and rip it off you?"
Vienna shook her head frantically.
"Then go on."
Desperately wishing that something, someone, would somehow stop this, Vienna pulled the blanket off herself and let it fall to the floor next to the bed. Alec grinned. "That's right....now the shirt."
A despondent mewl escaped Vienna's throat. She wrapped her arms around herself. There was no way....
"Okay then, I"ll do it."
Alec rose and pushed the chair back to the table.
"NO!" Vienna cried "No - I'll do it."
She couldn't believe she was doing it, but Vienna began to lift her shirt over her head. Alec hadn't left a bra for her after cutting through her other one, so her torso was completely bare under the t-shirt. She clutched the fabric to her chest, shaking.
"Drop it. On the floor, with the blanket."
She obeyed, gulping audibly. She could feel Alec's eyes on her and it felt like a violation in itself. There was a pause as he drank in the image of her topless before continuing.
"Very nice. Do you know what's next?"
His eyes glittered with excitement. Vienna was positively trembling now, and shook her head as a sob built in her throat.
"Mmm, I think you do know, baby."
"Please," Vienna's voice was small and strangled sounding as she looked pleadingly up at Alec.
"Yeah, you know. Take your pants off, now."
"I can't," Vienna whined, shrinking under his hungry gaze.
"Alright, fine."
Alec started towards her and Vienna screamed in terror, scrambling away on the mattress. She was afraid that she had made him mad, but as he climbed onto the bed towards her, he didn't look angry - if anything, he looked excited, an eager smile on his face as he reached for her. He grabbed her by the hips and yanked her towards him with an unsettling ease.
Alec took hold of the waistband of her sweatpants and began to tug them down. Vienna wailed in protest and shoved at his hands, trying to pull the pants back up over her exposed skin. They tussled like this for several moments before Alec decided he needed to try another tactic - he straddled her to pin her to the bed and forced each of her wrists into the restraints.
"No, no, stop!"
But he was too strong, too unrepentant, and before she knew it Vienna's wrists and ankles were locked into the restraints again, the sweatpants discarded to the floor.
"That’s it..."
Alec slid atop Vienna's desperately writhing body, panting with exertion.
"Well...here we are again."
Alec looked so excited and eager, greedy and hungry, and it terrified her. A broad smile was on his face as he settled above her, straddling her hips and effectively pinning her down. "This is exactly as I always imagined you. I can't believe I finally get to have you."
Vienna flushed red as he slowly ran his eyes down her body, taking in every inch of her exposed skin. She felt frozen in dread, scrutinized like a bug under a microscope.
Alec continued, “You know, yesterday was great. Don’t get me wrong. I do feel like I rushed it a bit, though. But that’s alright….I’ve got you right where I want you and we have hours. Today, I’m going to take my time.”
Vienna’s look of horror made him smile. “Mmhmm….by the time we’re done today, there’s not going to be an inch of you I haven’t touched. Inside and out.”
Vienna heart was racing so hard she couldn't believe Alec couldn't see it slamming against her chest. Every nerve in her body felt alight in fear and trepidation, knowing that soon he would be touching her again and she had no way to stop him.
Still smiling down at her, Alec said, "Tell me what you're thinking."
"I - I'm scared. I don't want to do this," Vienna whimpered.
"Perfect."
Alec cupped her cheeks in his hands and leaned down to kiss her. Vienna cried out in disgust and turned her face away to avoid his lips, desperately twisting her bound limbs. Alec laughed at her and licked a stripe up the side of her face, causing her to burst into tears.
"Don't touch me!"
"My tongue's gonna be a lot more places than that, Vienna. Remember, I can do anything I want to you."
The thought seemed to give him power, his chest swelling as he dragged his mouth lower.
“Anything I want…” Alec hummed as he kissed all over her neck and chest. Vienna squirmed and squealed as he trailed kisses down her body. “I get - to - do - any - thing - I want - to you.”
He punctuated each word with a disgusting kiss down her torso, approaching the apex of her hips.
“STOP!” Vienna screamed, absolutely panic thrumming through her body. Each place his lips had touch felt burned, skin crawling unbearably.
"Alright, alright....we'll start nice and slow." Alec settled kneeling between her spread thighs so they were face to face again. He reached up and lightly touched her bound hands and wrists. "That's not so bad, is it?"
Vienna’s stomach twisted and she said nothing, still breathing hard from the panic of Alec kissing her.
“Well, if it is, we can just get right to it -" His hand drifted lower.
“No!” Vienna cried, jerking in the restraints. “No, it’s - it’s n-not so bad.”
“Very good.” Alec smiled, tracing his fingers along Vienna’s, making good on his promise of touching each and every part of her. “You wanna be good for me, Vienna, don’t you? You don’t want me to have to hurt you.”
“I’ll be good,” Vienna said quietly.
“Yeah, you will. Tell me you’ll be a good girl.”
“I…I’ll be a good girl,” Vienna practically whispered, her face flushed in humiliation.
“I bet you will,” Alec purred, running his fingers across every nook and cranny of her hands. “Mmm…can you guess what I’m imagining these wrapped around?”
He laughed softly as Vienna grimaced, her hands unconsciously clenching into fists.
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen next. I’m going to ask you some questions. Some I don’t know the answer to already, but some I do - so you’re not going to lie to me. If you do, I will know, and I’ll need to punish you. Understand?”
Vienna nodded meekly, and he continued, “Good. I’ll start with an easy one - tell me your full name.”
“Vienna DeNova.”
“Good. And how old are you, Vienna?”
“I…I’m only twenty,” Vienna whimpered, and Alec smiled wickedly. His light touch moved further down her arms and her entire body shuddered.
“And when did you turn twenty?"
“M-May 1st.”
“Ah, just missed it. Well, next year we'll be able to celebrate it together."
Alec chuckled at the look in Vienna’s eyes. Relief and terror tangled in her chest - relief that he planned to let her live that long, terror that she might still be here in a year.
Time stretched into something unknowable. Vienna tried to answer his endless questions - about her family, her life at college, her friends, every last detail about her sexual history - while his hands slowly roamed her body. When she hesitated — like when he asked for her parent's address — he would press harder, move his touch threateningly closer to the places she least wanted him near.
By the time he seemed to run out of questions, there was only one place on her body he hadn't skimmed his hands over. Vienna trembled from head to toe, but the sensitive valley between her legs seemed to scream with awareness as he settled his gaze there.
"I noticed you bleeding last night." His voice was casual, as if they were discussing the weather. "You look okay now, though."
"I'm not." Her voice wobbled like jelly. "I'm not, please, I can't again."
"Don't tell me you're worn out after one go at it?" Alec smirked, letting one finger trail down where she feared most. She let out a staggering gasp. "Don't worry. I'll get you ready."
As he went further, fingers pressing and flicking and stroking, Vienna found herself wishing for the pain instead. Every nerve was was alight, firing not in agreement but in pure reflex. It felt as if her entire lower body belonged to someone else, hips jerking and twisting, a stranger's hand invading.
He lingered so long she wondered if that was all he had planned, savoring her breathless gasps and cries. But then he stopped. Pulled back, fingers slick. Turned her onto her stomach.
"Wait." Her mouth was dry as he dragged her hips up. "Wait - please."
"Why should I?" His voice was a purr. "I've waited long enough already, Vienna. I've been waiting ever since I saw you in your little volleyball outfit down at Freestone State."
Her heart stuttered. That game had been over a month ago, at least. Had he really been lurking in the shadows of her life that long without her noticing?
“Then I saw it all. College girl. Dorm room. Boyfriend. Coffee dates.” Something like venom began to lace his words. “You were living in a fucking commercial.”
His hands were on her hips. "But not anymore."
"Please. Please don't do this,” Vienna begged as she felt him moving behind her. She couldn't decide if had been worse last night when she had to watch him, or right now when she couldn't tell what was coming next. Her mind whirred, throat closing. “Please, I - I’m just a little girl, I just want to go home and see my mom and dad and -“
Alec cut her off with a sharp laugh and smacked her hip.
“You’re just a little girl, huh? I think I like that. You ready to get raped again, little girl?”
“No!” Vienna said shrilly. “No, please - PLEASE!”
She wailed in pain and terror as she felt Alec began to enter her again. He hummed in satisfaction as she felt an unbearable stretch in her already sore muscles. Vienna's cry turned into an outright scream - she couldn't believe that it hurt even more today, like needles stabbing from the inside.
"STOP, STOP - YOU CAN'T!"
"Mmm, seems like I can."
Vienna broke into frantic, pained sobs as he continued, slower than yesterday but no less agonizing. She begged, she bargained, she prayed, she struggled - and was only met a mixture of moans and laughter.
It was then that she realized her miscalculation: she was trying to appeal to him as if he were human. Like there was some shred of decency buried deep enough to appeal to, some thread of empathy she could tug on if she just said the right thing.
Now she understood - there was nothing in him to reach.
Every plea only seemed to spur him further, like her pain was oxygen feeding the fire. But she still couldn't stop herself, words tripping over each other, begging please and no and stop until they lost meaning.
And the shame of that seared deeper than anything he could have done with his hands.
Because the trap she was in was deeper than the locked door or the restraints. He fed off this. Off her tears, her panic, the way she shrank from his touch. Her fear wasn’t just incidental - it was the point.
Vienna clung to one desperate thought, even as her chest squeezed tight and her tears blurred her vision: If I can just stay alive. Just one more minute. One more hour. Someone will find me. I just have to survive him.
And that thought felt both like a lifeline and like a life sentence.
When he was done, his weight crushed her against the mattress. She weakly flexed her fingers, her toes, the only parts of her she could still move. Proof that she was still there. Surviving.
But his next words made her wish she wasn't.
"All day," Alec breathed against her ear. "That was the first of many. I could do this to you forever."
Against her will, a strangled sound left Vienna's throat. She had been focused on enduring minute to minute. The stretch of the entire day ahead of her felt like eternity.
"Let's get up." His voice was soft. "Clean up a bit. Then I have something to show you."
"Cleaning up" meant Alec wiping her down with a wet wash cloth, purposefully lingering on the places that made her tremble. When he handed the towel to Vienna, telling her with a wolfish grin to clean him, she could have vomited.
She should have known better than to hope for her clothes back. Alec marched Vienna back to the door from the bedroom to the rest of the basement, unlocked it, and began to push her through the doorway.
"No -" A tremor of pure fear ran through her entire body, and she turned, trying to shove against him to get back into the bedroom. Because the larger room in front of her was worse than anything her mind could have conjured up.
In one corner, a huge bed decked out with every manner of restraints.
In the other, a wardrobe, one door open as if on display. There were whips, cuffs, sex toys she couldn't even name.
Attached by a chain to the wall close to them was a collar. A collar. Like a dog would wear.
In the center of the room, a pair of handcuffs hung from the ceiling.
And beyond all of it lay the staircase. A couple of minuscule windows on either side of it, placed strategically so if anyone peered in all they would see were stairs and concrete walls. A sliver of sunlight glittered near the foot of the stairs, practically cruel in its golden light.
Around the room there were rugs carefully strewn about, softening the hard floor. But it didn't make a difference. She knew what this was.
It was a torture chamber.
Alec held her steady, one hand tightly clutching her arm while the other grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at the space.
"It's really something, isn't it? And it's all for you."
Vienna's knees buckled. He chuckled softly, starting to drag her across the room.
"I think we'll start here."
She couldn't move. Couldn't fight. Her veins had turned to ice, her entire body frozen. Alec pulled her arms up, cuffing her wrists above her head so her entire body was stretched out, even more defenseless than before. He moved behind her then, pressed up against her back, skin on skin.
“God, you’re so tiny,” he marveled, cupping his large hands around her waist. “Must be pretty scary to be locked up here with a big guy like me. Especially now that you know I’m big in lots of ways.”
He pressed his crotch up against her, snickering as she let out a fearful whine. She was going to vomit. She was going to pass out.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful not to break you…not too bad, anyway. I didn’t go to all that work just to have you last a short time. I think we have years of fun ahead, little girl, if you keep being this good.”
He let his hands roam her body, enjoying the way she flinched and twitched and whimpered. Her shoulders. Her chest. Her ribs. Her hips. Then….
Vienna's entire body jolted as if she'd been electrocuted, and he laughed.
“Are you going to get this upset every time I touch you here?”
Her mind tried to float up and away, tried to detach the way it had last night - but every cell in her body screamed danger, and if anything she was more alert and hypersensitive than ever. And Alec wouldn't stop. She tried everything - crying, fighting, begging, screaming, cursing, going limp, going silent. It didn't matter. Every hint of desperation or resistance seemed to goad him on.
Hands skimmed back over her ribs, up to her breasts. He whispered crude words into her ear that made her want to burst out of her own skin.
Hands wandered back down, rubbing and pressing while he called her names that seemed to make the air harder to breathe.
And on and on, and back and forth, and in between, as if tormenting her was a compulsion. When he finally stepped back, she should have known better than to be relieved. He'd said they had all day.
The second time he raped her, Alec simply bent Vienna over at the waist where they stood, her shoulders aching as her wrists stayed cuffed on the chain to the ceiling. He alternately slapped her hips and rubbed between her legs, as if experimenting with all the ways her body could tremble and jerk.
The third time he raped her, Alec had Vienna pinned in the middle of the huge bed that occupied the left hand corner of the basement. His whole body pressed to hers and he forced her into painfully intimate direct eye contact as he took his time. “You are mine…mine…mine….” he grunted repeatedly in her face. He seemed to relish studying the microexpressions of pain, humiliation, terror, misery, and helplessness as she had no choice but to look him in the eye as she was assaulted.
The fourth time he raped her, Vienna felt like she had completely lost her mind from the endless abuse. She fought him wildly, screeching and kicking and writhing when he made it evident he intended to rape her once again. Alec only enjoyed the struggle, chasing her all over the bed and forcing her into various positions as she unsuccessfully resisted him, rutting in and out of her with a gleeful violence.
The fifth time he raped her, Vienna felt completely broken, mind, body, and soul. She finally lay limply as Alec leisurely thrust into her from behind, at last losing energy from all his exertion over the last several hours. Vienna cried uselessly into the mattress, her entire body aching and bruised. She began to wonder if he would ever stop raping her, or if she had entered some kind of hellish purgatory of 24/7 abuse with this man who had to be some kind of demon.
But then, almost inexplicably, he did stop. He wasn't on her anymore. In fact, she was on her back again. At some point, he realized her mind must have clouded over, accepting her body's helplessness and protecting it the best way it knew how. Flashes of memory came back to her — too many, more than she wanted — but much of the day was a blur.
Alec was by the bed, pulling his clothes back on. She had become so accustomed to the pain and horror of the day that her mind barely registered the relief at first. He smirked as he saw her eyes tracking him.
"There you are. You went away for a little while, you know."
His shadow seemed to swallow her as he leaned back over her, tugging her legs apart again.
"God, no!" Vienna's voice was an exhausted, strangled scream.
"Shhh....we're almost done. You can go to your room in a minute. Let me just take a look."
Given how exhausted and sore as she was, it didn't take too much mental fortitude not to move, but her body quivered all the same. The feeling between her legs was somewhere between raw agony and utter numbness, and if she let herself focus on it too much panic spiked. Her blood speckled on the sheets.
"That looks painful," he chuckled. "Does it hurt?"
"Y-yes," Vienna replied tremulously. "Please, I can't anymore..."
"I know. We're done today, little girl."
Tears spilled down her cheeks, this time of utter relief. She had survived the day. Despite the hundreds of times she thought she wouldn't.
"Mmm. Have you had enough? Would you like a little break, just a couple of days?"
"Yes, please," she blubbered, not caring how pathetic she sounded.
"I think that's probably a good idea. I want to use you for a long time, can't wear you out too soon," Alec said casually. "I'll leave you alone tomorrow, and then we'll see after that. But listen carefully. Look at me."
Vienna forced herself to look up Alec's face. Something about his eyes was so disturbing - like he was barely human, barely there at all.
"You need to remember my rules. You're going to clean yourself up tonight, and I expect you to keep yourself clean and shaved and your room clean. Otherwise you might not get a room anymore. Is that understood?"
Vienna nodded mutely. Please let me go back in. Please leave me alone.
"Alright then, I'm gonna lock you in. Get up."
Vienna immediately complied, more than ready for him to leave. Her legs almost crumpled beneath her, pain searing, but she forced herself forward back towards the bedroom. Alec noticed. Of course.
"I'm surprised you can even walk after all that. I think you'll hold up just fine." She didn't have to look at him to know he was sneering.
When the door locked behind him and his steps faded away, Vienna thought she had never heard a sweeter sound. The bathroom door was only steps away, but the distance stretched like a mile. She dragged her feet forward. The rote, mechanical part of her brain told her this was the next step. Survive this minute. This hour.
The bathroom light was too bright. Vienna leaned against the counter, staring at her reflection but unable to hold her own gaze for long. Her face was blotchy, her hands shaking. Everything ached in ways she didn’t have words for.
She shifted her weight and winced. The pain shot sharp, unfamiliar, and her breath caught.
Oh God. Something’s wrong. What if I can’t fix it? What if he broke something inside me?
She slid down to sit on the cold tile, hugging her knees despite how it made her sore thighs protest. Panic rose in her chest, hot and choking. She wanted her mom. She wanted a doctor. She wanted anyone to tell her this was survivable.
But somehow, there was no one.
Sparks bloomed in Vienna's vision as she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
What if they were here?
She hadn't thought about any of them all day. She couldn't. It had seemed too painful, the idea of the world of her loved ones existing alongside this one. But now, for just a moment, she allowed herself to pretend that she could be comforted. That she was home. That she was just sick, or in an accident, not…..this.
Like the time she had a nasty cold on New Year's and had to stay home. Her dad had made her endless cups of her favorite lemon tea, the steam swirling around as cozily as the blanket he wrapped her in, whistling Christmas carols.
She thought about the fierce protectiveness of her mom - while her father comforted her, she was sure her mother would be dragging Alec to the police station herself by the ear, letting Vienna know no one would ever hurt her again.
Her cousin Daniela would be there, too. Mixing together her signature snack of M&Ms and popcorn, turning on their favorite childhood musical. Her heart ached at the thought, the simple innocence of it.
And Zander. She remembered how she'd been so sore from volleyball last year, barely able to lift her arms after a day of serving drills. He'd offered to give her a massage, all earnest confidence until his first attempt made her yelp.
"Oh, okay - ow! You're not kneading dough here!" she'd gasped between giggles.
The next week, he'd tried again, gentler this time, focused, quiet. She'd turned her head back to thank him and stopped short - he had one headphone dangling from his ear, his phone showing a YouTube video titled "How to Give a Back Massage (For Beginners)."
He'd caught her noticing, and for one moment his cheeks flushed pink - until they both broke into laughter, almost falling off the narrow dorm bed in hysterics.
The corners of her lips twitched up, almost reflexively, at the memory. She screwed her eyes shut again, trying to let the warm light of it glow inside her as long as possible. She was cared for. She was loved. No matter how far away it felt.
The mantra rang out once more: Just survive this night. This hour. This minute.
Whumpee is skittish. Their heart rate rockets every time they're startled, and they startle easily. They feel about two seconds away from bolting at any moment.
Whumpee is skittish, but they don't flinch. Discomfort doesn't show on their face.
Whumpee is skittish and no one knows it. Maybe they wish people did know, and would be more considerate. Or maybe they're quite happy that such a weakness isn't evident.
