Still Missing by Chevy Stevens Page B

should be looking for The Freak.
    I worried about Emma and who was taking care of her. Were they feeding her the right food for her sensitive tummy? Were they walking her? Mostly I just wondered if she thought I'd abandoned her, and that always made me cry.
    To comfort myself I played memories of Luke, Emma, and Christina like home movies in my head: pause, rewind, and repeat. One of my favorites of Christina was the two of us on our candy bender. She came over to play Scrabble last Halloween and we decided to break open one of the bags I'd bought for trick-or-treaters. One bag turned to two, then three and four. We were both so stoned on sugar our Scrabble game just dissolved into a mess of dirty words and hysterical laughter. Then we ran out of candy for the kids, so we had to turn off all the lights. We hid in the dark and listened to fireworks, giggling our asses off.
    But then my thoughts always turned to The Freak and what he might be doing to her now. I'd imagine her at the office, maybe working late, and then I pictured The Freak waiting outside in the van. My powerlessness enraged me.

    As another day went by and I put a new mark on the wall, I stopped feeling any cravings for food, but the feeling that The Freak was coming back continued. And if I wanted to survive, I needed to be ready. My previous attempt at seduction had nearly gotten me killed, so I had to figure out why he flipped out when I pretended to be turned on.
    Was he a sadist? No, he wasn't sexually aroused by beating me. He was reenacting something. This guy had a pattern. It started with the bath--maybe his version of foreplay?--and then it got rough later. What the hell was his deal?
    He said women don't want nice guys, we all want to be treated like garbage, and then, when I was too overt in my attempts at seduction, it enraged him and he called me a whore, said I should be fighting him. He must think a "nice" woman secretly wants an aggressive man who's rough with her and overpowers her, but in his mind only a "whore" would actually show she likes it--a nice woman would resist. So he probably didn't feel like a real man unless I was scared of him.
    He was trying to please me--with fear and pain. And the more I didn't react, the more he thought he had to hurt me. Holy shit. He was a rapist who thought every woman had a rape fantasy. At last I knew what he wanted--I had to struggle and show him my pain and fear.
    If there'd been anything in my stomach to vomit up, I would have. Somehow, the thought of allowing him to see my real feelings was worse than pretending I liked being raped.

    On my fourth day alone it became harder to distinguish my dreams from my reality as I slept more and woke less. There were times I'm sure I was hallucinating, because I was wide awake yet I could hear Luke's voice and smell his cologne, but when I opened my eyes there was nothing but those damn cabin walls.
    I realized I was so weak I might forget my plan, so I created a rhyme to help myself remember. I chanted it over and over as I slipped in and out of sleep.
    The Freak is insane, he needs fear and pain. The Freak is insane, he needs fear and pain.
    By the fifth day, I began to be afraid he wouldn't come back before I starved to death. I spent most of the day on the bed or sitting with my back to the corner, waiting for the door to open and chanting my rhyme, but I kept nodding off. I think it was early evening but I was so weak it felt later. Then the lock on the door clicked and he walked in.
    I was actually glad to see him--I wouldn't starve. I was especially glad to see he was alone, then I wondered if Christina was unconscious and tied up in the van.
    He closed the door and stood staring at me. His image swam in front of me.
    The Freak is insane, he needs fear and pain....
    Body and voice trembling, I said, "Thank God, I've been so scared. I--I thought I was going to die here all alone."
    His eyebrows rose. "Would you rather die here with company?"
    "No!" As I