Serial- Part 27

Marie cleared her throat and tried to keep the tremble from her voice as she made her plea. Her words were carefully chosen, as if talking a suicidal jumper down off the ledge. He saw through her guise and decided it was time to needle her a bit.

            “If you don’t shut up, I will slap some more duct tape over your flapping lips. Got it, Pet?”

His derogatory tone, and smug sneer as he called her, “Pet”, pressed Marie’s buttons. Before stopping to think, angry words flew from her mouth.

            “Hey! I have a name so…use it. How would like it if I called you ‘rude bastard’, or ‘pervert’ or sick a---”

Before she could throw in the onslaught of profanities she’d planned to unleash, he stuffed the sock back in her mouth, muffling her words. She tried to spit it back out but he pressed the blade to her throat. Marie froze. A tsunami of fear crashed over her; every muscle rigidly tensed to prevent trembling. One little slip, she thought; one hand tremble, or a cough and he’ll slit my throat. Trying not to think about what could happen, she willed herself to stay as still as possible.

            “That was a rude outburst, Marie. Don’t you think? Yes, I’m sure you do. Even though you can’t nod your head right now because my knife will slice through your windpipe, you know you were being impolite. Since you and I are going to be spending lots of time together, you’d be wise to watch your mouth. Now, would you like to apologize?”

The absurdity of what he’d said left her stunned. This wacko kidnapped me, shackled me to a table, and stuffed a dirty sock in my mouth but, somehow, I’m the rude one? Unbelievable, she thought. Though her body remained tensed, Marie’s eyes expressed what she was unable to say aloud. Fury and disgust laser beamed from her corneas into his forehead but unlike comic book characters, she was unable to inflict real damage on her captor.

            “That does not look like remorse, Pet,” he hissed as he pressed the point of his blade just under her eye.

Despite her best effort, the bubbling fear sent tears streaming down her cheeks. He dabbed them away with a rag before applying a strip of duct tape over her mouth.

            “Ah, yes, you’re contrite now, aren’t you? Well, I’m afraid this is just too little, too late. You need to be taught a lesson. First, you interrupted all the effort I put forth into capturing that rich-witch redhead. Then, you were disrespectful to me. You leave me with no other choice. This is going to hurt you more than it’s going to hurt me, my pet”

At the close of his monologue, he applied one more strip of tape. He turned his back and Marie was left to consider his words. Great…I’m being “taught a lesson” by a homicidal freak. There’s got to be a way out of here. Wait, what was that?

The strange hissing noise made Marie crane her neck to see what he was doing. Oh SHIT!!