010: New Maps of Hell

As Kayla Knix took the elevator up to the penthouse, all she could think about was the hot shower she'd take before putting on her comfiest pajamas. She'd spend the remainder of the night with a grilled cheese sandwich, in bed, and something on television that made her laugh. She'd been on edge for a few days, ever since she'd been triggered about her abduction. It had been an accident, but she still had the dreams and could feel the binds on her wrists and ankles. The worst part of this was that she'd run out of her antidepressant, since moving to Vegas, she hadn't been able to get in with a new doctor. One of the withdrawal symptoms happened to be light headedness which she was currently experiencing. She also wasn't looking forward to seeing Rick as they had gotten into a bit of a spat through Twitter DMs. Rick had been flirtatious with other females on Twitter and Kayla had gotten jealous, which now she was angry at herself for. With how moody he'd been over the past few days, she didn't doubt that they'd get into some snippy argument. This was the reason she just wanted to stay in bed and watch television.

As the elevator doors opened into the penthouse, confusion set in when she saw piles of stacked books all over the place. When she stepped off the elevator and started walking towards the living room, she just about stumbled to the floor, luckily, she'd been able to catch herself. She listened for any indication that Rick was there and not long after heard snoring. At least he was finally getting himself some sleep which relieved her. Doing her best not to trip, she continued onto the living room and stopped when she saw the man passed out on the floor. Not only was he sleeping, but he was completely naked. Her shower would have to wait as she knelt next to him and used the coffee table for leverage.

"Rick, c'mon… let's go to bed." Her hand rubbed his back, shaking his body to help wake him.

"Mmmpf," it was more a muffled grunt than anything else as he lifted one hand, weakly waving it. He didn't even bother to open his eyes, slurring slightly when he mumbled, "go 'way."

"Nope, we need to get you up." Her hands slid under his arms to try to lift him, but it was pointless.

He was boneless, almost dead weight as he slid back to the floor with a grunt. Slowly, he lifted his head, blinking at her and when he finally focused, he realized who it was and sighed. "What'm I doing wrong this time?" He grumbled, glaring daggers at her. For the first time in days, he'd finally been able to close his eyes and just let go of everything and she'd come in and completely ruined it.

"You aren't doing any –" She stopped when she noticed what was on the coffee table that she'd been using for leverage. There were two lines of stark white powder with a small glass tube laying next to them. At that moment it all made sense and she couldn't stop herself from feeling sick that she hadn't caught on before then. "I just think you'll be more comfortable in the bed, that's it."

"All you do is think… it's so infuriatingly LOUD." When she reached for him, he waved her off again. He refused her help, instead rolling over and crawling over to the couch. With effort, he pulled himself up so he was kneeling and then flopped over onto the couch. Feeling the cold leather against his back, he realized he was nude and grabbed the throw off the back of it, dropping it across his waist. "There. Am I less bothersome now?"

Kayla had gotten to her feet when he'd refused her help and her focus had shifted to the coffee table. She was on the verge of screaming or crying or both, but she didn't want to do that in front of him. Her arms came up and folded against her chest. "Next time I'll just step right over you and go about my business. Sorry my thinking is such a fucking issue." The words were snapped at him and she couldn't wipe the frustrated look off of her face, she was radiating with it. Shaking her head, she walked into the bedroom and slammed the door.

He caught her staring at the coffee table and by the time his fried synapses realized what she was seeing, she'd already stormed off. "Shit," he muttered, sitting up so quickly he got a headrush. The last thing he'd wanted was for her to find the evidence of his latest attempt to cope with the darkness inside his head. "Kayla." He said her name loudly, wondering if she could even hear him through the heavy door. "Goddamnit…" he staggered upright, knotting the blanket around his waist like it was a towel. His head pounded with the change in pressure now that he was standing but he forced himself to move.

He didn't bother knocking, just slammed his palm into the door and forced it open. It had never really latched right and that was why he didn't usually close it. It smacked into the wall and he stood in the doorway, wild-eyed and glaring. "What the hell is your major malfunction?!" The words came out harsh, eyes narrowing on her.

The anger, frustration, and hurt that she'd been feeling stared right back at him. She'd dropped her hands to her sides and her fists had clenched shut. Not because she planned on hitting him but because her nails were digging into the palm of her hands. The prickle of pain was calming in its own, weird way. "You want to know what my major malfunction is? You've been treating me like shit since you got back from Fiji." Her tone was sharp and she had no plans to dull it. "Whatever." She left him standing there and went into the closet to find her Eeyore pajamas that she wore when she felt like shit.

"Don't you ‘whatever' me – what are you, twelve?" Rick started towards her, realizing that taking that track might seem just a little ridiculous in his makeshift blanket toga. Tossing it aside, he picked up his discarded boxers from the floor and pulled them on. "You tell me you're fine. You're… what was it, now? Oh, yes. ‘Golden'. You're golden. We're lovely… just ducky when you can't even stand to be in the same room as me." He was almost raging, unbelievably angry now that he was thinking about the exchange in private messaged earlier. "Monosyllabic replies equal flirting in your world – is that right?"

Kayla had found the pajamas she'd been looking for, all the while seething as she listened to what he said. "Yeah, I totally can't stand to be in the same room as you. It's not like I've been with you since you got back from Fiji or been taking care of you. The only time I left the penthouse was to get groceries or go down to the office." When she had the clothes in hand that she planned on changing into, she left the closet, walking past him to the bed. "When I am here, I can't do much right or you get pissy with me."

"Pissy? Well then." He huffed indignant, "quid pro quo, right? My turn?" Rick snapped, folding his arms across his chest. "You nag. You pick at me… for what? I need to sleep. I need to stop drinking. I need to calm down. I need to get the hell off Twitter because apparently that's the singles' bar of the universe and I'm just trolling for a nice piece of tail. What the bloody hell do you want from me?!"

When he'd said these things, her back was to him and she felt her anger boiling over. Turning to face him, she was glaring hard at him, her breathing heavy. "Why don't you go finish those lines? Maybe it'll help, just like it's been doing the past couple of days." Her voice fairly oozed with scorn.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Rick's smirk was cruel. "Then you could tell your little friend all about it. Saddle up that high horse and judge me a little more."

Kayla's eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?" She had a feeling, but she wanted to hear him say it.

"Oh boo-hoo… he saw it all and I'm so disgusting. How could he ever want me now?" His voice had risen to a falsetto parody and he rolled his eyes. "Oh look. I was right. Now he's hitting on all the Twitter lesbians. Oh, poor me! I'm so hard done by!" His tone was nasty, eyes almost pitch black with anger as he stared at her. "Does that about sum it up or did I leave anything out?"

Silently Kayla stared at him, not seeing much of the man that she'd come to trust with her life. "Okay, I think it's time I told you a little story." She gave him a tight and trembling smile as her breathing became steady. "Ten years ago, I was driving to my grandparents and I had to take a little detour through Arkansas and I got tired… It was late and I hadn't been sleeping well. I had just broken off an engagement with a narcissistic abusive asshole." Her words came out softly and that tight smile stayed in place as she never took her eyes off of Rick's. "Guess I fell asleep at the wheel because when I woke up, I wasn't in my car. I had this blinding headache and then I noticed I was naked in some concrete room on some old mattress that smelled like mold and shit. I tried to get up, but I couldn't because my wrists and ankles were tied to the bed frame. Look." Sliding up the sleeves of the sweater she was wearing. She held up her hands, showing off her wrists and the faint white scars that encircled them. "They used some really tight rope that just bit into my skin and it didn't take much for the bleeding to start." Her hands dropped to her sides as she refused to look away from him. "I screamed for help, almost lost my voice before someone finally answered my prayers." The way she said those last three words, it was clear that her prayers had been anything but answered. "It was actually two someones, the pastor and his dutiful wife. They told me they were going to save my soul from eternal damnation, it was their duty… that God had put me in their path and they were going to start the saving immediately." Kayla's fingers were holding onto the hem of her sweater as she started to pull it up, her hands anything but steady. "I had a tattoo on my side that they deemed sinful so they were gonna remove it for me." The sweater came off, revealing her to be in a plain white bra. She dropped it to the floor and ran a hand over her left side that was home to a scar that was five inches by five inches and circular. It seemed as though there had been attempts to fix it, some of the flesh being a shade or two lighter than the original scar. "They branded me with one of those old metal pokers and let me tell you that it's not fun."

The last few words came out on the heels of a chuckle before her gaze shifted to the bedroom floor. A black leather belt with a silver buckle was next to a pair of Rick's dress pants that she couldn't take her eyes off of. She'd already started to pale as she told him her story, but upon focusing on the belt, the rest of the color drained from her face and that tight smile went away. She wanted to look away from the belt, but she couldn't.

Rick stood there, just about as pale as she was, looking shell-shocked as she continued to bludgeon him with the truth.

"Six weeks… six weeks I was tied to that bed and the wife tried to clean my side but the cleaning stuff burned so much. If I screamed, she'd call the pastor down to teach me to be quiet…" Her whole body was visibly shaking as her hands moved to her back. "He'd come down with his belt and um they'd turn me over so he could hit me with it… I think he mighta used the buckle on my back a lot. Sometimes I just blacked out or tried to leave my body. After he used the belt on me, he'd rape me and if I cried, he'd hit me more." The light-headedness was getting worse as she brought a hand to her forehead and took a few deep breaths. "I almost escaped, he forgot to tie me up again. I thought I could make it, I tried so hard – everything hurt and then he found me in the woods and dragged me back… They tried to beat me to death and I prayed so hard to just die, I couldn't do it anymore… I blacked out and then woke up in a hospital."

Under her fingertips, she could feel the many scars that resembled a road map. Some were faint while most were prominent, raised even after the many times she'd run her fingers over them, hoping they'd finally disappear. Finally, she tore her eyes off of that belt and then looked back at him. The anger and frustration that had been staring back at him had been replaced with pain and the torment she felt at retelling her story. Tears streamed her face as she dropped her hands.

"Now you know why I want the lights off and why I'm disgusting." She couldn't talk anymore, she just wanted to curl up in the shower stall for the rest of the night. It didn't matter how many years it had been, it never got easier going back to that time in her life. Turning her back to him, she went back to the bed and started to fidget with her pajamas. "I'm gonna take a shower and go to bed." She sniffled and brought the back of her hand up to wipe at her face, trying to hold back her sobs until she was under the water.

"Kayla." Rick still stood there in the same spot and now he felt cold, the sweat and heat of anger had dissipated to leave him feeling sick and more exhausted than ever. He knew he would have crumbled, would have interjected and made her stop recounting the horrifying details if he'd been sober. Instead he'd stood there immobile, unable to look away for fear that something terrible might happen if he did. He realized he hadn't said it loud enough, that it had been barely above a whisper and if her pulse was pounding in her temples half as loudly as his was, she wouldn't hear him.

He moved, coming a little closer and his hands were at his sides now – he didn't remember unfolding them, unclenching his fists but now he was reaching out. His fingertips grazed the worst of the damaged tissue, feeling the irregular lumps at the edges. He rested his other hand on her shoulder, gently tracing the outline. He started at the small of her back, worked slowly up to her shoulder blade and then he stopped, taking a shuddering breath as he bowed his head and rested it against her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm…" he couldn't finish his thought; couldn't even remember why he'd been so angry with her.

It had startled her when she felt his fingers on her flesh. When his hand had stopped, hers came behind and rested on his. "I told you I'd tell you; I just wasn't ready yet. There's only two other people that I told everything to. Kitty… the DMs you saw, she's one of them. She was there for all of it, after I got out of the hospital." She wanted to turn and hug him, but she wasn't ready to see his face. "She's my soul sister… I tell her everything, and the stuff with you? Yeah."

"I don't care." The moment the words left his lips, he had to clarify, lest she think he was dismissing her ordeal. "About that. About her." His voice came out strained as he moved that hand on her back, wrapping his arm around her waist. "I wasn't trying to spy. You didn't log out on the office computer. The notifications kept popping up and when I realized…" he sighed, closing his eyes. He wanted to tell her that he was high, that he'd been walking on mental eggshells for days waiting for the other shoe to drop. He wanted to say that the cocaine made it worse until he felt like he was eating his own brain. Instead, the most ambiguous words ever left his mouth, "I won't do it again."

Both arms were around her now and he held her as tight as she'd allow, feeling like if he let go, she'd just fly away like dust in the wind, lost forever. For what seemed like an eternity, he just held her and tried to remember how to breathe, still seeing the illustrations his mind had supplied to play out her story in ghastly, vivid detail. "You." Rick's voice was small, contrite. "I'm sorry if I ever gave you the impression, I'd…" he couldn't even explain why that bothered him so much. He kept such a tight rein on himself that it was no wonder she'd simply assumed he was shallow. "You're not disgusting."

She turned around, ready to look up at him. Her face was tear-streaked, but she wasn't shaking as bad as she had been. "I know that here." She tapped her chest over where her heart was. "Not here though." She tapped her temple as her arms went around him. "My head's kind of jumbled right now. I ran out of my antidepressants a couple days ago and everything kind of spirals. Once I find a new doctor, I'll be better." She rested the side of her head against his chest, exhaustion had settled in and she just wanted to stay there in his arms. "I'm sorry I drove you nuts; I just hate seeing you like that… I thought I was helping. I won't nag anymore."

"Shhh," He stroked her back tenderly, no hesitation as his fingers slid over the scars, "you do it because you care – I love that about you."

Lifting her head, Kayla looked up at him and hesitated for a moment. "The thing is that I don't just care about you, I'm in love with you."

His eyes met hers, his hand coming up to gently cup her cheek and for a moment it seemed as though he was going to say something back. Instead he kissed her, gently at first, letting it get deeper as his hand moved to tangle in her hair. Those words were stuck in his throat and he couldn't bring himself to say them for fear that everything would crumble the moment he did. When the kiss broke, he looked over at the light switch on the wall. "Come to bed with me," he said, making it more a statement than a request.

Kayla nodded, still reeling from that kiss. Her arms were still around him as she looked at the switch. She'd taken a huge step in telling him her story and she felt as though she could take another. "Leave the light on, okay?"