The Mayor's Daughter III: Miller's End

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Uncomfortable Silence

Jessica breathed hard through her nose as she knelt at the post to which she was locked, looking down at the woman on the floor. Gone was the uniform and gun that had filled her heart with hope only moments before. In place of the crisp blue uniform there was now the woman’s bare, tanned flesh and the simple cotton material of her bra and panties. In place of the gun were gleaming steel cuffs locked securely around her ankles and wrists, keeping her stretched out on the cold stone floor. Jessica whined softly as she bit down on the steel bit that split her lips.

“It’s going to be all right, Jessica,” the woman spoke evenly, her voice sounding calm and assured despite her current predicament. Jessica marveled at the confident tone, taking some renewed hope from it. “I’m going to get us out of here. Just stay strong for me.”

“Ghi.. Ghi…” Jessica tried to speak around the bit in her mouth, but she could feel it beginning to slip backward at the attempt. She quickly bit down on it firmly once more, feeling new tears welling up in her eyes.

“It’s okay,” the captive officer spoke. “Don’t try to talk. Help is on the way. Maybe not right away, but it’s co-“

Jessica screamed into her gag, cutting off the woman’s words. She shook her head quickly, as much as the collar on her neck would allow. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. Whatever the woman was about to say, Jessica wanted to hear it. But she knew that he would be listening or at least recording what was spoken in the room. She couldn’t let him discover whatever the policewoman had been about to reveal.

“He’s listening,” the woman spoke softly, and Jessica saw understanding in the policewoman’s eyes.

Jessica nodded, feeling another tear slip down her cheek.

“So it’s best for us not to talk, then,” the raven-haired woman continued. “Just know that we’re going to get out of this. You’re going home.” The woman looked past Jessica, addressing the other girl. “You both are. We’re getting out of here. And it’s not your fault, Nevada. None of this is. Don’t let him get to you.”

Even as she tried to take some solace in the officer’s words, Jessica could feel dread creeping into her. Even the name that the officer used for the other girl, Nevada, seemed to make a mockery of the woman’s promise. Nevada wasn’t the girl’s name. The officer did not know the girl’s real name any more than Jessica herself did. She had believed, she had really believed, that the officer and her gun had meant salvation for them. And yet here the woman was, another chained captive in the mill.

Jessica heard a soft whimper from behind her. She carefully turned her head to look at her fellow pony girl, the rough wood of the post brushing against her cheek as she moved. The strain in Nevada’s body was immediately evident as the girl struggled to remain up on her toes. Jessica could see thigh and calf muscles trembling with the effort, toes splayed on the floor. The heavy wooden stocks blocked Jessica’s view of the girl’s face, but she could see the way the wood pressed against the flesh of her throat.

“How are my girls doing?” their captor asked as he stepped back into the room. “Getting to know each other a little?”

Jessica turned back to face him, grateful to no longer see Nevada’s torment. He carried what appeared to be an aerosol canister in one hand and a bundle of chains, duct tape, and material in the other. He moved to kneel beside the imprisoned officer, and Jessica watched her shy away from him on the floor as he placed the bundle down with a rattle of chain. He reached out to gently run the fingers of his now-empty hand across the policewoman’s stomach.

“Get your hands off me, you f*****g p-aaaah!” The woman’s angry words were quickly cut off by the spray of liquid across her features.

The flesh of the woman’s cheeks immediately reddened as the spray coated them. Jessica saw her eyes squeeze tightly shut even as they grew red and puffy. The policewoman breathed out hard through her nose with a spray of the stuff, lips tightly sealed.

“Pepper spray is a b***h, isn’t it?” Their captor chuckled as he ceased the spray and set the canister down on the ground. “Fortunately, I’m sure that you’ve experienced it before at the academy. Does that make it any easier? Does that make it burn less?”

The woman did not respond to his taunts, and Jessica could see her tortured chest heaving as she convulsed under the effects of the stuff. Jessica watched tears mixing with the spray on the woman’s face as she snorted and gasped through clenched teeth. From the pile of things he’d brought with him, Jessica saw the man pull out a sheer piece of nylon. Without warning, he thrust it down over the woman’s head. The tight press of the material compressed the policewoman’s face beneath, pressing in tightly against her wet features and squashing her nose.

Whistling softly, the man picked up the roll of duct tape and began to wrap it around the nylon stocking that covered the policewoman’s head. She watched as the sticky stuff went round and round until the woman’s face was completely covered save for a small gap where her nostrils had been. The sound of the woman’s labored breathing filled the small room as the officer continued downward with the tape until layer upon layer covered her from the top of her head down to the base of her neck.

“Now I don’t have to listen to that smart mouth anymore,” the man spoke as he shifted, moving the roll of tape up to the woman’s left hand where it was held in place above her head by the cuff whose chain ran through the bars of the cage. “By the time it comes off, you’ll be all ready to tell me all about how you found me here.”

Jessica watched the woman’s hand thrash against the bars of the cage as he began to wrap tape around it. Despite the woman’s efforts, Jessica saw her fingers slowly disappear as they were covered, gradually balled into a tight fist beneath the insistent press of the tape. Straddling her waist, he turned his attention to her other hand, setting upon it with the tape until both of her hands were nothing more than blunt nubs covered in the grey tape above the cuffs on her wrists.

“How does your savior look now, Sierra?” the man asked, turning his eyes to glare at Jessica where she knelt. “Officer Morgan is going to go spend some quality time on the cot while I attend to some business.

Jessica quickly lowered her eyes, unwilling to meet his gaze. She could hear the woman’s labored breathing and the rattle of chain. She looked up to watch him close a heavy steel collar around Morgan’s throat. It was more than a collar, though, she saw. From each side of it protruded a gleaming steel pole, each ending with another metal cuff. Jessica watched him close a heavy padlock in place on the center of the collar, locking it on the woman’s throat.

Jessica watched, transfixed, as he unlocked the cuff on the woman’s left wrist with a key and then re-locked the cuff to one of the bars of the cage. Officer Morgan struggled as he tried to control her arm, drawing it free of the sleeve of her uniform shirt. Shaking his head, he reached down to place the palm of his hand over the opening in the tape on the woman’s face. Officer Morgan thrashed on the floor, and Jessica could see the woman’s chest heaving beneath the hovering officer who straddled her.

“You can relax and let me work,” the man hissed angrily to her, “or you can suffocate. It makes no difference to me.”

The fight left the policewoman in a moment, and Jessica heard her sucking in air through her nose as the hand was removed from her face. She watched as the woman allowed him to remove the shirt sleeve and then draw the tape-covered hand up to the waiting cuff where it protruded from the collar, slightly beyond the woman’s shoulder. She watched him tighten the cuff until it pressed firmly in place around the woman’s wrist and then lock it with another padlock like the one that hung from the front of the collar.

As Officer Marlow turned his attention to the woman’s other hand, Jessica felt revulsion welling up inside her. She couldn’t blame the woman for her lack of resistance now. Jessica knew how futile a continued fight would be, and yet she still found herself angry with the woman. She was angry at the officer for failing. She was angry at her for giving in to him now, despite the hopelessness of the situation. But most of all, she was angry for the false hope that the woman’s appearance had given her.

With the policewoman’s wrists now both locked in the cuffs, elbows bent with her hands up to either side of her head and out, their captor turned his attention to the woman’s feet. He released one cuff only long enough to slip it out of the ring on the floor before locking it back in place on her ankle. Taking hold of the poles on either side of her collar, the man pulled Morgan roughly up onto her feet.

The transformation in the woman startled Jessica. She had seemed so strong and confident just moments before. Now, locked in the chains and cuffs, her head and hands plastered with tape, she seemed a different person, so small and powerless. Jessica felt as though she might be looking into a mirror.

“If Sierra could talk right now, I am sure she would tell you all about the horror that you’re about to experience on the cot,” the man spoke cruelly as he took hold of the woman’s hair from behind and began to thrust her forward out of the room. “But that’s okay, since it’s really a personal experience that you should learn first-hand.”

Jessica watched them leave the room; the woman’s shuffling steps brought up short by the chain between her cuffed ankles. She prayed that the woman’s words were true and that help really was coming. But, in the cold room, kneeling in the hay in her bonds, it seemed a fragile hope at best.