The process of being moved into Hap's house is not unlike being checked into prison. Bella hasn't ever been incarcerated herself, but she's familiar with the process. After the flight, and another car ride, Hap escorts her into a house, up stairs and through doorways, and finally into a room where he looses her wrists and lets her see her surroundings. A spare room with wood paneled walls that were chic before Isabella was born and dated immediately afterwards, bookcases with a thin dust that indicates disuse.
It doesn't look like a room where he kills people. It doesn't even look like a cell. It looks like a place things are put to be forgotten about.
He has her (makes her? She's still compliant, rarely doing more than pausing to indicate unhappiness with a command) unpack in front of him. She watches him sort through her toiletries, her now-useless phone charger, her clothing, her wallet. The little life she brought with her to see him. In prison, they'd bag it up and keep it for your eventual release; when Hap takes something, she expects she'll never see it again. At least he leaves all her clothes, including her belt and shoes. Two cocktail dresses, one of which she's wearing, one pair of slacks, a button-down, and three stupidly expensive lingerie sets. Wonderful.
Then there's her journals. Of course, he looks through them. Bella watches his face as he flips pages, trying to read his reactions and wondering if her own anger at the invasion is showing on her face. Both of them -- her personal daily journal and the notes she keeps for her work under Ibarra -- mention him more than once, but she can't remember everything she wrote. Hap's expression tells her nothing.
(Self-described control freak is in there, beside Regular contact so he feels exclusive. On one day she wrote, He seems like he might have been married but I can't imagine it ended well. On another day, she wrote, Thank god I have Hap to look forward to.)
It's a surprise when he lets her keep those, along with a pen. If she were less exhausted, it might even be a pleasant surprise. As is, she murmurs a "thank you" and puts them next to the pillows on the untouched bed. And with very little more than that, Hap leaves.
Bella takes off her dress, lies down in her bra and underwear, and sleeps for ten and a half hours.
The next day begins their routine. Hap must have a schedule he's keeping to, Bella realizes, with her meal times and supervised bathroom and hygiene trips carefully timed. That makes sense. There's never been a night or a weekend they spent together where it wasn't clear that Hap had a plan worked out in advance. And, of course, this isn't the first time he's kidnapped someone.
She thinks about that a lot. Not much else to do. Read the old medical journals on the shelves, keep notes on what time she thinks it is when he lets her go to the bathroom, listen to the sound of trees outside and the sound of power tools inside. Think about murder. Occasionally, frighteningly, dissociate for a while. Get mad. Get hopeless. Do it all again, with minor variations when Hap is late for a bathroom trip, or when she wakes up in the middle of the day from a bad dream of falling.
Until there's a major variation. Hap comes to the room -- she's wearing the same dress she arrived in, having been rotating through her outfits for some semblance of normalcy -- and invites her out into the house. For dinner, he says. They need to talk.
no subject
It doesn't look like a room where he kills people. It doesn't even look like a cell. It looks like a place things are put to be forgotten about.
He has her (makes her? She's still compliant, rarely doing more than pausing to indicate unhappiness with a command) unpack in front of him. She watches him sort through her toiletries, her now-useless phone charger, her clothing, her wallet. The little life she brought with her to see him. In prison, they'd bag it up and keep it for your eventual release; when Hap takes something, she expects she'll never see it again. At least he leaves all her clothes, including her belt and shoes. Two cocktail dresses, one of which she's wearing, one pair of slacks, a button-down, and three stupidly expensive lingerie sets. Wonderful.
Then there's her journals. Of course, he looks through them. Bella watches his face as he flips pages, trying to read his reactions and wondering if her own anger at the invasion is showing on her face. Both of them -- her personal daily journal and the notes she keeps for her work under Ibarra -- mention him more than once, but she can't remember everything she wrote. Hap's expression tells her nothing.
(Self-described control freak is in there, beside Regular contact so he feels exclusive. On one day she wrote, He seems like he might have been married but I can't imagine it ended well. On another day, she wrote, Thank god I have Hap to look forward to.)
It's a surprise when he lets her keep those, along with a pen. If she were less exhausted, it might even be a pleasant surprise. As is, she murmurs a "thank you" and puts them next to the pillows on the untouched bed. And with very little more than that, Hap leaves.
Bella takes off her dress, lies down in her bra and underwear, and sleeps for ten and a half hours.
The next day begins their routine. Hap must have a schedule he's keeping to, Bella realizes, with her meal times and supervised bathroom and hygiene trips carefully timed. That makes sense. There's never been a night or a weekend they spent together where it wasn't clear that Hap had a plan worked out in advance. And, of course, this isn't the first time he's kidnapped someone.
She thinks about that a lot. Not much else to do. Read the old medical journals on the shelves, keep notes on what time she thinks it is when he lets her go to the bathroom, listen to the sound of trees outside and the sound of power tools inside. Think about murder. Occasionally, frighteningly, dissociate for a while. Get mad. Get hopeless. Do it all again, with minor variations when Hap is late for a bathroom trip, or when she wakes up in the middle of the day from a bad dream of falling.
Until there's a major variation. Hap comes to the room -- she's wearing the same dress she arrived in, having been rotating through her outfits for some semblance of normalcy -- and invites her out into the house. For dinner, he says. They need to talk.