You had learned to consider yourself lucky that you weren't dead yet, although the possibility was still very much real. You didn't particularly understand why he had insisted on keeping you alive so long, he just had.

Otis had killed your now ex boyfriend and your friends whilst you were in a motel on a road trip, and whilst he was on a killing spree, but didn't kill you. Instead he cut the tendons in the back of your ankles so you couldn't move, put you in the back of his truck and took you for the ride. It was awful, but you were alive.

Now, the wounds had healed and you were chained up in the basement of his family home- barely chained up, really, it was one cuff around your bandaged up ankle that secured to the wall with a half meter chain so you couldn't get far off the bed you were given. You were supplied with food every so often, and strange company from another girl in the house who threatened to break off all of your toes if you didn't paint her nails and do it well. And God damn it did you paint.

You didn't know how long you had been down there. Weeks? Months? It felt like ages and you had no way to keep track except when Otis would come down to mess with you, it was the only regular thing in this fucking house.

He came down the stairs and pulled up a chair beside your bed as he looked you over. "If I take that off, will you behave?"