The Seduction of Suki

Suki began to shriek madly once the realization set in that she was trapped with a madwoman who wanted everything from her that she didn’t want to give her. Agent Hughes laughed maniacally as she watched her run frantically throughout the place, searching for a means of escape she couldn’t find. Eventually, Suki was dragged down into the basement before she could attempt to take out a window and locked in a tiny room under the stairs with nothing but a piece of foam to lie on and a bucket to pee in. Left in darkness, her days and nights became altogether timeless, and she quickly lost track of time completely. Although it felt like an eternity, she could have been trapped there for just a few days—or perhaps weeks. Then one day, Hughes was in a hurry. Some kind of case called her into work at an unexpected hour. Suki sensed it was early in the morning. It was only when the door to the hidden compartment under the stairs was opened that she got any sense of whether it was day or night, based on how much light filtered through the casement windows. In Hughes’s haste to leave, she didn’t quite push the door in all the way. Suki knew it was a snug fit because she could always hear the wood scraping against the doorjamb whenever the agent opened and closed it, but she swore she didn’t hear the lock click this time. She waited until everything above her had been silent for several minutes before slowly getting to her knees and pushing on the door. It gave a little. She pushed even harder, and the door sprang open. She was both excited and terrified. She hoped her judgment had been correct—that she had given it enough time for the agent to leave. For all she knew, Hughes might still be upstairs, simply moving about quietly. Suki certainly hadn’t been able to hear every single movement whenever she was home. During her time in captivity, all she’d been able to make out was mostly her coming and going, along with the faint droning of the TV and water running through the pipes when she showered. Suki had only been taken upstairs for meals, showers, and to be forced to please the sick, rogue agent who filmed and sold their sessions on the dark web. On shaky legs, Suki rose to her full height outside the closet. Her legs felt weak because she hadn’t been upright very often lately, and there was no room to stand under the stairs anyway. She slowly climbed the stairs, aware of every pop, creak, and groan. Her heart drummed painfully in her chest. It wasn’t until she very slowly pushed open the basement door and confirmed that the house was empty that her fear turned into excitement. As expected, there were no keys in the locks on the doors. She was unable to find any devices with which to call for help either, and there was no landline in the house. Her only way out would be to smash through a window. She picked up a vase and hurled it at the living room window. Because the vase was small, she didn’t expect it to break the glass—but it did. Alarms began blaring, scaring the shit out of her. She should have expected as much. Suki wasted no time. As soon as she could safely get through the window without cutting herself badly enough to bleed to death before escaping, she ran. A neighbor, a few houses down, let her call for help. The two police officers who arrived seemed stunned as Suki told them everything, beginning with her confrontation with Ted and ending with her escape just moments earlier. Suki was treated by paramedics and taken to the nearest hospital to be checked out. That was where she called her parents. She never returned to her apartment. Her parents insisted she stay with them for a while, and Suki had never felt more comforted by the idea in her life, so she gladly accepted the invitation to return home. Less than a week later, Ted’s body was discovered. Agent Marlene Hughes was brought to trial and quickly acquitted on a technicality, which didn’t surprise anyone in the least, given her profession. The agent smiled slyly at Suki as people began to file out of the courtroom. Suki knew she would spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.