I wake up not knowing when I fell asleep. Without sunlight or a clock, the basement feels like limbo. The temperature is a neutral-cool, and the ceiling light is on at all times, giving me no indication of what the outside atmosphere is like. I get up, raking my gaze across the basement, afraid that he's standing somewhere and watching me. He isn't.

I flex my fingers and flinch as the cut stretches. It's healing, but every stretch, every flick of the wrist feels like a step back.

The door swings open, its hinges creaking. The man frowns at the noise and mutters something about needing to grease them, and then he walks downstairs, holding a neatly folded shirt and pants and a pair of shoes.

"Please take a shower today," he says, "and change into these."

He sets them down at the foot of the staircase. As he's turning to go, I take a tentative step toward him.

"How long have I been here?" I ask.

"Why anyone would ask how long they've been in paradise," he sighs, "I'll never know."

"This isn't paradise," I spit. "You're holding me here against my will."

"If your will is to live up there among the monsters of an unforgiving world, then your will is irrelevant to me."

It takes everything in me not to start attacking him. He might be a middle-aged man on pain meds, but he's still a lot bigger than me. Getting me into a van might've been too hard for him, out in the open air where a loud struggle would be an issue, but beating me to death in the privacy of this basement would be easy.

"Let me go," I say.

He shakes his head and takes another step up.

"Let me go. Please."

He glances over his shoulder wearily. "You're being annoying."

I throw up my hands. "See? You think I'm annoying, you don't even like me! So let me go, and I won't run to the cops or tell anyone about what's happened. You can be at peace again."

He stares at me. Then he laughs. "I think we both know it's been too long for the cops not to have noticed. Whether you keep your promise or not, no one's going to let you return to the world without asking where you've been."

"Please, I'm being honest! I'm not going to tell—"

He slams the door closed behind him. I say a few curses in my head and look down at the clothes. They're nondescript colors and styles, similar to what I'm already wearing. The shoes are the exact same as the ones I have on now, except they're new and the numbers aren't faded.

I feel dirty, so I do want to shower. But putting on those clothes, however clean and new they are, is only going to make me feel dirty again. I'm not ever going to feel clean until I leave this basement entirely.

And to do that, I need to stay on his good side and do what he says.