The abandoned motel room, or at least that's what Ivana equated it with, had no views of the outside world. Light barely penetrated through a few tiny cracks around the solitary door. The only light came from single bulbs protected by small metal cages in the ceiling of the main room and the bathroom. The bed and the nightstand, the only pieces of furniture in the room, were made of metal and bolted to the floor. The air barely moved.
For the thousandth time Ivana pried at the manacle around her right ankle with her bare fingers. She had already broken her nails down to the quick and drawn blood from both her fingertips and the skin around the manacle. There was no budging the unforgiving piece of steel.
The last memory Ivana had of freedom was of a party at a mansion on the beach in Galveston. It had been a political rally for a close friend of her father. She stood on a railing overlooking the waves and sipped soda with a handsome college student she met that evening. Cool sea breezes tempered the warm June air, and she had felt a desire to have fun build within her. She recalled leaving the party to ride in the young man's car, for fun, and then nothing else.
Ivana Curtis grew up outside of a small town on the far northeastern reaches of Houston. The only world she knew throughout her childhood was the family ranch, handed down through generations, and the town, where the years seemed to stand still. Her mother and father never took her into Houston until she learned so much about it from students at the tiny school she was dying to go. She only saw the city a few times before she graduated from high school.
As she sat captive on the edge of the bed she cursed the naïveté a sheltered upbringing such as hers allowed to exist. She hated herself for having left the party with someone she didn't know. She at least could be thankful that she had not been violated. Ivana decided that she had to have been kidnapped for ransom. Any more insidious reason would have left her in far worse circumstances.
There was no way to gauge the passage of time in the small room. Ivana knew she had slept twice, and both times had awakened hungry. She had screamed her lungs out for hours of the ordeal, and had worked at her bond until she finally gave up. She knew she had been there at least forty eight hours, but she had the suspicion that it could be closer to three days.
The kidnapper(s) had left her fully clothed, and there was a towel in the bathroom. The chain reached far enough for her to take a shower. She resisted the impulse until after the second time she slept, fearing there may be a hidden camera. After some consideration she took a shower, preferring cleanliness to modesty if she was under observation.
The water burned where the skin around Ivana's ankle had chafed. She used the small bottle of hospital shampoo and body wash sitting on the shelf in the shower, but avoided that area. The sound of the runnng water helped ease her mind somewhat, and she managed to stop being frazzled about her predicament. When the hot water ran out she shut it all off and dried herself.
"There's no point in getting clean if getting dressed will just make me dirty again," Ivana thought to herself. Looking at her panties she shook her head and washed them under the faucet. She wrung them out thoroughly and hung them over the edge of the sink to dry completely. The dress she wore did not receive such a treatment.
Once more she cast about for anything to give slight leverage in her position. Right then Ivana wished she had worn a bra just so she could have the elastic and metal hooks. She refused to accept her situation passively. Thoughts of escape and convicting the perpetrator in the future never left her awareness.
The door in the other room opened immediately after she pulled the dress over her head. She heard it, but her location prevented her from seeing anything. She bolted out of the bathroom only to see a tray on the floor and the door slamming closed once more.
Ivana started yelling again: "Hey! Who are you? You're not going to get away with this! Let me out of here!" She didn't go on beyond there. The platter made it obvious that she had not been forgotten or abandoned in the room.
The tray had no plates or utensils, but it did have food and a styrofoam cup full of water on it. An apple, a banana and three ham sandwiches sat on the platter. She retrieved it carefully from beside the door, so as not to spill the water, and sat down on the edge of the bed. She saved the water until after she had eaten the fruit, happy to finally have a cup. Then she washed down the frugal first course.
Not until after she finished the water did the suspicion she may have been drugged even enter her mind. She sighed. There was no use worrying about it after the fact.
A significant period of time went by and she still did not feel altered in any way. She finished the food, put the platter down by the bed, refilled the cup and laid down. Ivana decided to calm down about things and keep herself stable and rested for whatever the future might bring. Her mind was still working on a plan to achieve freedom when she fell asleep again. It was a horrible way to spend the week following a nineteenth birthday.