She's No Beauty Queen

Three days passed. The man seemed to work a day job so Angelina was left alone with her thoughts for about nine hours at a time.

He let her out to use the bathroom first thing in the morning, as soon as he got home, and right before bed. She couldn't exactly escape because he held a knife to her throat all the way there and back and the bathroom window was too tiny to squeeze through even if it did open.

He fed her foods like mashed potatoes, Jell-O, broth or cream based soups, and yogurt that were supposedly good for sore throats and provided cough drops too. He really did seem to only want her for her singing voice and nothing else.

At least most of her basic physical needs were being met. She had to try and wash all of her makeup off with nothing but soap and water, which was difficult but she was fairly sure she got everything.

Her hair was stiff with hairspray since he didn't allow her to shower but that was a minor inconvenience. The bigger problems were her contacts and her lack of medication.

With no eye drops and nowhere to put the contacts to soak overnight she was forced to make a decision. Did she want to be able to see with her eyes hurting a lot or have blurred vision while being held captive?

Her vision wasn't completely terrible anyway. She primarily needed corrective lenses to drive. She could see things within fifteen feet of her alright.

As for the medication…she hadn't taken any since the morning of the day she was taken. Since being here she had another seizure but at least it happened when she was already lying down on the padded floor of her cage.

It happened while the man was at work too so he couldn't give her a hard time for not singing. She had a feeling that if this happened again when she was supposed to be entertaining him that she would pay dearly for it.

Angelina had never been so terrified in her life. Having way too much time to think during the day only made things worse.

Where were the police? Were they not able to find her? How was Aria handling this? Did Eddie tell her she had gone away on one of her trips again so she wouldn't worry? What was happening back at home?

Questions like these plagued her in a never-ending symphony inside her head. She was starting to lose her mind. On top of that, she was running out of songs to sing. She spent hours each day wracking her brains trying to think of new ones to keep that nut off her back.

On the third day she accidentally sang the same one for a second time and he threatened her with the knife wild-eyed. Her heart nearly stopped at the sight.

Did Angelina know enough unique songs to sing for hours every day until she was found? She would have to sing every song she had ever heard in her life and that still might not be enough with how long this was taking.

Eddie did call the police, didn't he? A horrible thought hit her. Oh. What if he thought she ran away or something because of her depression? What if he wasn't looking for her at all?

He couldn't possibly believe she would abandon Aria…could he? They really didn't know each other on more than a superficial level after all this time. She knew some random facts about him but the truth was that they didn't interact all that much.

She tried to think about this from his perspective. He had seen her try to kill herself before and had been present during most of her depressive episodes. But he had to know how much she loved Aria based on when the three of them were together. Right?

Eddie wouldn't abandon her. He might not love her but he was a responsible person and had cared for her very well as the mother of his child. If he knew she was missing he would look into it. She had to believe that.

===

Believing that got harder as time went on. A week passed with no news from the police, Eddie, or anybody. The only person Angelina saw in all that time was her captor.

She felt disgusting from not showering or changing her clothes in so long and she was hard-pressed to come up with new songs. She completely ran out of them after a week and a half and begged for mercy.

"Please, I can sing more songs. I just need sheet music for it. I don't know any more off the top of my head."

The man considered this before storming out of the house. He came back with a variety of songbooks that seemed to have been checked out from a local library. They had barcodes on them and stamps on the inside cover bearing the library's name.

Angelina sang from one of them until it was time for her usual pre-bedtime bathroom break. Once she was alone again she gulped down some water and sucked on a throat lozenge miserably.

It seemed like Eddie really had forgotten about her. She had been missing this long and still hadn't been rescued. Maybe she never would be.

She couldn't escape on her own considering she was always held at knifepoint when let out of the cage. There was no way she was physically strong enough to overpower her captor either. She had always been weak even without factoring in the epilepsy.

The thought of never making it out of here was too much to bear. Angelina burst into tears. She had to muffle her sobs as much as possible so she wouldn't wake the man up but she couldn't stop them for the life of her.

All this time she had managed not to become hysterical out of the fear he would do something if she wasn't cooperative. But the floodgates had opened now.

Aria. Her sweet little girl. She might never get to see her grow up or be attacked by one of her hugs ever again. What was Aria going to do if she never made it home? She was just a baby!

And Eddie. Things were so stilted between them because of her manager's terrible scheme but they had been on good terms once. He had been the only friend she ever had and during those two brief weeks of fun she had wished things could stay like that forever.

She had been planning to get his phone number and stay in touch with him the next time she saw him at that last dinner they had together. He had always set things up through her manager before then.

Before everything went wrong Angelina had thought to herself how nice it would be to have someone to talk to regularly that understood her. Having a text-based friendship wouldn't be the same as their dinners but it would have been better than nothing.

Then everything got awkward between them because she misunderstood Eddie's role in what went down and then he didn't know what to do with her after promising to take responsibility. They might not be friends anymore but she would do anything to see his face right now.