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evening. She watched Patrice walk over and talk to the driver. This was it. This would be the end of his guard shift. Who was the other biker, she wondered.
    Patrice and the biker talked for a minute. The biker took off his helmet but Rose still couldn’t make out who it was because of the dark. She watched them. She couldn’t hear what they were saying but it looked pretty casual.
    When they were finished talking, Patrice looked up toward the room. He saw her standing there on the walkway. He paused for a moment and then went over to his bike and revved the engine. A moment later and he was gone. Rose was certain he would have waved goodbye if the other biker hadn’t been right there.
    She watched the other rider pull up his bike by the motel office. Her heart dropped when she saw him step off the bike. The man was huge. It had to be Fat Boy. She’d recognize that body anywhere. He walked like a hunchback and swung his arms as he went. His head swayed from side to side. There was no mistaking it. That was Fat Boy. The one person she’d been praying it wouldn’t be.

IX
    E VERYTHING THAT HAD BEEN GOING through Rose’s mind, all her hopes of building some sort of tolerable life in that awful place, disappeared. All she could think of now was Fat Boy and what he’d done to her on her first night. He hadn’t been back since that night and she’d been beginning to hope that he wouldn’t be back at all, but now, here he was.
    She watched him go into the motel office and speak to the manager. She didn’t know what they would be talking about but she didn’t care. The insane thought went through her mind that maybe she should make a run for it. No one was there. No one was watching her. What was stopping her?
    But she couldn’t do it. She was too frightened. There was so little hope of her making it. Val-d’Or was a small town, people would notice her on the streets. Within the hour the DRMC would have picked her up. And there was literally no chance of her getting out of the town without some sort of transportation. Even if she had a car, it was hours in every direction to the next big town and they’d run her down on the highway long before she made it. If only she still had her bike, her father’s 1982 Harley FXR. She wondered what had happened to it. She hadn’t seen it since she’d pulled into town the night she’d been taken.
    If she was going to have any chance of ever getting out of this place, it would have to be on that bike. She knew it.
    She went into the room and shut the door behind her. She locked it but she knew it was pointless. Fat Boy would have a key. She went through to the washroom and locked that door too. She sat down on the side of the bathtub and waited. She realized that she was shaking. She was terrified of Fat Boy. For as long as she lived she’d remember what he’d done to her that first night.
    *
    F IRST, ROSE HEARD A KNOCKING on the door. That was him, Fat Boy. He was back. She actually climbed into the bathtub and pulled the curtain.
    “Hey,” Fat Boy called from out on the landing. “Open this door, bitch.”
    She stayed where she was. She didn’t move other than to put her hands over her ears. She shut her eyes. She didn’t want to hear his voice, she didn’t want to see his face, but most of all she didn’t want to feel the touch of his skin.
    “Rose, don’t make me go back down those stairs to get a key.”
    She could still make out his words. She couldn’t escape him. He was going to be guarding her all night. It was just her and him. She should have run. What had she been thinking? So what if the DRMC killed her. Anything would be better than spending another night with this monster.
    She wished Patrice was still there. Why couldn’t he be the one watching her? She knew there was no point wishing things like that. This was her life now. It wasn’t a place where wishes came true. It was a place of nightmares. And if she was going to survive she’d have to wise