My Fiancé Faked His Kidnapping to Break Me

The text arrives at 7:43 AM: "Task 7 of 1000: Times Square. 47th and Broadway. 8:30 AM sharp. Crawl on hands and knees for two full blocks. Bark like a dog when anyone approaches. Do not stop until you reach 45th Street."

I read it sitting on the edge of my bed, still wearing yesterday's clothes. My knees are already bruised from Task 5—kneeling on rice for an hour in Central Park. The skin is mottled purple and yellow, tender to the touch.

It doesn't matter.

Anthony's face flashes through my mind. The blood. The fear in his eyes. I pull on jeans even though I know the denim will shred against the pavement. Better than bare skin.

---

Times Square at 8:30 AM is a different beast than midnight's neon chaos. It's tourists with cameras and coffee cups, street performers setting up, workers rushing to offices in buildings that scrape the sky. The air smells like hot dogs and exhaust and someone's vanilla perfume.

I stand at the corner of 47th and Broadway. My phone buzzes: "Begin now. We're watching."

I drop to my knees.

The concrete is cold and unforgiving, even through my jeans. I place my palms flat against the sidewalk—gum-stained, cigarette-scarred—and start crawling. The first few feet, people don't notice. They step around me like I'm a puddle to avoid.

Then someone laughs.

"Look at that crazy lady!"

A teenager with his phone out, already recording. His friends cluster around, their faces lit with the glow of screens capturing my humiliation in high definition.

My phone buzzes against my hip: "Bark."

I open my mouth. The sound that comes out is raw and animal, nothing human left in it. "Woof. Woof."

The teenagers howl with laughter. One of them tosses a dollar bill at me like I'm street entertainment. It lands in a puddle near my hand.

I keep crawling.

My palms scrape against something sharp—broken glass, maybe, or a jagged piece of metal. Blood wells up, warm and sticky. Each movement forward sends fire shooting through my kneecaps. The bruises from yesterday scream. But I think about Anthony tied to that chair, and I crawl faster.

A woman in a business suit stops. Her heels are red, expensive. "Are you okay? Do you need help?"

My phone buzzes: "Bark at her. Louder."

"WOOF!" I bark in her face, and she jerks back, her expression shifting from concern to disgust.

"Jesus Christ," she mutters, walking away quickly.

More phones come out. A crowd is forming now, a semicircle of strangers watching me crawl like an animal through the heart of Manhattan. Someone throws popcorn. The kernels bounce off my back, my hair. I hear the word "crazy" repeated like a chant.

My jeans tear at the knees. I feel the fabric give way, feel the concrete bite into raw flesh. The pain is white-hot, blinding, but I don't stop. Can't stop. Two blocks. Just two blocks.

A little girl tugs her mother's hand. "Mommy, why is that lady acting like a doggy?"

"Don't look, sweetie." The mother pulls her away, but not before the girl's wide eyes meet mine. I see my reflection in them—wild-haired, bloody-palmed, barking on a sidewalk while the world watches.

I am worthless, I think. The words from Task 1 echo in my skull. Maybe they were right.

But Anthony needs me.

I reach 45th Street at 8:47 AM. Seventeen minutes of crawling. Seventeen minutes of barking. Seventeen minutes of being less than human.

My phone buzzes: "Task 7 complete. Excellent performance. Rest today. Task 8 tomorrow."

I collapse against a building, my back pressed to cold brick. My hands are shaking so hard I can barely grip the phone. Blood seeps through my torn jeans, mixing with the grime of the street.

Someone walks past and spits near my feet.

I close my eyes and see Anthony's face. Hold on, I think. I'm coming.

---

The apartment is dark when I stumble through the door at noon. I've washed my hands in a gas station bathroom, but blood still crusts under my fingernails. My knees throb with every step.

I pull out my journal—the leather-bound one Mom gave me for my sixteenth birthday. The pages are filled with letters I'll never send, words meant for someone who can't read them anymore.

I write: "Dear Mom, I don't know if you'd be proud of me or ashamed. I'm doing things I never thought I could do. Things that make me want to disappear. But it's for love, Mom. Isn't that what you always said? That love means sacrifice?"

My hand cramps. I set down the pen and walk to the closet.

The wedding dress hangs in the back, wrapped in protective plastic. Mom spent two years sewing it by hand, every stitch a prayer for my happiness. Ivory silk with lace sleeves, delicate as spiderweb. She finished it three weeks before the cancer took her.

"Wear this when you marry someone who deserves you," she'd whispered, her voice already fading.

I press my forehead against the plastic. The dress blurs through my tears.

"He deserves me, Mom," I whisper. "He does. And I'm going to save him. No matter what it costs."

The locket at my throat feels heavier than usual. I grip it tight, feeling the metal warm against my palm, and I make a promise to the ghost of my mother and to myself: I will endure. I will survive. I will bring Anthony home.

Even if there's nothing left of me when I do.