It’s not that easy, though. Not being afraid. Believing that you’re brave. I admire those who can move through life without a care in the world. Who do whatever they want whenever they want to.
I can’t do that. I won’t allow myself. I’m too scared.
For now, I stay here. My house, the quiet, the neighborhood, old Mrs. Anderson who lives next door and can be a bit of a busybody sometimes though I know she means well—it all reassures me.
Just like my routine.
As I lie here in the darkness, letting my thoughts wander, my mind fills with images of a fifteen-year-old, terrified Will. I never took the bracelet off and I rub my thumb over the charm again and again.
Sleep finally comes, but fitfully. I wake up almost every hour, the red numbers on my old alarm clock—the one I’ve owned since before, when I was just normal Katie—mocking me in the dark. Some things I can never get rid of. The stupid alarm clock is one of them.
My fears are another.
I imagine leaving. Running away like Will did. I envy him his freedom. Of being able to shed his skin and pretend to be something else. Someone else. Even if I did run away and came up with a new name, a new life, I know the remnants from my old one would cling to me. The worry. The fear. The sadness.
They’re hard to get rid of.
Even harder to live with.
I stood outside the storage shed, my entire body trembling as I paused in front of the door. I’d left her in there. I found her last night and walked away. I couldn’t begin to explain why. What I did . . . was wrong. She begged me not to go.
Begged me.
And I left her anyway.
My stomach churned and I closed my eyes, breathing deep. I had to go inside. She could still be in there, scared out of her mind and needing me to take care of her.
But what if she’s not in there? What if she’s gone? What if he . . .
No. I shook my head once, banished the thought. She’d be there. She had to be.
With shaking hands, I turned the combination on the lock and yanked it open, then slowly pulled open the door. The hinges creaked, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet of the mid-afternoon, and I stepped forward, blinking against the darkness from within.
My nose wrinkled, I entered the storage shed, ducking my head since the ceiling was so low. It stunk inside. Bugs buzzed around me and I swatted at them, my eyes slowly readjusting so I could make out various shapes within. Stacks of boxes, a jumble of old furniture.
A dirty old mattress on the ground with a girl curled up on top of it.
I stopped in my tracks, my breaths so harsh my throat felt raw, my head spinning. I’d almost hoped I dreamed the entire thing, but she was real. Chained to the wall, shackles around her ankles. The blindfold was gone, duct tape stretched across her mouth in its place. She was in the fetal position, her head tilted downward, her matted blond hair a mess about her head.
Fuck, I thought I was going to be sick. My head swam, as did my stomach, and I stumbled over something unknown, causing her to sit straight up, her eyes opening and then squinting as she tried to decipher who I was.
A muffled scream came from beneath the duct tape and I crouched in front of her, reaching out to touch her hair, snatching my hand back when she recoiled from me. Her eyes filled with tears, streaking her dirty face as they fell, and she screamed again, the duct tape preventing the sound from carrying.
“I want to help you,” I whispered as I fell to my knees on the filthy mattress. She scurried away from me, retreating to the wall, the chains clanking against the wood floor. “Please.”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There was a prisoner being held mere feet away from my house. A girl—I knew she was younger than me, she didn’t even have boobs, so I pegged her around eleven, twelve. No older than thirteen.
And my father was holding her captive. I could hardly wrap my head around the thought.
“I need you to trust me.” I took a deep breath, as my brain tried to come up with the right thing to say. How could I earn her trust when I left her here once already? “Let me take the tape off.”
She screamed again, the sound louder this time, and she shook her head furiously, her hair going everywhere. Her arm lifted and she pointed an accusatory finger at me and it was like she stabbed me in the heart.
Blame. That’s what I felt. She blamed me for leaving her.
I couldn’t hold it against her. I had left her. But what was I going to do? I’d freaked out. I almost didn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Let me make it up to you,” I whispered as I scooted closer to her. She eyed me warily, the tears still spilling down her cheeks, the stretch of tape covering her mouth, the entire lower half of her face. “I’ll take the tape off. We can talk.”
First time I found her, I’d barely spoken to her. I’d panicked, not knowing what to do.
Now, tonight, I planned on doing the right thing.
I approached her like she was a wild animal and I wanted to tame her, moving slowly, an inch at a time. I never let up on talking to her, trying my best to soothe her with a low voice and reassuring words. She never took her gaze off me as she sat trembling against the wall.
Until finally I was right next to her and I reached out, touching the tape with my fingers. She flinched but didn’t jerk away, and I took that as a good sign. “This is going to hurt,” I murmured. “I’m going to rip it off. Better that way.”
Before she could give me any sort of sign that she approved or protested, I tore the tape off her face with one vicious tug. A sob escaped her the moment the tape was gone, the sound startlingly loud in the storage shed, and she toppled toward me, her wrists wrapped in the same chain that circled her ankle. I caught hold of her, her face in mine as she started to babble.