25. Nova
The crisp winter air against my skin felt good as I walked through the streets. I could’ve taken my car, it probably would’ve been faster, but I needed the outing. After spending days cooped up in my room, the walls started to feel like they were closing in on me.
My conversation with Aiden kept on replaying in my mind as Mr. Kerill’s house came into view. Beautiful rose bushes decorated his front yard, along with other flowers I couldn’t name. His car was out front, which meant he was back from school, but when I peered inside through the front door’s small window, he was nowhere to be seen.
I decided to knock, but as soon as my fist came in contact with the door, it opened of its own volition, creaking like something out of a horror movie. Something in my gut told me to back away, just put the damn paper in his mailbox and go back home. But just as I was about to, Mr. Kerill appeared out of nowhere, yanking the door completely open, looking breathless.
My teacher forced a smile, his hand grasping the side of the door with force.
“Nova. What brings you here?”
I stared at him for a beat, his eyes looked sunk in, a bruise lightly fading on one of them. His fingers were all tensed against the wood, and he looked furtively down the street to see if anyone was coming.
An alarm blasted in the back of my head and I took a step back absentmindedly. Pasting on a smile, I clutched the handle of my bag tightly so as to not show him how I was starting to panic. Rationally, I knew I was probably just being dramatic and paranoid, but I couldn’t help it.
“Sorry if I come at a wrong time. I just remembered the deadline for submitting our final assignment was today and I just— well, I wanted to give it to you. Here it is.”
I handed him the paper and he took it reluctantly, “You didn’t have to. I told Aiden—”
“I know. But I wanted to. I needed to feel some kind of normalcy and… yeah.”
Kerill nodded understandingly and for a second I was glad I hadn’t simply ran away when he first came out here. I was glad I hadn’t given in to the paranoia.
“Well, I’ll get going. Thank you for—” something over his shoulder caught my eye and it turned my blood cold, causing the words to get stuck in my throat.
Because as my eyes fell further inside his house, I noticed the orange atrocity that my sister absolutely loved.
Right there on the mantle of his chimney, was Rory’s favorite beanie. Her frog beanie.
Noticing how my face decomposed right in front of him, Kerill looked over his shoulder, and totally shut down.
Before I could turn around and run away from there, he grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked hard, pulling me inside. I screamed in pain and horror but he shut the door so quickly I just knew no one had time to hear it.
My nails immediately latched onto his hand, scratching him with all my might, and he cussed me out for it, “Fucking bitch!”, before slamming my head against the door with so much force it made me want to throw up.
A warm liquid started seeping from my forehead, down my temple and I could barely see straight. But he wasn’t done with me and slammed my head against the door again, so hard my legs gave out and I lost my balance, falling down on my knees. He started walking to God knows where, dragging me along and even though I tried sinking my nails in the carpeted floor to stop him, I was way too weak for it to make a difference.
I could vaguely make out Kerill mumbling to himself about what a fucking nuisance I was, about how I was putting a strain on his plans and ruining everything.
He opened a door and the cold that came from down there made it pretty obvious it was some sort of basement. Kerill forced me to my knees, still grabbing me by the hair and with his face only inches from mine, he said, “You shouldn’t have put your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
That’s all I remembered before he violently pushed me inside the room, making me tumble down a flight of stairs and lose consciousness.
***
I had no idea how much time had passed when I started regaining my senses. It took me a minute to recall where I was, and a little longer to realize that what had prompted me to wake up was a little voice floating around me.
A voice I knew all too well that was being drowned by the furious ringing inside my head.
Trying to open my eyes was not an easy feat, everything looked blurred around me, spots of black dancing around my vision. I pushed through, knowing I needed to get the fuck out of there before that psycho decided to come back.
A hand touching the side of my face made me freeze, meaning that the voice I’d been hearing up until then wasn’t just in my head.
When finally my vision became clearer and I saw a small silhouette with dark curly hair and brown skin take shape in front of me, I almost pinched myself.
“Nova.”
The world around me became clearer, I was indeed in a basement, the only light coming from incredibly small windows—if you could even call them that— on top of one wall that I guessed gave onto the street. There were no furniture except for a big freezer right under the stairs and a filthy mattress in a corner.
“Nova.”
Everything was cold and smelled like stale water, blood and mold, the floor was hard and a little wet.
“Nova!”
When Rory’s face came into view, clearer than ever, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Immediately, I thought I might have hit my head a little too hard and was imagining her. But then she touched my face again and I knew she was real.
My little sister was here.
She was alive.
Adrenaline surged through my veins and I engulfed her into a hug, squeezing her tight to my chest. She hugged me back fiercely, unable to stop herself from crying.
I was so shocked that no words could make it out of my mouth but I yearned to tell her how much I loved her, how I’d missed her. It felt like my body had gone into shock and my arms had closed tensely around her. I didn’t want to let her go. I couldn’t.
“I’m sorry, Nova. I’m so sorry.”
Still unable to speak, I simply shook my head, wanting her to understand that none of that was her fault. It was all mine for failing her, for not respecting her wishes and forcing her to flee.
Pulling away, I grabbed her face with both hands so that I could truly look at her.
Cuts and bruises marred her skin, along with blood and dirt. She had a busted lip and her eye was swelling a little. Her clothes were dirty and damp, from the humidity of the basement but she still had her jacket on from the day she disappeared. That was a good thing given how cold it was around us.
Other than that, she looked okay from the outside. But I noticed some blood stained the crotch of her pants.
“Did he-” my throat felt all scratchy and raw from when I screamed earlier, so I cleared it, “did he touch you?”
Rory didn’t answer but she looked down, the tears doubling as she fell against my chest, crying quietly and telling me everything I needed to know. A sob of despair made it out of me as I brought her trembling body closer. Anger, sadness and heartbreak were all mixing up within me. Bile rose up my throat knowing what my sister had gone through.
“He brought her upstairs once. Last night.” A new voice came from behind us, making me gasp in surprise.
Immediately assuming a protective stance over my sister, I turned around and looked in its direction. I’d been so happy to see Rory that I didn’t even notice we weren’t the only ones in the room.
Four kids were there, sitting against the far wall, in the shadows. I recognized them as the four missing kids from the north and the one who spoke was none other than Oscar.
Katarina, Stevie, Ravie were there too, sitting against the wall and eyeing me warily.
They were all here. It was a fucking miracle.
I gaped at Oscar as he went on, playing with a little pebble on the floor and chucking it to another corner of the basement. “He probably will be back later tonight.”
Oscar had on some ripped, dirty black pants, a sweatshirt and the same red bandana he’d been wearing on the day I met him was tied around his forehead. His face was bruised too with specks of dry blood and dirt here and there. The other three kids were in similar states, all of them wearing at least a long-sleeved sweatshirt except for one of the girls who seemed a little older than the rest of them, who only had on a t-shirt and jeans, trembling from the cold.
I recognized her as Katarina Avelok. The first girl who disappeared.
“Nova? Are you okay?” Rory’s voice made me realize that I’d been staring, mouth agape as I took them all in.
Squeezing my eyes shut I forced a small, tired smile and cupped her cheek, nodding, “Yes, I’m sorry. I—I just can’t believe that you’re all here. I’m so sorry we didn’t find you sooner. We’ve been searching but… I’m so sorry.” Tears rolled down my cheeks as I sniffled pathetically under her scrutiny. Stress, fear and shame made it impossible not to cry.
“Did… did they at least look for us?” Oscar inquired and I nodded furiously.
“Yes. Yes, they did. Aiden never stopped. He’s been searching the town every night, he even asked outsiders for help but we couldn’t find anything, not the smallest clue.” Rory’s hand squeezed mine tightly as she looked in the direction of the kids silently.
“He’s good. Kerill.” Oscar nodded, “It’s not his first time doing this.”
“Really?”
It was Katarina who answered me, “He did it in the last town he lived in too.” She looked down, rubbing her hands all over her arms to warm herself, “His wife made them move here after she realized and she threatened to leave him if he didn’t stop. He killed her when she tried leaving. Their daughter, too. Their bodies are buried underneath the roses out front. He told me himself.”
“How long have you been here?” I croaked and after a beat, her eyes left mine as she stared into nothingness.
“Too long.” Was her whispered answer.
She was trembling, all four of them were. “Here. Take my jacket. Get warm before they come and save us.” I took it off, feeling Rory’s eyes scrutinizing me, and tossed it towards them so that she could grab it, but Katarina didn’t move. “Please, take it. They’re coming to get us, I promise. Aiden knows I came here, we’ll be safe soon.”
But Katarina refused to move, she continued to stare into space, ignoring me. I was about to insist but Rory’s hand on my shoulder made me look back at her. She’d been here longer than me so when she shook her head once, I understood that what I was doing was pointless. Katarina wouldn’t take anything from me, no matter how hard I tried.
The fact that she had been here for longer than any of us obviously meant she had seen and been through much more too. She couldn’t be older than fourteen and yet her eyes were hollow, haunted. Taking her in, I barely contained the sob that was threatening to come out when I noticed the jeans she wore were torn and bloody around the crotch area.
“He told me his daughter disappeared that day at the fair. He asked me to look for her with him, and I did.” Rory sniffled beside me, bringing my attention back on her and away from the heart-wrenching realization that all the kids in this room had most likely been sexually assaulted. I wanted to hurl.
“It’s his modus operandi,” Oscar added, “he preys on the kids who know and trust him.”
I croaked, “You all knew him?” And Rory tensed a little next to me.
“He tutored us. Volunteered at our school.” Oscar’s revelation made me frown a bit, confused.
“We searched for suspects in that area. Aiden had a list of names but he recognized none of them and the investigator found nothing at their house.”
Oscar nodded, “Yes. As I said, he was there as a volunteer. He’s not listed as a professor.”
Closing my eyes, I let my head fall back against the world. I knew Rory was in one of his intro to journalism class too, but it never even occurred to me to look there. I felt stupid.
“Are you sure he’s coming?” Came in Oscar’s voice again, pulling me from my maddening discovery “Aiden.”
I hated that he looked wary, like he didn’t believe me. I hated that he thought Aiden had abandoned him.
“I promise you, he is. He won’t let us down. He’s been looking all over for you, Oscar, even when—” even when the others lost hope and stopped searching, was what I was about to say before I stopped myself; “even when it seemed unsolvable.”
“How is my mom?”
Pursing my lips, I racked my brain wondering how to tell a kid who had been abducted and went through hell that his mom had gone down the deep end while he was gone. I’d never met the woman, but from what Aiden had said, she drowned her sorrows in alcohol. She was barely ever home anymore and when she was, she was drunk off her ass.
“She’s okay.” I lied, but I could tell that he knew.
Oscar stared at me for a beat before looking down at his hands.
Silence stretched the room as Rory helped me sit down, making me realize that my ankle was throbbing. I must’ve twisted it in my fall. Once my back was against a wall, my sister sat next to me and she put her head on my shoulder. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard, still scared that this was all a dream I would wake up from soon.
“Did the others search for us?” The one I recognized as Ravi, the youngest of the lot, wondered out loud. “You said Aiden searched for Oscar, but… what about us?”
The question caused my heart to squeeze, especially when the reality of it would be so harsh for kids their age, “The police… the police thought you’d ran away. They weren’t the biggest help.” I noticed Oscar’s jaw tensing, “But your whole neighborhood searched for you, not just Aiden. I promise everything will be fine now. Aiden knows I came here, he’ll be looking for me. My dad too, we—” I gulped, emotion making it hard for me to speak, “we’ll make it out of here.”
The guilt was overbearing. The fact that Rory had the whole town looking for her, including the police forces from the next town over, while these kids disappearances had simply been turned into the cold cases pile, without as much as a second thought, it was purely and simply unfair.
Everyone fell silent after that, Rory drifting off to sleep on my shoulder, the other kids lost in their own thoughts, and I wondered how much longer it would take for us to get out of this nightmare.