31. Seven
THIRTY-ONE
SEVEN
My mother leads me into a room in the basement, where the only window is small and near the top. There’s a bed in the middle, with bright red sheets.
Lori is sitting in the middle of the bed, her knees pulled up to her chest.
I can’t tell what she’s wearing, but it isn’t her usual jeans and anime shirt. Her legs and feet are bare.
Lori flinches when she sees us, but her eyes widen, too. “Seven!”
My mother lets out a disappointed sound. “His name is Rory. Really, what kind of a stupid name is Seven?”
I don’t answer her because she’ll only drag it through the mud even more.
Seven is my name, the one I’d chosen for myself. A lucky number, even though there have been so many times in the past few months where I’ve questioned how lucky I am.
Right now is one of them.
I remind myself that this was part of my plan, that Caleb and the others have to have figured out that I’m gone by now and are on their way to find us.
I remind myself that this was brave , not stupid.
My gamble has to pay off.
It has to.
“Are you okay, Lori?” I ask instead, stepping away from my mother to go toward her. I’m not going to be an accomplice, not the way Emily is.
Lori’s eyes tear up. “I’m so sorry, Seven. I didn’t mean to get snatched. I was just… I was just…”
“Always the crying,” my mother says, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “This is the part I hate the most. Rory, tell her what happens to children who cry.”
I sit down next to her on the bed, gingerly wrapping an arm around her. I want to comfort her, but at the same time, I don’t want to lie to her.
I don’t want to tell her it’s going to be okay when I don’t know if it is.
“It’s better if you’re brave,” I whisper to her. “Pretend, if you have to. Don’t cry. Smile. I…”
I falter. I don’t want to tell her how to do these things because it feels like it makes them inevitable.
“Listen to her and do what she says, okay? It won’t…” I swallow thickly. “It won’t be as bad if you do.”
My mother smiles at us. I used to love that smile. That smile meant she was pleased.
But seeing it now, I can tell that it doesn’t reach her eyes, and there’s no actual joy in it. It’s so different from how Vortex and Havoc and Caleb smile, how they laugh with me and want to make me feel good.
It’s nothing like Lori’s smile, when she talks about the shows she likes and gets so excited about the anime or the games.
Their smiles make me smile.
My mother’s smile looks cruel.
“Exactly. Good boys and girls get rewarded,” she says. She comes over to me and kisses the top of my head. “I’m so happy to have you back, baby. You got all the silly ideas out of your head, and you’re going to be good for me again, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Mommy,” I tell her. “I’ll be good.” I hesitate. I want to try to negotiate with her, to get her to leave Lori alone, but I know better. I know that the more she thinks I actually care about Lori, the more likely it is that she’ll hurt her to get back at me for leaving.
I don’t know what to do. All I can do is wait and hope that the cavalry will arrive before it’s too late for Lori.
I don’t care what the consequences are for myself, but I can’t watch Lori get hurt.
I mentally apologize to Lori, feeling sick, but I squeeze her a little tighter before I tell her, “No one’s coming for you. No one’s going to help you. So you need to be a good girl and do what you’re told.”
The calm I’d felt only hours before feels like a yawning chasm of dread and emptiness.
I move my arm, and something cool lands against it. I realize it’s a metal chain, and it’s attached to a collar around Lori’s neck.
There’s a thick lock keeping it in place.
“That’s right. All you have to worry about will be these four walls. No more school, no more worrying about the fights your parents are having. Your life will be so much simpler now,” my mother says.
She strides over to me and takes my arm. I watch dumbly as she snaps a manacle around it, then attaches the manacle to the bedpost with a short chain.
I should have fought her.
But I’m hoping for a miracle now more than ever, and I have to stay alive . I want to go home, to see Nacho and Miss K, to kiss Caleb and Vortex and Havoc. I want Lori to get through this without ending up as hollow-eyed and empty as the others I’ve seen in her situation.
I need to be smart.
I need to stay alive.
My mother opens her arms. “Give Mommy a hug, baby. I’ll be back later. I have to take care of a few grown-up things.”
“Yes, Mommy,” I say obediently, even though I’m wondering what would happen if I did what Havoc had taught me and went for a jab in her throat.
She’d never see it coming.
But I would die, too, and Lori would either die or end up in an even worse position.
I hug her, breathing in the scent that used to comfort me but now only makes me want to get sick.
She kisses the top of my head, then walks off. When she’s at the door, she stops to take a picture of me and Lori.
“You two look so adorable together,” she says. “I want to save her first time for a client, but maybe we can have her practice on you.”
Nausea sweeps over me at the idea of it, and I have to fight to breathe to keep from heaving. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it feels so much worse now.
Lori whimpers and buries her head against her knees.
I don’t know if she understands what my mother meant, and I don’t want to explain it.
I don’t want to be the one to kill the light in her eyes.
I don’t want to see it die at all.
Maybe I’m a coward, or maybe I’m being overly optimistic about our chances.
My mother leaves and closes the door behind her. I hear several clicks, which must be the locks on the outside all being closed.
It’s less high tech than the house in New Bristol.
“No matter what happens,” I rasp, barely able to draw in a breath, “I don’t mean anything I say or do. Okay?”
Lori looks at me with her tear-stained eyes. “She’s your mother ?”
I have to look away from her. The shame, the pain, the dread — it’s all too much. But I nod.
“Why… why is she doing this?” Lori asks. “I… That other woman, she said she was with Uncle Earl, and I haven’t seen him in a while… I know I’m not supposed to go with strangers, I’m not stupid, but he texted me too.” She sniffles. “I guess I am stupid after all. Mom and Dad will yell at me.”
My stomach turns. I hope that’s the worst that happens.
“They’ll be so happy to have you back that they won’t yell,” I tell her. Caleb, Vortex, and Havoc, on the other hand? They’re definitely going to yell at me.
If they find you in time , an insidious voice in the back of my mind whispers.
Lori reaches for the collar around her neck and tugs. “Can you see a way to take this off? I tried earlier but I couldn’t.” Her eyes go to the window. “Maybe if you lift me up, I could get out the window and go for help.”
My heart threatens to break for her. Her optimism should be a beacon of light, but despair threatens to drag me down.
If my mother is planning on having her practice on me, that probably means she’s waiting for the perfect client and we have time before her innocence is brutally ripped from her by the highest bidder.
There’s still the chance that she might come back and force us to put on a show too soon.
“It’s not gonna come off, Lori,” I tell her quietly, leaning my head against hers. “Talk to me. Tell me about the latest episode of Martial Law. I missed it,” I lie, wanting to give her something to think about that isn’t this.
“Seven, the show doesn’t matter,” Lori says with a nervous laugh. “We have to find a way out. Maybe the next time she comes in here, I’ll distract her and you knock her out. With a karate move, like Mizuki does. Or, more realistically, like Vortex.”
“Lori…” I trail off, not knowing what to say. I don’t know if we’re being monitored, if there are cameras or if they’re listening. I can’t risk telling her that I’m hoping Vortex will be here soon to do those moves himself.
I can’t give her hope.
I don’t even know if I can give myself hope.
“She has the key on her, I bet,” she says, looking at my manacled hand.
“And if not that, her phone. We can call 9-1-1. They can always trace phones, right?” She wipes her tears.
“Mom says… Mom says to always stay calm. If you aren’t calm, the enemy will win.
” She laughs awkwardly. “I never knew who the enemy was.”
“You should get some rest,” I tell her. I don’t know if I can stand to hear her coming up with unrealistic plans as rising despair threatens to drag me down.
Maybe we got too much of a head start. Maybe something is blocking the tracker from transmitting.
I don’t think for a moment that Caleb, Havoc, and Vortex aren’t going to come for us, but the question is how much damage will be done before they get here.
Lori pulls away from me. I see now that she’s wearing a short nightgown with a lace hem, exactly like all the girls I knew before used to wear.
Were made to wear.
“Get rest? Seven, we have to get out of here!” Lori says, tugging at the collar again. “If we can find a long pin of some sort, I can try picking the lock. Dad was teaching me how to do that. And if you get me out the window, I swear I’ll call somebody. I won’t leave you behind.”
“It doesn’t work that way in real life,” I tell her, and I realize too late that my voice is snappish, harsh.
She looks at me, wide-eyed. I’ve never spoken to her like that before.
“I’m sorry,” I say, forcing my voice to calm down. “I’m sorry. But Lori, we… Maybe Caleb will find us. That’s our best bet right now.”
“How long is that going to take?” Lori hisses. “I’m not giving up!” She scoots away from me toward the end table. She opens up the drawer, then huffs in annoyance. “Only thing in here is one of those stupid bibles.”
The sight of it fills me with so much dread.
It had been one of the few things I’d been able to read, and even that had been considered a luxury.