Chapter 16
Emerson
I feel weak. Weaker than I have been anyway, and yet I cling to hope I will get out of here. I don’t know where that hope is coming from at this point. I’ve tried and failed. Others have tried and failed. There’s nothing we can do but wait and see what’s in store for us the next day.
He keeps saying our time will be coming. Time for what? We don’t know, and I’m almost afraid to find out. Is he going to kill us? One by one? He could do it easily. I know he could.
All the girls are coughing, meaning they’re all sick as well. Is that what he wanted? Us sick and vulnerable? I try to think what he might have planned for us, but I come up blank. At first, I thought of trafficking. He could make money off us. He could sell us to the highest bidder, but not in these conditions. We’re sick, beaten, bloody, bruised. No one would pay for someone looking the way we do.
Then I thought maybe he was a cannibal. Maybe that’s his reason for keeping us but I quickly dropped that idea too when I realized he hasn’t taken any of us out of here. He would need to, right? To eat? The thought alone makes my stomach lurch.
I come up blank after that. I can’t think of one good reason why we’re stuck in this hell. I try to wrack my brain to figure out a connection between me and these girls, but there’s nothing. We don’t look similar so that’s not it. We don’t share the same parents, and from what I can gather from the few I can talk to, we don’t even live in the same city as each other. What does that leave? What more could there be I’m missing?
“Emerson?” I hear her little voice to my right. Mary. It’s Mary. I scoot across the cell and slip my hand between the bars, grasping her hand in mine. I squeeze it gently, but she doesn’t squeeze back. She’s cold. So cold.
“What’s wrong?”
“This is it, Emerson.”
“What?”
“I … I can’t do this anymore.” Her hands might be freezing, but Mary has been burning up with fever for days now.
“Yes, you can. You can’t stop fighting, Mary.”
“I can’t keep going.” She’s weak, and we all know it. The other girls cry at night, knowing she isn’t going to make it. They cry at night, knowing none of us are going to make it.
“I know, I know,” I whisper, keeping her hand tucked into mine. She needs me now. She needs me to tell her she can go. She needs to know it’s okay to let go and damn it; I have to be the one to tell her that.
“Thank you, Emerson.”
“For what?”
“Doing what you could,” she whispers, her voice hoarse and barely audible.
“You want me to sing to you?” I ask her.
“Please.” Her favorite song is Mary Had a Little Lamb because that’s what her mom used to sing to her at night. So that’s what I sing to her now. I lay down, resting my head on my arm as I keep my other hand through the bars, holding her hand. I sing to her, and I sing more.
I hear the cries from the others, I hear the soft sniffles, but I try and keep myself as calm as possible because I know this is what she needs right now. If it were me, I would want someone reassuring me that everything was going to be okay, too. I would want someone to hold my hand and keep me calm.
“It’s okay, Mary. Your mom is waiting for you,” I whisper to her. My heart shatters. It breaks in half, and I can feel the tears as they slide down my cheeks, but I quickly wipe them away so she doesn’t see them. I lay, holding her hand until the small light goes off and the bright, burning lights come on. I roll over so it doesn’t burn my eyes, facing the wall, but I never let go of her hand. That is until I feel him ripping it away from me.
I don’t bother trying to fight it or keep hold of it. I know she’s gone. I can feel it. My chest tightens as a flood of emotion slams into me. I can’t focus on the burn anymore. I can’t focus on my back he’s charring my flesh with this light. All I can think about is how she’s free now. Mary is free now.
She’ll never hurt again. She’ll never suffer, never be beaten or abused. She’ll never have to feel an ounce of pain again because she’s free.
The realization I’ll probably die in this place hits me harder than I thought it would. It’s like a damn brick has hit me in the chest, and I can’t breathe. Sounds rip from my throat that I don’t even recognize.
I close my eyes, and at some point, I drift off to sleep, but that’s short-lived. The lights are on, not the ones that burn us, but regular lights overhead. Now, I’m able to see the line of girls to my right and left clearly. I sit up and blink my eyes as I look both ways.
“What’s happening?” I ask the girls.
“I don’t know. These lights have never been on,” she says as we all sob. Is this it? Is this the end?
I watch the door for him, but it never opens. He never comes in, which is strange. Typically, he comes in and grabs one of us, but then again, these lights were never on.
I sit up, shoving my back against the rough rock wall, pull my knees up to my chest, and just watch.
It seems like I sit here for hours, and nothing happens. My eyes grow heavy, and I fall asleep once more. There are no dreams this time. Nothing notable about this sleep, but I am awakened by the sound of the door being slammed. Two men in masks with what appears to be some type of clothing walk in and look along the line of us.
“Each of you will have a pair of shorts and a shirt with your name on it. The name goes in the front. You will put them on, and you will do as you’re told.” He doesn’t say anything else as the two of them walk along the cells, shoving a pair of shorts and a shirt through the bars. They get to mine and shove them in, allowing them to drop to the floor before I move to pick them up. The shirt. Shit, I recognize the shirt. It’s the one that was sent to my house with my name on the front and the bullseye on the back. I furrow my brows as I hold it up and look at it. Was it him? Did he send it to my house?
None of this makes any kind of sense, but I’m still grateful for the clothing. I slip the shorts on and pull them up, wincing from the pain in my back. Then I pull the shirt over my head and nearly burst into tears as the fabric rubs against the damage to my back.
“When we open your cells, you will step out and stand in a line. You try to run, I’ll kill you. You try to fight, and I’ll kill you. You’ll receive more instructions when we get outside. This whole area is surrounded so don’t bother trying to take off. I’ll shoot you on the spot,” he announces. A chill wraps around my body as I cough and stand against the wall. The second man moves through the room, unlocking the cells and pulling the doors open.
When he’s finished, we all wearily step out of our cells and form a line, huddling closely together. He motions for us to follow him, and we start to walk on shaky legs. None of us have had any form of exercise since we’ve been here aside from moving around in the cells.
We’re lead outside and the fresh air hits me in the face. I take a deep breath, or as deep as I can, before coughing once more. The moon is high in the night sky and shining down on us, and I couldn’t be happier to see it in my life.
“This way,” the man at the front instructs, leading us down a small trail. The sticks rip into my feet, and I wince, but I don’t dare complain.
We make it to the bottom of the trail; some girls are full-on crying, others sobbing, most of us staying quiet. The man points to a spot on the ground, and we make our way over.
“Sit on your knees,” he demands. We drop to our knees, me wincing in pain once again from the already bruised and broken flesh on them. “Hands behind your backs,” he orders. My hands instantly go behind my back as I watch the second man walk up and down the line of us. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what they plan to do to us, but it can’t be good.
The two men talk to each other for a few minutes while we girls share looks at each other. My heart is thudding in my chest so hard I can hear it in my ears.
The only sounds you can hear besides my own are those of animals and insects. I glance around and it appears we’re in the woods somewhere. All I can see are trees and a small fire that blazes off to the right.
We wait until the men turn to face us. That’s when I hear someone else coming. The sound of sticks breaking under their feet alerts me, and my head snaps in that direction. This man isn’t wearing a mask. His face is dark, his eyes darker.
I should look away, but I can’t. The men in the masks finally pull them off and toss them to the side before the one announces with a smile on his face, “Welcome to the hunt.”