16
Jessa
I was the last one left in the putrid-smelling van, its floor smeared with vomit and some puddles of urine. From where I sat in the back of the cargo area, I couldn ’ t hear the kids anymore, their snuffling noises or panicked breathing.
All I could see was a man with a gun, silhouetted between the van doors. He had his smashed-up, masked face turned away from me slightly, his attention focused on the direction he ’ d sent the kids. But I felt certain that if I moved a muscle, he ’ d snap his attention back to me.
What would happen next? All I knew was we had to be very, very careful.
Just do what the men say. Don ’ t cry. Don ’ t talk back , I begged the kids silently, picturing the defiant gleam I ’ d seen in Sage ’ s eyes when the van doors opened.
I felt sick when I thought of the way she ’ d ignored me after I told her to sit back down.
Defiance won’t accomplish anything. It ’ s not worth the risk.
Sage was too young to understand that.
I ’ d been the same way once.
The two men clearly hadn ’ t noticed the scratched-off paint—yet. But I knew all too well that it was the little things, the small subversions, that could suddenly send you and everyone you loved spiraling headlong into danger. If they thought we ’ d seen their faces, any hope of getting out of here alive was gone.
I tried to squeeze my bound hands into fists, but my numb fingers barely obeyed. Just do what they say, Sage , I wanted to scream so loud she ’ d hear me, wherever they were taking her and the other kids. Don ’ t do anything stupid.
Instead, I kept my mouth shut tight and did exactly what I was supposed to do.
Nothing.
Because I had to get out of here alive.
Because I had to get back to Soph. The silly, sweet, baby-faced, just-started-kindergarten, front-toothless child I ’ d lost three years ago—now the shy, quiet nine-year-old living with my sister who wouldn ’ t call me “ Mom ” anymore.
I ’ d thought about her every day like a lifeline during my pre-trial hearing to keep myself calm and quiet—when what I really wanted to do was tear my hair out by the roots. And every day for three years when I woke up staring at a cage door until my parole was finally granted.
At least then, I thought I ’ d get back to her—even if it took a long time.
Now, I wasn ’ t so sure. And that thought scared me as much as the idea of dying.
“ Hurry it up,” the man pointing his gun at me muttered under his breath, and I scooted toward him, thinking he was talking to me. He was the one who ’ d told the kids, “You do what I tell you. Otherwise, we shoot your bus driver.”
But the second I started moving, he waved the gun. “ Not you, bitch. You stay still.”
I froze, confused. Then I realized he had one foot turned slightly away from me and his head tilted, like he was keeping one eye on something happening in the distance. Where the kids had gone.
I tried to take advantage of the breeze blowing in through the open van doors, dispersing some of the stench in the van. But my gag reflex rose again as the smell of vomit and urine mingled with the scent of him. Like rotten mint and dried sweat.
I swallowed the bile and kept quiet, daring to really study him for the first time. He was tall, maybe six foot. Lanky and thick-set. He stood with his feet wide apart, and his knees bent a little, ready to move. He kept clenching and unclenching his free hand, making the muscles in his forearm pop up and down.
My stomach lurched yet again. Maybe I was starting to lose it from the heat and the terror and the zip ties cutting off the blood flow to my arms below the elbow, but I could’ve sworn he was wearing the same kind of minty cologne Matt had loved—and I secretly disliked.
Instinctively, I looked at the man ’ s neck, bare beneath the jagged line of pantyhose. There it was, right beneath his jaw. The carotid artery, I knew from watching Grey ’ s Anatomy . It was almost invisible when a person was calm, just a soft thrum of a pulse. But if you riled them up, that artery thumped so hard you could see their neck beating in time with their heart.
It was the first thing I looked for when Matt came into any room.
His face could look so calm, his expression so docile. Those soft brown eyes almost sleepy, his bee-stung lips parted in a half-grin.
It was the face everybody saw. His executives and managers and employees at TSuites, the startup he ’ d co-founded with his brother that was poised to sell for $340 million. The business partners and customers who commented on his LinkedIn and Forbes articles about TSuites’ “ innovative, employee-first” company culture never failed to say how Matt was, “ Such a good human being,” “One of the good guys,” and “ Damn, I wish he was my boss.”
It was the face Sophie saw, too. When he read her Little House on the Prairie before bed, made cinnamon waffles for us on Sundays, and rented actual ponies for Sophie’s fifth birthday so all the kids in her kindergarten class could ride in our sprawling front yard.
The only person who didn ’ t see that face all the time was me. And the only warning I ever got that he was about to rage—or pin me to the bed until I promised I wasn ’ t cheating—was that thrumming pulse going wild at his neck beneath his chin.
“ Okay, your turn. Move, now.”
I startled but stayed frozen a moment longer. Matt ’ s face loomed so large in my mind, I could ’ ve sworn it was his voice coming through the thin fabric.
I blinked, zooming back into the stifling hell of the van.
The man holding the gun didn ’ t have to ask me twice. I was already scooting my butt across the van floor so fast, I heard the back of my jeans rip on the pocket where it caught on something sharp.
He laughed in surprise. “ Glad somebody knows how to hustle.”
When I got to the edge of the van, I wanted to crane my neck to see the kids. I could hear distant whimpering again, but it sounded so far away. Where had they taken them? Where were they taking me?
Instead, I kept my eyes lowered obediently.
He grunted. “ You want me to remove those zip ties on your legs?”
The smell of his deodorant was making me sick. I wanted to retch again.
I just nodded, though.
He snickered again. “ And you know what ’ ll happen to the kids if you run?”
When I nodded again, he reached his free hand into his pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife. “ Good girl. A+ student.”
When he finished cutting the ties on my legs, he grabbed my arm, motioning for me to let him cut the ties on my wrists, too. My numb fingers tingled as the blood rushed mercifully back.
I shuddered in relief but didn ’ t bother celebrating the freedom. As long as he had that gun, I might as well have been his marionette.
He snapped his fingers and flicked the barrel of the revolver, motioning for me to walk away from the van. When I looked up, I saw the second man maybe twenty yards away. He was standing at the edge of a junk pile.
I walked toward him with quick, measured steps. Not so fast that he ’ d think I was running, but not so slow he ’ d think I was dawdling. I resisted the temptation to look around me.
It wasn ’ t until I stopped walking, a few feet away from the second man, that I saw the gaping hole in the earth in front of me. It came out of nowhere, just a black pit in the dirt at our feet. Like an enormous snake had made its home there. What the hell was this?
I felt so dizzy I nearly crumpled.
There was no sign of the children. But there was a ladder poking out the top of the hole in the ground.
Then it hit me. I was going down there. That’s why they ’ d cut my ties.
The kids were already down there.
My ex-brother-in-law’s words found their way to the front of my mind again. Jessa Landon deserves to rot in hell.
Those words felt more real than ever now as the second man flicked his gun toward me and I forced my hands to grab the first rung of the ladder.
I stifled the panicked voice in my head begging me to do what Sage had done earlier: disobey, resist, refuse to go down into that hole.
I ignored that useless voice and kept my head bowed as I moved down another ladder rung. That wasn ’ t the way out. The way out was doing whatever they told us to do. They were the ones with the guns.
No, no, no, no , my mind screamed with each inch I descended.
Small spaces terrified me. When I was a little girl, I ’ d wedged myself inside a neighbor ’ s shed during a game of hide-and-seek. The latch had engaged from the outside, trapping me inside for maybe all of five minutes until the other kids heard me screaming. Something big, with prickly legs skittered over my arm.
I ’ d had nightmares about it until I was in college.
It doesn ’ t matter. Just do what they say and there ’ s a chance we ’ ll all survive.
I tried to keep my body from shaking, but it was no use.
“ Chill out, lady,” the man said in a scratchy whisper. “ You ’ re gonna fall. ”
He leaned closer and pressed his gun against the back of my head, like if I moved a muscle he ’ d blow my brains out. The hard, narrow barrel dug painfully into my skin as if he were trying to push it into my skull. But then the man mumbled, “ It ’ s not that bad down there. Just hang tight, okay?”