Chapter 1 #2
The small girl, overfilled with vim and happiness, pulled along a person who I feared was the complete opposite. His silence made him hard to read.
The height of the volume in the room increased. Excitement and joy spread like a fast-spreading fire, ignited by gasoline. . .
“Open the box.”
I heard the words but paid no attention to who had voiced them.
And I had no idea what would happen when that order was followed through. Would I be part of this family? My abductors said I’d be loved and wanted. I missed love. I missed a family.
But not this one. . . mine.
I missed my dad and all the promises he’d made in these recent weeks, all of which, he never got to see through. He had already broken the first—the promise of being with me forever. . . and he’d broken my heart along with it.
Footsteps moved to me, heavy and harsh on the cold floor. The key was already in my lock; a shaking hand had the metal vibrating against the wood as they turned the key to the right, and something internally clicked, releasing a mechanism to set me free.
I wanted to push myself to my feet, push the lid open. I wanted freedom, light, and the potential safety this family could offer me. But sitting silently and lowly for so long had made me weak; my legs, despite their muscle from years of track and field, wouldn’t hold my weight.
I waited in my position, waited for the lid to lift and for the glow of the dimming sun or the bright moon rising in the sky to peep in from a window and meet my skin with a gentle kiss.
Loud feet moved away as the man of the house allowed his children to catch the first glimpse of me.
The lid lifted, revealing a boy who stepped forward—a teenager with lanky legs. He didn’t look happy to see me; he didn’t look excited about my arrival. The voices I heard before my box was opened, had me feeling like he would have been, just like the little girl, who I assumed was his sister.
All he looked was confused.
His silver eyes blinked repeatedly. They were the brightest thing in the room.
“Ah, a sister! Is she mine, too?” chirped a little voice—the same voice I’d heard earlier.
“That isn’t. . .” the man stopped himself, like he was altering what he initially planned on saying. “Sure, a sister.” He smiled at the small face.
She had blonde curls and big eyes, and she looked as sweet as she sounded, in her little yellow dress that hadn’t been ironed.
But I couldn’t focus on her.
My attention was on her sibling and his pretty gray eyes, looking almost blue under the low hue of the overhead light. He stared with downcast eyes from a height of around six-three, without him moving his head—almost like he couldn’t.
His innocent, kind stare landed on me, and he felt my focus sharpen on his face—his beautiful face. The softness of his stare pushed me deeper into the box. The box I suddenly didn’t want to leave. And then he smiled, stretching out his arm, giving me his hand to help me from the box.
“I think he likes her.” The whisper from this father screamed into my ears, almost deafening me.
“She needs something to wear,” the boy said, and as he realized why I wouldn’t accept his hand, he pulled it back.
My head followed his gaze to his mother, who he shared barely any resemblance with. A woman who barely looked old enough to have birthed a boy of his age.
“Get her a blanket; those bad, bad men have taken all her clothes,” she, his mother, a woman with platinum blonde hair, spoke.
The dark roots lurking at her scalp proved it wasn’t natural like her daughter’s.
It clung limply around her narrow shoulders as her swaying neck twisted her head, looking for something to conceal me.
She was the lady of the house, and she seemed much nicer than the bad dye job harboring her strands.
I shouldn’t have focused on her hair and its poor appearance, but it took the focus from my pain, and from the fact that I was completely naked.
. . and from her son, who almost had me turning back to him without a reason.
So, internally, I kept thinking of how I could improve her style if I ever bonded with this woman.
Then, another twinge of pain came, digging its claws into me. I wanted to study beauty—hair and makeup—things I may now never get to experiment in.
My dreams had been ripped away with my old life.
“Now. . . come on!” the woman clapped her hands, her brittle fingers slapping together pulled me back to my situation, just as my eyes began heading to the floor.
Her husband followed her orders, moving to the countertop behind where a neatly folded pile of clean laundry sat proudly and perfectly organized.
I glanced around, taking in the surroundings of the space and the people who lived in it. It looked like a home; it felt homely, in a dingy and morbid kind of way.
The walls were a dark green color, and the cupboards lining them matched their shade.
A wooden table sat in the center; plates laid atop for tonight’s dinner.
There was a fireplace in the corner, but no orange flame acted as a centerpiece.
It was unlit and thick with dust, proving it had been that way for quite some time.
I wasn’t cold, but I was shivering. The rattling came from inside me; feral fear, lacing my blood with ice, so thick, that even if the fire had been roaring from the corner of the room, it wouldn’t have been able to melt it.
The little girl’s face was no longer smiling. She looked sad to see me in such a condition. She must have been able to see my rapid heartbeat from the thin skin covering my chest.
The pigtails the child’s hair were pulled tightly into, danced across her little shoulders, swaying in a sadistic tango. “Momma, why is she naked?”
Why was I naked? Because I didn’t need clothes, apparently. Or so I had been told, when they were first stripped from my body, three weeks ago.
The woman of the house had big brown eyes, and they were focused on me, along with a somber expression on her matte red lips. “Baby, don’t ask questions right now.”
The man—the father, the husband—was a big man.
Taller than his son and much stronger. He smelt of power and tobacco and sweat as he moved back to me with a large sheet, but he didn’t step too close.
He tossed the sheet, and it landed in my box, encasing my trembling knees, surprising me that it didn’t get trapped in the thick tension circling in the air.
I concealed myself before I looked up, bobbles of aged fibers rubbed my bruises in an almost uncomfortable way.
My eyes, as if by some magnetic force, moved back to the boy with the silver gaze, that was back on me.
I forced my eyes to stray, staring beyond the boy from my wooden box—that I had since noticed was decorated with a big red bow. I locked my eyes on the sight of a badly-made two-tier cake that was slumping to the left.
“Happy birthday, Woody. We hope you like your gift.” His mother’s voice wasn’t native to this state, wherever this state was. She had a New York accent disguised by a thick false twang. She sounded nothing like the rest of her family, who all spoke with an authentic southern drawl.
My head snapped to her, eyes wide with fear.
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll enjoy her.” A snort echoed from her husband's mouth.
“Don’t you be worrying, sweetie. I’ll explain later.” She winked at me, pushing at her husband’s chest to remove him and his comments from her breathing space.
I wasn’t sure if I should step out of the box. I wanted to jump over the side and run through the weeds outside, in search of safety. But my legs wouldn’t allow that, not after being crammed in this crate for fuck knows how many hours.
I ensured the blanket hid my exposure from wandering eyes and raised myself, forcing my weak knees to welcome the challenge of standing.
“I’ll help you.” The teenager, who sounded much younger than his years, offered his hand again, and I took it, only because I wasn’t sure I could hold my own weight.
I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
As our hands locked and his fingers tightened around mine, something inside me felt a spark, like static, possibly from the blanket.
Lifting my leg high, I side-stepped out on shaky legs. Stepping down onto the dusty stone floor. I let go of the boy’s hand as soon as my toes graced the tiles. I didn’t comment on the feeling between our fingers, and neither did he, but once we broke apart, he rubbed away the sensation.
My toes curled in again, feeling the harsh tiles below them. I’d soon learn, most of this house didn’t have carpet, didn’t have personality. It had nothing but a forceful sense of unwelcome, and it was giving it to me.
“Would you like to take a bath before I find you something to wear?” the woman asked me.
“Ma’am, can I please use the phone? I need to call the police.” I finally found the courage to talk. My accent was different too, birthed from sunny California, just like I was. My eyes flicked to her, away from her son, who was still staring at me. Still pulling at my attention.
“I’m sorry, darlin’. We don’t have a phone,” her husband answered for her. I couldn’t read his tone; I had no idea if the words he spoke were true.
“I need to speak to the police or the sheriff. Do you have a car?”
“Honey, let me take you for a bath. You can tell me what's bothering you then.” The woman didn’t wait for my reply. Her arm waved in my direction, ushering me to follow her out of the room.
I trailed her shadow, avoiding the cracks in the dark tiles. The long sheet around me brushed away the dust behind me as it dragged along the floor. I figured the woman was my best bet for safety—there was less she could do to hurt me, and that brought a strange sense of minimal trust.