Chapter Thirteen
A familiar tune floated through the air. Mimi’s ringtone on Kara’s phone. Kara’s eyes lit up. My phone! Oh, God! Help! Kara whipped her head around, looking for her phone. Her heart raced. Where was the damn thing? Mimi must be looking for her.
The man scrambled across the room and into the darkness behind Kara. He plucked at the buttons on the phone. The ringtone stopped, but the red light blinked.
“How do you turn this damn thing off?” He shoved the phone toward Kara.
She grabbed the phone with trembling hands, clutching it until her fingers hurt. She stared at the blinking light. Text messages. She looked at the man who stood above her.
He stared at her expectantly.
Could she read the messages? Could she respond? She wiggled as if she were getting more comfortable, angling her body just slightly away from him, shaking her head so her hair fell in a curtain around the phone.
“Hurry up,” he said.
“I’m…I’m doing it.” Oh, God, oh, God. Kara pushed the Home button. Two messages from her mother, one from Daryl. Her finger hovered over the keys. Could she? Should she? She pushed Reply and held her breath.
“Give me the damn thing.” In one quick swoop he snagged the phone and threw it against the wall, sending shards of metal and plastic across the concrete floor.
Kara cowered against the pole. “I was trying. I swear.”
He stared at her, his eyes cold and distant, like a Rottweiler assessing its prey.
Kara dropped her eyes, certain he’d lunge for her next. She didn’t know how to get onto his good side, but she had to find a way to connect with this monster. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, the man sat beside her, his arms resting across his knees.
“Marissa,” he said.
Marissa? Who the hell is Marissa? Kara kept her eyes trained on the ground, her hands on the concrete floor, ready to push away at any second.
“Tomorrow is our birthday.”
Our? “Birthday?” she managed.
He looked at her with softened eyes. “The 28th of October, our birthday?” He looked at her expectantly.
“Right, I know. I know,” she said quickly. What the hell?
“Remember the first birthday we spent at Lowreys?” He looked straight ahead, as if he were watching a film. He smiled. “Remember the cake? Remember the doll you got?”
“Mm-hmm,” she lied.
He reached into his pocket and took out a blood-streaked Barbie doll, and handed it to Kara.
Oh, shit. He’s psycho. Kara took the doll.
She ran her hand over its hair. The plastic felt familiar in her hand, though she had no memory of ever playing with Barbie dolls.
Despite herself, she had the urge to smell the plastic doll.
She brought it to her nose, and smelled it, cringing and turning away at the tangy aroma.
Memories of playing with similar plastic dolls tugged at the periphery of her mind.
“Don’t you remember? That shit-ass kid tried to say it was hers, but I knew better. I knew it was for you. It had the same hair you had. She stole it.” He looked her in the eye, then said, “She never stole anything again.”
Kara’s heart jumped.
“Her fingers broke so easily.”
Kara dropped the doll on the floor. A pained noise came from her throat.
He picked up the doll and handed it back to her.
She didn’t take it.
“You called to me that night. You were scared. Do you remember? It was after midnight and you called from your bedroom, Roland! I’m scared,” he said in soft, high-pitched voice.
Kara bit her lip. Roland. Roland. Ro. “Mm-hmm.”
“Lowrey dragged me outta there. Remember how I fought? Remember how you cried for me to stay?” He softened his voice again, “Roland!”
Kara’s eyes fixed on the concrete wall. A voice sailed through her memory.
A boy. A brother? She shook her head. Roland.
Why did she feel like she knew that name?
What was wrong with her? She was believing him.
Oh, shit. She had to think straight. What was happening to her?
She’d heard about people who had been kidnapped and were very quickly brainwashed, even befriending their captors—Stockholm Syndrome, that was it.
Kara clenched her teeth, swallowing against her confusion. She had to focus.
He looked at her expectantly.
“Yes, yes, I remember,” she said quickly.
Do I? We’ll never be apart. The words nagged at her.
Where had she heard them before, and why did they feel so important?
Tell me, tell me, the voice in her mind urged.
A new and different fear gnawed at Kara.
What was happening to her mind? Why did she feel as though she was balanced precariously at the edge of a cliff, and that the images he was planting could pull her over the edge and send her into a dark abyss?
“October 28th.”
Tears trickled down Kara’s cheeks. She had to pull herself together. She had to focus. She was losing her mind. She had to push past the fear and save herself. She was so thirsty. Her words hurt as they climbed up her throat—the coal dried the air around her. “I…I need to pee, and I’m thirsty.”
Roland stared straight ahead.
She knew his name now, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. It stuck in her throat like a lump. She had to do it. “Ro…Roland?” Creases lined her forehead as she tried to draw him in.
His head snapped in her direction. An eerie smile crept across his lips.
Kara leaned away from him.
He stared, his crooked smile sending chills through Kara’s limbs.
She tried again, “Roland?” She had to connect, had to get out of there.
“A lifetime,” he said quietly. “That’s how long it’s been since I’ve heard you say my name.”
“I’m sorry,” she offered, hoping her words wouldn’t upset him.
He shook his head. “Those damn people kept you hidden from me, but I found you.”
Kara nodded. “I have to pee,” she said. Her bladder pushed against her jeans. “I’m sorry, can I just go to the bathroom?” And run?
“Sorry, yes, Marissa.” He withdrew the blade once again, then cut through the duct tape that bound her ankles.
Kara stretched her legs out in front of her. She stared up at him, wondering if she should stand, wondering if she could run.
He stuffed the blade into his pocket and turned his back.
Kara stood. Her legs trembled and ached. She eyed the darkness where she’d heard the noise. I can do this, she assured herself.
Her mind ran in circles. Should she run?
Shouldn’t she? She didn’t know where she was.
What if he caught her? She’d screamed and no one had heard her.
He had her stuff. Did that mean he’d killed Paige, Joe, and Keith?
Keith! If he hadn’t killed Keith, maybe the security cameras had picked him up.
Her hopes deflated when she thought of Keith, asleep at his desk. The thought weakened her knees.
Roland walked toward the back of the room. “Come on. I set up a place for you to go the bathroom back here.”
Now or never. Kara bolted toward the darkened exit, her hands in front of her, screams tearing from her chest, her voice echoing off the walls. She’d done it! She was free! She huffed as she ran, afraid to look back.
She hit the wall running at a full sprint. Her hands could not stop the momentum of her body weight thrusting her forward, face first, into the concrete. Her chest smacked the wall—she crumbled to the floor in a heap of ringing ears and pain so great she passed out cold.
Kara came to in a fog of pain and confusion. She opened her swollen and bruised eyes and fluid dribbled down the sides of her cheeks.
“Why’d you have to go and run?” Roland’s tone was pointed, angry.
Kara stared at him, unable to think clearly.
She reached for the Dixie cup that Roland held out to her, and desperately brought it to her lips, sucking down the last of the sweet liquid.
She was so thirsty. Why was he giving her so little to drink?
Her chest ached with each breath. Her limbs felt as if they’d been broken at the joints.
“Don’t pull that shit again. You’ll ruin everything,” he demanded.
The tinny tick, tick, tick of a clock filled the cold, dark room.
“Look at yourself.” He ran his hand through his hair. He pushed to his feet and paced. “You’ve done it now. Just look at yourself, you’re hurt. Damn it, Marissa.”
Kara closed her eyes. Even that small movement hurt. Her eyes opened involuntarily. The sound of gears clicking into place drew her focus to Roland. He was crouched before a clock. She watched Roland set the hands of the clock in place. It was 8:50.
“Friday morning,” he mumbled. “Born together, die together.”
Somewhere deep in the fog of Kara’s mind, she heard her mother’s younger voice whispering to her, Play Sleeping Beauty.
A memory from when she was just a little girl played out like a dream in her mind: her mother, in Kara’s bedroom at night, her arms around Kara.
A presence lingered in the room, someone she couldn’t place with her mind so foggy from pain.
Play Sleeping Beauty and he’ll go away, her mother had whispered.
Kara’s eyes closed, and she drifted off to sleep.