46. Freya
FREYA
A fter half an hour of driving through forest trails too disorientating for me to keep track of, we pull up next to a hunting cabin. It’s a decent sized structure with a porch and wooden paneled walls stretching the width of a few rooms.
I wait in the van as Zach rounds the front and yanks open the passenger door. He waves his gun at me. “Out.”
I slide down from the seat, frozen twigs and dead leaves crunching under my shoes. I don’t have a coat on and the icy air bites through the long sleeve t-shirt I’m wearing.
Zach makes me walk ahead of him towards the cabin.
When we reach the entrance, he leans forward and I tense, his chest brushing my back as he unlocks the door. His large hand pushes the wood and it swings open inwards.
I take one step inside before my feet grind to a halt.
What. The. Fuck?
I don’t even move when Zach’s breath whispers against my ear. “Welcome home, Little Star.”
For a second I think he’s figured out it’s me but then I remember Allie said he kept calling her that too.
I force oxygen into my lungs.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t make what I’m seeing any easier because I just walked into a fucking replica of my childhood home.
Photographs of me as a child line the hallway, the same ones that were there as I grew up. For show of course, in case anyone ever visited. As far as I was aware they were all locked up in evidence. I have no idea how Zach got them.
The side table by the door is the same one we used to have, right down to the ceramic key dish and the unlit candle.
I can’t bring myself to move farther into the house, but I can see enough of the kitchen, through a gap in the door on my left, to know the similarity isn’t a coincidence and it isn’t limited to this hallway.
My eyes catch on a photo at the end of the hall. It’s the one of a blonde woman twirling around that felt so damn familiar. I couldn’t place it at the time but now I remember it sitting right there on the wall. I’d pass it every time I went from my bedroom to the kitchen.
“What is this?” the words whisper from my lips before I can think whether or not Allie would say them.
Behind me, Zach spreads his arms wide. “This is home.” He runs a finger over the side table. “I never got to live here as a child, but I always wanted to. So I made it.” He’s silent for a moment before he indicates with the gun for me to keep moving. “Let’s go.”
My feet take me down the hall and to the right but my mind is kaleidoscoping.
Thick breaths whoosh in my ears as I walk through the corridor towards the short door that always led to the basement.
The deadbolt keeping it locked burns away any hope that this perverse replica doesn’t extend to the sublevel.
Zach holds out a key. “Open it.”
I take the key from his palm. I try to keep my focus on the basement door but my gaze flicks to the right on it’s own accord. I get a glimpse of pink wallpaper at the end of the hall before I jerk my head away and stare at the basement door.
The padlock clicks and I unhook it. The lock’s got some weight to it and for a moment I consider slamming it into Zach’s head, but he’s got the gun pointed at my stomach.
I hand the padlock over to him, telling myself to wait for the right moment. The guys will be here any minute now.
Zach pulls the heavy door open. “After you.”
A single bulb casts a dim light from the bottom of the basement, just enough for me to see the outline of the steps as I go down the stairs, Zach close on my heels.
The shuffling of clothes on concrete is a sound I’m well acquainted with and I have to fight to stop a flashback.
Logically, I know this isn’t the same room I was held captive in for most of my childhood, but it looks the same.
It feels the same, and the little girl huddled in the far corner may as well be me from a different era.
Harley.
A tangle of knots unravels inside of me at the confirmation that she’s alive.
She keeps her eyes on Zach, only letting them flick to me for a second before locking back onto the biggest threat.
“I don’t want to be here,” I say, only just remembering I’m supposed to be playing the part of my sister.
“I don’t care,” Zach answers. “I need to make a call to sort out the mess you made. I’ll be back later.” He waits till I’m farther inside the basement before going back up the stairs.
My body revolts at the sound of the door slamming shut and it takes everything in me not to flinch. I know I need to go to Harley, but I’m barely functioning right now. The air down here is somehow stale and damp at the same time and the taste makes me sick.
I take a moment to notice all the differences in this basement to the one I grew up in.
The space is smaller by a couple of feet.
There’s no sign of the twin mattresses Allie and I used to sleep on, just a small pile of blankets in the corner.
The walls are bare too, no coded messages scratched into the concrete.
The pressure in my chest at being locked up is still there but I breathe a little easier as I let it sink in that this is not the place I spent every other day of my childhood. I am not a kid. I am not powerless.
I close my eyes and when I open them again, I don’t see a younger version of myself, I see Harley.
She’s watching me now that Zach’s gone. She hugs her knees to her chest, the navy leggings she’s wearing covered in dust. Her skin is pale and she’s thinner than she was in the photo I saw but Zach must have been feeding her because she doesn’t look malnourished.
I drop down to my knees and sit cross-legged on the floor, not moving any closer yet. “It’s Harley, right?”
Her eyes widen but she doesn’t say anything. I check the corners of the room for cameras. I don’t see anything obvious. The guys should be here any moment now and Harely’s been scared long enough so I decide to take the risk.
“My name’s Freya. I’m with the FBI. The police.”
Her eyes dart to the stairs then back at me.
“Can I come closer?”
A moment passes but then Harley nods. I shuffle across the room till I’m sitting in front of her. A faded bruise stains the skin around her eye a sickly yellow and dried blood dots the cuffs of her shirt. “Can you show me your wrists, sweetie?”
She pulls up the sleeves of the blue striped cotton top. The skin around her wrists is mottled and scabbed over in places.
“He put duct tape around them,” she whispers.
“Are you hurt anywhere other than your wrists and your face?”
She shakes her head.
I force myself to stay calm, to not show the emotion storming inside of me. I don’t want to ask but I need to know. “Harley, can you tell me if he hurt you in any other way?”
Her gaze darts to the stairs again before she studies her knees.
“Do you know what I mean by that?” I ask.
She nods.
I don’t push her on it, giving her time.
When she speaks her voice is a whisper. “He tried to on the first day. He took me upstairs to a bedroom, but he kept calling me Annie.” She looks up at me.
“My name’s not Annie and I just kept saying ‘my name is Harley, my name is Harley.’ I said it again and again and he got mad and hit me but then he brought me back down here. ”
My breath gushes out of me, relief making me lightheaded. “Has he taken you back upstairs again since then?”
She shakes her head. “He keeps trying to get me to say I’m Annie. He gets mad when I don’t but then he leaves. I don’t want to go back upstairs so I just keep saying I’m Harley.”
I bow my head, wiping away a tear before looking back up at the incredible kid in front of me. “That was really smart, Harley. You are so clever and so brave, and I promise I’m going to get you home, okay?”
She stares at me for a moment before launching into me, circling her arms around my back. Sobs wrack her tiny frame. I bite my lip. There’s nothing more I can say to make this better, so I just hold her close and let her cry.
After a while, I grab one of the blankets and wrap it around her. We sit like that for a long time.
Too long.
Long enough that I eventually have to accept that River and the guys aren’t coming.
Zach must be blocking the tracker signal somehow, which would explain why he never searched me for bugs.
Harley’s fallen asleep in my arms and I let her stay there as I figure out a plan. I go over all my options, trying so damn hard to find a way to get out of here that doesn’t involve Harley, but it’s no use and eventually I have to wake her.
“Hey, kid.”
She scrunches up her face, her eyes unfocused until she fully wakes on a jolt, scrambling away from me. Her breaths come fast.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s just me. Freya, remember?”
Her nails dig into the concrete, but she nods.
“You remember me saying I’m going to get us out of here? I’m going to need you to keep being brave for a little bit longer okay, because I need your help. Can you do that for me?”
My heart thunders.
In my mind, Harley’s face flicks between hers and mine and Allie’s.
I know exactly how scared she is, but she keeps her green eyes on me and nods.
You and me, Harley girl, we’re gonna be alright.
We have to be.