37. Ambrose—age nine
Ambrose—age nine
“ W hy did you stop?” Dollie asks, cradling in my arms, wondering why I stopped humming her favorite song from her favorite Barbie movie.
“He’s coming,” I say, and it hurts my cheeks. It’s only been a few days since he cut my face open, and every time I speak, those wounds rip apart again.
Dollie sits up straighter, her wide eyes on the ceiling.
The basement door opens, and both of our breathing heightens with panic.
Dollie’s gentle touch on my cheeks brings the worry of infection, but I fight with my thoughts to stop myself from pushing her away.
I need comfort—something to slow my racing heart—and she’s trying to give that. Her tiny touch stays on me always.
“I’m okay.” I weave my hand through her hair, struggling to avoid tangles that will hurt her, and I tuck her in closer so she doesn’t have to see the monster standing in the doorway. My pounding chest thumps against her ear, and she rubs there, telling me, “I love the sound of your heartbeat.”
Colin enters with Mom’s trembling voice. Dollie doesn’t even straighten to it, but I feel tears drop on my body while mine are still in my eyes, waiting to fall.
“I turned it up loud for you. Your mother is on the news. She wants you back for Christmas. I also turned it up because I hate that song I hear every time I step into my kitchen. What is it?” Colin plops down, his body taking up the fifth, sixth, and seventh steps.
Neither of us moves from the fire. It’s out, but it’s still warmer here than in the rest of the basement.
We don’t answer.
We haven’t spoken to him in four days.
He offers us nothing but food that will likely cause her death soon.
I hold her tighter, my fingers moving over each rib, and she holds me back in the same way that she did yesterday when I asked her if she wanted to escape this place the only way we could.
Her small voice told me she didn’t want to die.
The one in my head told me everything I already knew. That I do.
I want to die.
I want the peace that comes with not being here on earth, because even if we get out of here, I’ll never get a day when I don’t feel those big dirty gloves on my skin, and I can barely survive the idea of that.
Every time Dollie’s hands leave me, I feel his, and I feel empty and alone because of it. I feel dirty in a way that I’ll never be able to scrub clean.
I need it to go away.
I want to die.
But when she told me she didn’t want to breathe in water until it burned, I told her I’d wait.
Wait for death to come to us.
It’ll be soon, I’m almost sure.
And when she goes, my tiny little sister, my reason for living, I’ll go too.
“Oh, so you don’t want to talk to me?” Colin stands, those old knees creaking.
Peeling Dollie from my body as I stand, I push her behind me, and my eyes explain why. A silent request asks her to keep her hands on me, to keep his touch off of me.
She nods, understanding my silence perfectly as she curls in on herself, keeping her scarred hand hidden between us and the other tight around my waist.
“I didn’t like your song, and that annoying hum has been here all week.”
Because it helps Dollie relax, it helps her feel safe and calm—the opposite of how I feel right now as Colin stomps through the water.
He hasn’t touched me yet, but I can feel him near me. I can feel his breath on my stomach and his hand—I feel sick. The taste of vomit is thick in my throat, and I can’t swallow it down.
With a struggle, I try to focus on Mom’s voice, on the pain in the words that say something about her missing her children, how numerous appeals have failed, how she’s failed as a mother, and how much she’s sorry about that.
Only days ago, I’d have wanted to tell her none of that was true.
Her voice blurs in my ears before it’s snatched away and replaced by Colin. His hand presses into my face. More stains appear on his glove in the form of my blood as his fingers break through my cheeks and prod at my teeth. He tosses me into the water, and Dollie’s touch falls away from me.
Desperation pulls me from the filth, and I rush to get back to her. For the first time, it isn’t because she needs me. It’s because I need her. I need the phantom feel of him off of me. I need her comfort.
But I don’t get there.
I’m inches away when she reaches for me, a look of fear in her eyes that seems to have grown rapidly in the last few seconds.
Colin pulls me back, his hand tight around my throat until I can’t breathe. Breaths splutter uselessly as he lifts me into the air. I don’t try to peel him away because I can’t bring myself to touch him, to have more of his smell on me.
You like his smell, my cruel mind lies.
“No, I don’t,” I mumble, barely audible.
His lips brush the shell of my ear, and I recoil over the thought of his lips being on me again.
“How are those voices today?”
Loud. Torturous. Repetitive.
You like his voice.
I blink away the lie.
The death grip around my throat tightens, and I not only hear the blur of Mom’s voice, but I see her face.
I see Dad, Dollie, and my old family back in Ireland.
I see myself leaving Ireland, my accident, the old apartment, our spooky old house, and that spoiled brat next door telling us we can’t go to a party.
I see the playground and the monster who took us from there, and all the torture he’s given us since, as my whole life flashes before my eyes.
“Do you want it to end here, Ambrose? Do you want your miserable little life to end?”
Yes…
Dollie talks for the first time in days. “No, please, don’t. I need him. We need each other. Please, don’t hurt him. I need him.”
Blocking out the sound of her sobs, I focus only on Colin.
“We need to sort out that fucking face of yours. My wife is here for Christmas. She’ll help.”
She’ll help… it’s all I hear, and a flutter of hope tells me this is my chance.
“But Dollie…” I try to talk, and my eyes lower to the blood falling over his hand.
“Dollie will be safe, where she is, and still avoiding that big and scary crocodile that just bit my leg. Ouch!” His cold stare is on her when he screams out.
Wide blue eyes flick between me and the water that soaks my lower legs.
“Lift your legs,” she whispers.
But my attention is on Colin.
“She’ll be waiting for you to get back. Nothing will happen to her if you do as I ask because when we’re done, I have a job for you.” He throws my body at the stairs and demands, “Walk! Go on, get!”
I feel like some kind of animal.
A weak and battered animal on my way to slaughter, but for Dollie, I climb the stairs. Each step is a struggle due to all the injuries my healing leg has suffered these past few months.
Colin’s hands land on me again, on my rear, and it encourages me to move faster when I look and see they are really there, and it isn’t just my broken mind playing tricks.
A brass doorknob and squeaky hinges lead me into his kitchen.
“Sit,” he tells me, pointing at the island where the mess from his breakfast still lingers.
I do as he asks, then push the cereal bowl away when my blood drips from my face, turning the milk pink.
Colin is in the living room somewhere, trusting me not to run out the back door because he knows I won’t—can’t leave Dollie behind.
If something happened to her—something like what happened to me—the pain of that would kill me.
I don’t even look at the door or the blanket of snow through the windows.
The brightness of it and of Christmas, in this highly decorated, lit-up room hurts my eyes enough to keep them low.
Staying at the table, I lower my head, too, as it weighs down with thoughts of Dollie in the basement.
Her tiny cries can be heard through the floor, testing my strength to stay here. Those little whimpers fade out to the background noise of another. A woman cries in the living room. It’s not on his cop show, but the intro from that show blares from that direction, too.
Colin’s scream follows, raising my hackles. “I didn’t say that, did I!”
“This wasn’t part of the deal. They weren’t meant to be hurt. You said they wouldn’t be hurt if you brought them here.”
“Well, that’s your fault for believing me, you pathetic, stupid woman. You think they’re the first? They aren’t, and they won’t be the last.”
“Oh, God, how can you do this?”
The sound of what I assume is Colin slamming a glass bottle against something and smashing it rings in my ears and straightens my back.
I can’t stay in this room.
The door is right there, staring back at me as I lift my head and squint in its battered direction.
But is there time to get Dollie?
“Shut up, you stupid bitch, you haven’t even seen how fucking awful he looks yet.”
Colin pushes a woman into my view as I spin back around to the noise they’re making.
She stumbles toward me. Her long hair looks like Mom’s—styled the exact same way. Her curvier body and bright-colored clothing make her appear innocent and caring, and the quirky glasses on the tip of her pointy nose are something Dollie would find cool.
It’s not real.
Don’t trust her.
She’s with him.
The harsh smell of alcohol floats around them. It’s sharp, like the broken bottle in Colin’s hand.
“Oh, look at his face.” The woman careens upon seeing me, and my self-consciousness peaks to new heights.
As the woman turns to Colin, eager to get away from me, my head snaps to all the shiny surfaces in the kitchen.
The toaster, oven glass, and window fail me.
I turn back to Colin and his wife fighting.
“It’s the alcohol. It must be the alcohol. You’ll see clearly tomorrow, I promise.”
“It’s not the alcohol, Barbara. I just like doing it. Now, do your doctorly duties and fix his fucking face, or I’ll have to hide it from the camera.”
“No!” She steps back. “You can’t do this. Call his father and let him go home.”
“We’re beyond that, don’t you think? They never should have trusted me.”
They trusted him. My parents?
Thoughts run wild in my head.
“No, they fucking shouldn’t have. That is their son, and what is he, ten, eleven?”