47. Ambrose—age nine
Ambrose—age nine
M y nose feels colder without Dollie’s pressed against it.
It twitches, and I can feel she’s gone before I even open my eyes.
But crazily, I still expect her red, puffy cheeks to be in my view.
I still expect her tiny arms to be banded around my stiff body, holding in all my trauma like she has done each night.
A tear rolls the second I see she isn’t there to hold that trauma. I don’t even feel her nearby. A headache forms as I push myself up too fast.
Heavy clown shoes pad the stairs, making each step creak. Spinning so fast, I fall from the dresser and into the filthy freezing water.
Dollie! I mouth.
She’s trying to scream, but her tiny hands, pulling at his giant one clasped over her mouth, make it hard for her even to breathe.
Giant steps cripple my knee as they take me through the water because, of course, I landed awkwardly in it.
I rush for the stairs, my heart pounding in my ears because I know I won’t be fast enough to get to the top before he slams the door in my face and locks it, and I know what happens up there.
And I know she’s too small, too ill, too innocent for it all.
My heart hammers harder, worry pounding through me.
I put my foot on the first step, and Colin, standing at the top, turns, that painted-on red smile warping as he tilts his head to the side.
Don’t , I plead silently. Don’t take her.
I drop to my knees, and the pain in my left knee forces a pitiful sound out of me. Ignoring the painful threats it makes to keep me up tonight, I mouth, Take me instead.
Colin’s smile widens, showing off his rotten teeth.
He stares into my soul, seeing all the turmoil and fear he usually enjoys, and as if simply bored by it all, with a shrug, he says, “Nope. Today, I have a job for Dollie.”
Those words knock the air from my lungs, and with a scurry of limbs against wood, I can’t lurch to my feet quickly enough before he slams the door.
The bolt locks on the other side, echoing in my ears with my still-pounding heart. I force my wobbling legs to get me to the top, and I pound on the unmoving door with tight fists before slamming my shoulder into it.
Pain rattles from my shoulder to my elbow, but the door doesn’t budge.
And I don’t stop, throwing myself at the door again and again.
I wish for that super-human strength you hear of in times of need, but my wish isn’t granted, like all the other ones I make to get out of this hellhole.
Another twang of pain radiates. This time, in my toes as I try my luck kicking it. I kick again, hearing her call my name somewhere on the other side.
Something inside me cracks, all the way down to my soul.
I’ve done everything he’s asked, and it isn’t enough.
He’s taken her anyway.
Another echo of my name slips under the door.
Dollie .
Her name is no more than my lips moving while the rest of my body melts to the floor.
I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry.
I blink a tear out. The cold droplet trails down my cheek slowly before more follow, dragging the grief out of my heart to keep me company down here in the cold.
I promised her I’d protect her. I’d promised we’d be okay.
She won’t be okay after this.
Her nightmares will get worse. Her anxiety. Whatever she thinks she sees in any dark corner, it will all be scarier after this.
I failed her.
I fucking failed her.
A meek, “Help me, Ambrose. Please!” crawls through the door and pierces my heart.
I struggle to take a breath, looking for any way to help her... but I can’t help her from in this room, and I can’t get out of it.
Moving away from the door, I scan the dark space. There’s nothing down here to help me. My mind races one million miles per minute, and my heart struggles to keep up.
Time isn’t on my side, and that hurts, knowing what’s to come and being unable to stop it.
My pain shifts to anger as I hear him put on the song that shakes me to my bones.
She’s probably on the sofa right now, terrified and trembling, shielding herself, trying to find comfort in that dirty pillow the same way I did, hitting him with it, doing anything to keep him away.
I can’t hear her crying over the music. I can’t hear the greasy fucker singing along. I only hear the splashes of water as I kick and splash like a maniac down in this flooded room, searching for anything beneath the water that may be of some help.
That song continues in my head, the same words over and over. Colin’s wife’s voice fades in and out with memories of him putting part of him inside part of me.
A rush of vomit covers the surface of the water. Bigger chunks of stomach lining sink first. I move around them, continuing to search the basement floor for something I can use as a weapon because I’ve found one there before.
Coming up empty, a scream rips through me.
I punch at the brick wall with a wet fist, not caring as my skin breaks along each knuckle, not even feeling it.
I can’t risk hearing her scream, so I continue, drowning out any noise, but it doesn’t help me feel better.
Trembling, I step away from the wall, looking for something else to destroy, but there’s nothing down here but water and dust and that fucking wood-burning stove that scarred us.
The orange flame is back today, and it taunts me for only a second before I yank the door open. Little embers flutter onto my skin, but I don’t feel them burn. I don’t feel a thing outside of my need to get upstairs to Dollie before that monster touches her.
I reach in, ignoring how hot the wood is, and pull out a log with my already scarred hand.
I race back up the stairs and hold the burning log to the door.
I watch the paint peel beneath the flame, and then a rush of orange engulfs the old wood below.
I step back, waiting close to the top, listening for the sound of the fire alarm, which I know is in the kitchen because this creature burns his toast every morning while we starve down here.
The alarm rings out, screaming over the music, which stops almost instantly.
The noise is replaced by Dollie crying, but I focus on the door and the cackle of the flames spreading and how I’m gonna charge through it any second, knowing I’ll make it when on the other side because, for whatever reason, this thing keeping us prisoner won’t let us die.
Maybe that was Mom and Dad’s request.
“What the—” shock fills Colin’s voice. He rushes through the kitchen for the extinguisher he keeps near the back door.
I see him rush past to get it. I see the whole room as the fire chews through the door before me.
Barricading my face with my arms, the log still in hand, I throw my weight at the door and fall through it onto the stone floor, which diminishes the fire eating away at my left arm but not the flames blazing through the back of my T-shirt. The wet patches barely slowed it down.
The log rolls away from me as I come to a stop, and the tiny orange flame, still burning on the corner, jumps to the dirty cabinets and grows.
Foam coats my back and smothers the flame, giving me no time to focus on the pain before it’s gone, leaving scars and melted pieces of my shirt on my skin.
Colin stands with the extinguisher aimed at me, and I watch him through the oven glass as he spits hate down at me, too.
“You little prick. I shoulda let you burn to death,” he fumes, spinning with the extinguisher to put out the fire spreading from the basement door and around his kitchen.
But the extinguisher stutters out the last of its foam, and the fire grows, stretching to the ceiling.
I roll onto my ass, watching as his white face follows the blaze. His mouth hangs low and stays like that until he turns back to me, with a hateful glare on his face.
He throws the extinguisher at my knee, going for my weak spot, and because that’s exactly what it is, I’ve no chance to move it before it suffers more damage.
A hiss sounds between my clenched teeth. I twist at the waist and reach for the log that set his cabinets alight. An image flashes in my head of how his face will look after I hit him with the hot log. I smile over the idea of an ugly scar and cringe when I think he might look just like me.
The log gets farther from my reach as Colin, positioned behind me as I’m crouched over, digs his dirty nails into my lower thighs and pulls me toward him.
Thrashing and fighting with everything I have to get him off me, I send kicks and punches to his face and body, needing his touch to be as far away as possible, needing his lips and the seedy promises he speaks to be away from my ears.
He’s so close I can taste them, and they make me feel violently sick.
I get a slight leverage when my knee jolts against his crotch and he winces. He falls backwards, and I kick again, hard in the chest, winding him. It’s enough for me to wiggle away from him.
We race, him to get to his feet, and me, to wrap my fingers around the log.
I waste no time, turning around and pounding it on his head as he tries to stand.
He falls backward, creating a bigger hole in the burning door and a loud splash as he lands at the foot of the stairs in the flooded basement.
I drop the log and rush into the room where I knew I’d find her.
A camera aims at Dollie on the striped sofa.
I step into the room and pull away the pillow that she’s hiding her face behind. One tiny wrist is bound to the nearby coffee table. I fight with the fraying cord around Dollie’s wrist to free her.
You hurt?
She recognizes my words by how my mouth moves and replies with, “I’m frightened. Where is he? Where is he now?”
He’s hurt.
Dead, hopefully.
“How did you get out?”
I don’t answer. We have little time.
Glancing around, relief seeps from me with a heavy breath. The fire hasn’t reached this room yet. I stop what I’m doing, cupping her face for a moment to mouth, I had to. I had to protect you.
Not lingering on her tear-stained face, I move back to her wrist, wiggling and working the cord. It takes me a minute to free her wrist, and I tug her into my arms the second I do.
She wraps her arms tightly around my shoulders and her legs around my waist. My breath catches, pain rushing around beneath her locked ankles.
“Am I hurting you?” She adjusts her legs, placing them on my hips, and with a gentle touch, I brush over her new bruises, hating all the purples and yellows that will stain her for weeks.
I’m okay . My silent words touch her cheek.
“He slapped me, but I’m okay, too. I didn’t like him touching me.”
I hated it.
I hold her close against my pounding chest and turn to the kitchen, my body stiff with the expectation of finding Colin’s shadow darkening the exit route.
He isn’t here, but the way out is blocked. The room brightens as the flames creep in, another horrible presence trying to keep us here.
I weave my fingers through Dollie’s curls and nuzzle our faces close, letting her know I have her, that she’s safe, that I’ve kept my promise until now, and I’ll never break it.
Swiveling, I rush for the other door near the stairs and pray there’s a key somewhere.
It feels like all my wishes are being granted at once, seeing it there in the lock. I turn it, yank open the door to a snowy field, and without hanging around to look for shoes, I run.