Chapter Eighteen
Kara shivered. Her head throbbed. She fumbled through her memories, listening to the silence of the room.
Why did she get in that elevator? She should have known better.
Now she would die at the hands of a psycho in a dirty basement, probably never to be found.
She thought of her mother, and how sad and lonely she’d be without her.
Tears sprang from her eyes. I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.
She thought of their last conversation and how curt she’d been.
How could she have treated her mother so badly?
The woman who’d raised her, who’d worked full-time just to make sure that Kara had everything she’d needed.
Kara didn’t remember much about her father, except that he and her mother had fought—a lot.
Her memories were of a tall, brown haired man, wiry and frustrated.
She didn’t even know if she could trust her memory of him anymore.
Had he always been angry? Flashes of memory were all that she had left, and she wasn’t sure if those had been planted by things her mother had told her, or if they were real.
Why had he left? Kara couldn’t even be sure of that.
Her mother had only said that being a father was too hard for him.
Kara suddenly wondered if she’d subconsciously blamed her mother all these years for her father leaving.
Had she been a selfish person, always wanting more than her mother could provide? Is that why she’d wanted so desperately to get away from the small town? Did she want to get away from her mother? Regret wrapped its tendrils around her heart and squeezed.
“Good, you’re up.” Roland’s voice was rough, craggy.
Kara sat up. Every inch of her body ached.
Roland picked up the clock and set it in front of her. Why hadn’t she noticed the incessant ticking before? Tick, tick, tick.
“Twenty more hours.” He lifted his ash-covered face.
Kara stared not at his disfigured and dirty face, but at his hands and clothing, drenched in something dark red. Blood. Blood! Oh, God. Who? Oh, God!
He crouched next to her. “You’re trembling. Are you cold?”
Kara shook her head. Her mind told her to scream, to push away, but fear paralyzed her.
She had to get out of there, so she had to get him talking.
Hadn’t she read about a girl who was abducted and had prayed so much that her captor finally let her go?
Yes, she’d seen the book deal in the paper.
She had to concentrate. Okay, she thought. I can do this.
Roland sat next to her, his voice soft and even. “We’re turning thirty. Can you believe it?”
Kara forced herself to nod. Her heart pounded against her chest. She willed herself to calm down.
“I brought us cake, you know.” Pride spread across his face, lifting the balls of his cheeks until the ridge of his scars touched his bangs.
Kara was so hungry her stomach hurt. Cake? This freak brought cake to my funeral?
“I was saving it, you know, for our actual birthday. But—” He looked at the clock and nodded. “Well, maybe we should have it now.”
Kara quickly nodded. The thought of the tape ripping her already bloody cheeks was terrifying, but she’d be able to talk. She had to talk to get him to let her go. “Mm-hmm,” she eked out.
Roland put his filthy hands on either side of her cheeks.
She closed her eyes.
His hands smelled of burning embers and iron. Kara held her breath.
He tore the tape in one slow swipe. Kara winced, tears tumbling down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Marissa,” he whispered.
He took the edge of his bloodied shirt and patted the patches of blood from her cheeks. She clenched her jaw, swallowing screams of pain.
“Thank you,” she said. Connect. Get out alive.
He looked as if he were going to speak, then turned away and disappeared into the back room.
Kara wondered why she no longer had to pee. She wished her head would stop throbbing. She wasn’t prone to migraines, but this couldn’t be anything else. “I…I have a headache,” she said to the empty room.
“Yeah, that’s expected.” He appeared with two pieces of store-bought birthday cake on printed paper plates. Happy Birthday was spelled out in primary colors.
Kara lifted her bound hands.
“You gonna run again?”
Kara shook her head. “I promise. I’m sorry I ran. I…I was scared.” Of you. I still am.
Roland removed the bloodied blade from his pocket.
Kara pulled back. “What is that?”
He grabbed her wrists. “Knife.”
“No, what’s all over it?”
Roland slit the tape and pulled it off of her wrists.
The sticky adhesive pulled and ripped at the tiny hairs with each movement.
“Nothin’,” he said.
“That’s not nothing,” she said, and quickly covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m just scared. I’m not used to this.”
He worked the muscles in his jaw, the blade in his palm. “Don’t you worry about anything, Marissa. No one will separate us again.”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
“I took care of that little prick.”
Kara snapped her head up.
“Yeah, the one who’s always bugging you? I’ve seen him. I’ve seen you run from him.”
“What? Who?” Her heartbeat sped up. Her tongue felt thick. The pain in her stomach grew.
“That football bastard. He won’t be bugging you anymore.”
“Dean?” she cried. “Dean? You killed Dean?” She used her hands to push away from Roland. Dean was dead. Dead. Kara’s insides trembled. Her breath caught in her throat.
“I guess it was…Dean,” he said. He stuck a candle in the cake and lit it with a silver lighter, which he shoved back into his pocket. He pushed the plate toward her. “Let’s sing Happy Birthday.”
Kara pushed the plate away. Nausea pushed at her throat.
“It’s your favorite. Yellow cake, white icing.”
How the hell? How closely had he been stalking her? The thought sent cold fear through her chest. “I’m…I’m not hungry,” she said. “I feel sick.”
“That’s why you have to eat now. You’ll get sick, so eat it before you do.”
“Why will I get sick?” she spat, instantly regretting it.
“Because,” he snapped, “that’s just what happens.”
“What do you mean? What did you do to me?” She pulled at the tape around her ankles, overcome with panic. She had to get out of there. What had he done?
“You gonna run again, Marissa?” He stood, tossing the cake against the wall. “Is that it? You gonna run?”
Kara gathered her wits about her. Tick, tick, tick filled the silence between them. “No,” she managed. “I just, my stomach hurts. I think I’m gonna puke, and I don’t want to be tied up. It makes it worse.”
Roland rubbed his neck. His knuckles were red and raw, smeared with soot and blood.
“What’d you do…to Dean?”
He stared at her, squinting, as if he could see into her mind.
He stood and looked at her for a full minute or more, until Kara was sure she’d made the wrong choice in trying to engage him.
She opened her mouth to say something to break his gaze, and before she could get a breath from her throat, he bent down beside her and cut her legs loose.
“Nothing you need to know about.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest, then stretched them out again. Every muscle in her body ached.
“May I stand up?” she asked.
He nodded.
She stood. Small sounds of pain, and hints of fear, escaped her lips. Every joint was riddled with pain. Even her eyes ached. Her legs felt as if they’d been run over by a car. How would she escape? She had to convince him to let her go.
“It won’t be long now,” he said.
“How’d you know about Dean? Were you watching me?
How long?” A shiver ran down her spine. She leaned against the pole, looking up at the cable that ran alongside the wall behind it.
A pulley. Why hadn’t she seen that before?
They had to be in the old boiler room. The boilers had been removed when the new side of the plant had been built.
Of course. The old plant. The entrance. “How’d you get in here? ”
“You’re full of questions. I guess I don’t blame you, with being brainwashed and all.”
Brainwashed? He is crazy. Kara nodded. Good, talk to me.
“Yeah, I watched ya’. I had to. They wouldn’t let me near you. Don’t you remember?”
Kara shook her head.
“That mother of yours, she moved you away from me.”
Kara shook her head. Mom? Why was he talking about Mom like he knew her? Goosebumps snaked up Kara’s arms. He’d been watching her—and her mother? He knew they moved? Fear prickled the back of her neck. Damnit, get ahold of yourself. “Mm-hmm.”
“Remember that time in elementary school? At the zoo?”
Zoo? Kara had never been to the zoo, though something tugged at her. She couldn’t quite grasp it.
“I know you were just crying because you had to,” he said.
“I wasn’t mad at you or nothin’, but they moved you after that, and I couldn’t find you for the longest time.
” He sighed, looking away as if he were watching a memory unfold.
He shook his head and turned back toward her.
His stringy hair fell into his eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find you. ”
Zoo. Zoo. Kara remembered a story she’d made up when she was younger about the zoo—a little boy who wouldn’t leave her alone.
She remembered telling her mother. They’d moved shortly thereafter, and Kara had forgotten all about it until now.
What was happening to her? Was she losing her mind?
She had to focus, to stop overthinking whatever the crazy man said.
“Remember Mom?” He laughed.
Mom? Who is he talking about? Oh, God, Mom. Mom, I’m so sorry I treated you badly. I love you.
He looked at her expectantly. “You were her gift to me, because she had slippery fingers.”
Mom. I need you. Kara listened to him ramble on about his mother, their mother, and how she’d slipped and burned his face.
“She didn’t mean to do it. We were making all this noise, and she was cookin’, remember?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “You shrieked and she turned with the pot of boiling water and it slipped.” He looked toward the ceiling. “I was just in the way of that water, that’s all.”
Kara’s body trembled. His words played in her mind like a movie.
Or was it a memory? A little boy standing in a cramped kitchen with a round metal table and three metal chairs that looked like they belonged outside.
A woman in a housedress, a lit cigarette hanging from her lips.
Was she making this up? Was it real? What was happening to her?
Was she becoming too entrenched in his world while trying to befriend him and get herself free, or was it something more?
I’m definitely losing my mind. Her lower lip pushed up, and words tumbled out.
“She burned you,” she said. Tick, tick, tick.
Roland’s head snapped up. “An accident.”
Kara wrapped her arms around her head, mewing like a hurt lamb.
“She burned you! Oh, God, she burned you!” Did she remember?
Was it real? What was happening to her? Was he brainwashing her?
The tick, tick, tick of the clock grated on her nerves.
“That clock is driving me crazy. It’s echoing in my head. ”
“She didn’t mean to!” he roared. “She moved us away so she wouldn’t slip and burn you, too.”
“No!” You’re lying! Her voice was not her own. Tick, tick, tick. She wasn’t forcing the words from her throat, and yet they spewed out like lava, fast and venomous. “It was on purpose! You’re evil.”
“That’s them talking, not you, Marissa!” he yelled. “Don’t say that!”
“I’m not Marissa! I’m not your sister! She’s not my mother!
My mother is Mimi Stone. She loves me. She raised me!
” Tick, tick, tick. Kara screamed. Memories plucked at her nerves—memories, or suggestions?
They clawed at her, taunting her with pieces of stories.
Kara pushed them away, unable to decipher if they were real or implanted by Roland’s suggestions.
She was going mad. Kara wiped her tear-streaked face with her hands.
Roland was on his feet, pacing, the blood on his clothes a dark menacing reminder of what he’d done. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and bent over. “Don’t you ever say that. That’s them talking, not you.”
Kara held onto the pole and heard her agonizing cry fill the room.
“I’m not her! My mother loves me!” Tick, tick, tick.
“Shut that damned clock up! I can’t take it anymore.
My head is going to explode.” Kara kicked the clock across the room.
It slammed against the wall. Pieces of metal scattered across the floor.
She faltered backward, her head reeling, her body off balance.
“No!” Roland fell to his knees, picking up the pieces. He looked at the shards of metal in his palm. “Now you’ve done it,” he said through gritted teeth, and threw the pieces at her.
Kara backed into the corner. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”
His icy stare bore into her. He rose to his feet, standing within a few inches of her trembling body.
She cowered.
“That damned clock marked how much time we had left.”
“Left?” she whispered.
“Until we die.”