Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
JUDY
Present Day
I startle awake in the dark, gasping; my heart is slamming hard against my ribs. My body feels wrong, like everything is not working in unison, my limbs heavy and disconnected, as if they belong to some other person.
I lick my parched lips. I would kill for a glass of water.
My hand goes to my head as pain radiates behind my eyes and spreads through my skull.
How much time has even passed since I’ve been out? Minutes, an hour? With no light coming in, there’s no way of knowing.
I’m just getting back my bearings when I detect a movement in the room. I’m not alone.
I thought it was a dream, but it can’t be. I found Sadie. She’s here with me. She’s alive.
I say her name, but she does not seem to hear me because my voice is just a croak. But I hear her crying softly and pounding against the door.
“Please open the door,” she begs. “My mom, she’s not waking up.”
The pain in her voice snaps me back to the present, brings me back into my body. I try to speak again, but still my voice is a rasp and my throat feels like sandpaper.
But in spite of that, this time she hears me, or perhaps it’s my movements that catch her attention since I’m forcing my body upright, despite the protest of every muscle.
She immediately rushes back to the bed, climbs onto it and into my arms, half laughing and half sobbing.
“Mom. I thought… I didn’t know, I thought you died.” She holds onto me like she never wants to let go.
“I’m here, my love,” I whisper. “Not going anywhere.”
I’m not dead, and neither is my daughter. Whatever drug they put in my coffee is fading, my mind clearing despite the dryness in my throat. I need to recover my strength before Megan returns.
If I can just get my limbs to cooperate more, I might have a chance to overpower her when that door opens again, to grab Sadie and run. But what if she never comes back? What if this black room becomes our tomb, and she’s left us here to starve and die?
I pull my daughter close, holding her as tight as I can without hurting her, anchoring myself to this moment, to her warmth. Reminding myself that this is not a dream.
I’m guessing it’s at least another hour before we hear the click in the lock. We pull apart and both sit.
Bright light floods in as Megan steps in the doorway, and I have to blink several times to make her out. And for the first time I also get to see my daughter properly. My blood curdles when I see what she’s wearing, a faded blue and white striped dress.
The dress I came to the camp wearing three decades ago. She also has the same hairstyle I wore back then, two braids.
Feeling uneasy, I turn back to Megan. Something has changed about her. Her posture is still as rigid as usual, controlled and calm, but it’s not perfect. And her suit looks a little rumpled. She’s definitely not her usual put-together self.
She looks at us both, and then her eyes pin on me as she takes another step inside before reaching behind her for a flashlight that she proceeds to shine on our faces. Both Sadie and I shield our eyes with our hands.
“Judy, I have some news. I’m afraid it’s not good.” Megan leaves the light trained on my face and I force myself to look through it with squinted eyes. “I’m so sorry but your friend, the one who brought Sadie here six months ago—”
“Scarlett?” I whisper.
“Yes, Scarlett Grant.” She flashes the light at Sadie then she brings it back to me.
“Well, she was caught trespassing. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for her.”
“What do you mean?” I sit up straighter, pinning her with my gaze, ignoring the torture of the flashlight. “What… what happened to her?” Every nerve ending in my body is vibrating like an electric wire. “What did you do?”
“I did what had to be done. I’m sorry, Judy. That was the only way. We take security in this place very seriously. The parents who send their children here, they rely on us to keep them safe.”
“You didn’t… you didn’t hurt her?” No, she wouldn’t. This is Megan, the sweet girl I was friends with, who giggled with me late into the night, the girl who once braided my hair, who knew all my secrets.
People change, Scarlett had said to me that day she announced she was going to the gym. The truth of it hits me like a physical blow.
“Your friend is dead.” She takes a step back, probably afraid I will lunge for her, and I would if my body didn’t suddenly go limp.
I slump against the wall. Its coldness seeps through my clothes as dizziness takes over and my insides churn violently. “You killed her?” I whisper. “You killed Scarlett?”
“It had to be done. I knew she was on her way here, my trusted eyes and ears on the outside notified me just like I was told about your plans to come here as well.”
Tears slide down my cheeks and neck. The thought that Scarlett could be dead is hard to grasp.
Beside me, Sadie is grieving in her own way as well, rocking back and forth, whispering “Aunty Scarlett” over and over like a broken record.
Before I can fully digest the news, a figure appears, coming to stand next to Megan.
Alice.
“Judy,” Megan says. “I believe you’ve already met my daughter?”