I can only hold on for so long before I give out.
This is the moment I give out.
I lunge into the dressing room.
A woman standing at the mirror whips her head around and gives me a concerned look. “Are you okay?”
I nod as I stumble down the row of rooms. “Yeah,” I get out before pushing through the empty room at the end.
After I get the door locked, I slide to the floor. It’s carpeted and clean, but when I curl my body onto it, a smell assaults me. Bleach. It’s pungent and vile and too much. The end of the rope slides through my hands, and the weight I’m holding falls. I fall with it.
Ten Years Ago
“SARA? ARE YOU feeling better yet?”
The voice cuts through my consciousness, rousing me. How long was I out this time? With the black I’m shrouded in, it’s impossible to know.
How long have I been here? Where is here?
“Sara?” The familiar trio of knocks sounds outside the door. It’s a thick door from the sounds of it. The knock doesn’t echo; it thuds like it’s being absorbed into the wood.
I’m on my side like always because I can’t sleep on my back anymore. I don’t feel safe enough to sleep so exposed—it’s better to stay curled up, huddled up. I let my legs stretch a little, my arms out in front. Everything aches—like I’m one giant pulsing bruise.
“Are you awake, Sara?” Another knock. Like his knock, his voice is strong. At least strong enough that when I hear it, I immediately feel weak.
“How long have I been in here?” My voice strains when I speak. It sounds like I’ve been stumbling through the desert for days without water.
There’s a case of bottled water shoved in here somewhere. There’s a box of energy bars too. I haven’t touched any of it though because I don’t want to live if this is going to be my life. A dark space that’s so small I can’t lie down sideways in it. A bucket stuffed in the back corner for me to use as a toilet. A small hard mattress that smells so strongly of bleach I gag when I forget to breathe through my mouth.
If this is my life now, separated from my family and friends and him forever, I don’t want it. I’d rather die now than live this for whatever is left of my life.
I know the numbers. Comes with being a cop’s kid. They aren’t good in my case. The first twenty-four hours after an abduction are critical, and if the person isn’t found in forty-eight, the family had better just accept they’ll be planning a funeral where a body may or may not be present.
I don’t know how long I’ve been gone exactly, but long enough my nails have grown enough to notice. Long enough I’ve dug at the four walls keeping me caged, searching for some weak spot, for something to give me hope that I might be able to escape. There’s nothing. This place feels like it was built for a wild animal instead of a seventeen-year-old girl.
There is no weak spot. I’m never going home.
“How long have I been in here?” I cry out again, but it’s so weak sounding I don’t think my words make it past the heavy door. It’s not cold in here, but I still shiver. I refuse to use the blankets and pillow. They’re still folded at the foot of the bed.
“Seven days.” It sounds like he’s right outside, pressed up against the door.
A week. I’d guessed half that. I’m never going to see any of them again. Ever.
“What do you want?” I start to cry. I’ve cried a lot. With the lack of water, I don’t know how I haven’t already dehydrated myself into an early death.
“I just want you to feel better, Sara. With your mom taking you away from me like she did . . .” There’s another pound on the door. Or maybe it’s the wall. “It had to be upsetting for you, but you’re home now. You’re safe. We can be together again.”
The mattress is wet below my face from the tears. They don’t dull the bleach smell though. Actually, they make it stronger. “Then let me out of here. I can’t get better if you keep me locked in here.”
“Not yet, Sara. You’re not ready.”
I don’t know his name, which makes him that much scarier. Referring to the man who kidnapped me as Him is worse than calling him Bob or Bill.
“But I promise the minute you are, I’ll let you out, and we can get back to being happy again. We can get back to the way life used to be.”
I blink like I’m trying to adjust my eyes to the dark, but it’s no use. This is the kind of dark so void of light no amount of time or adjusting will make it possible to see. I’m blind in here.
“Sara?” he calls after I’m quiet for a minute.
I can’t reply because I’m crying harder now.
Other than the van, the map, the needle, and him, I don’t remember anything until waking up on this mattress. It had taken a minute for my head to clear from whatever he’d injected me with, then the panic cleared the rest. The first thing I did was make sure I was clothed and that nothing felt . . . violated.
That was the first time I cried—when I realized I hadn’t been hurt in that way. The next thing I did was scream. I screamed so much after waking up I went hoarse. I didn’t stop screaming then either. When no one came, I inspected the room with my hands. After that, when still no one came, I curled back up onto the mattress and cried myself asleep.
“Let me go. Please.” I’ve pleaded those same words so many times I think they’re embedded in the walls. “Let me go home.”