Authors: Stacey Kade
But I don’t.
Chase crouches next to me.
You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. Just keep at it.
I listen, waiting for Jakes’s bellow of rage and the pounding footsteps toward my door. I’m ready to retreat and huddle into a protective position at an instant’s notice.
But there’s nothing. Just the off-tune humming from the repair guy and metal clinks and clanks as he opens up the furnace.
That’s when I realize there might be something worse than not trying to be rescued: trying and failing.
I risk moving my fingers, scratching what’s left of my dirty and bloodied nails against the paneling on the other side of the wall.
The quiet humming and metal clinking continue for a second; then there’s the sound of shifting fabric and a sharp inhale of breath. “What the—”
My lungs lock up, and I can’t draw in any air. He
saw
me. Dizziness spirals over me, and white spots dance in my vision. If he calls to Jakes, I’m dead. He might be too.
But another beat of silence passes.
I take the risk of scratching harder, trying to communicate without words.
Help me.
There’s a louder clank then, and a small grunt of effort. Through the gap, I can see the repairman’s shadow shifting, moving. He’s standing up.
I snatch my hand back, clutching it to my chest, and my left shoulder throbs.
“I need a part from my truck,” he says in a louder voice. To me? To Jakes? “I’ll be right back.”
No, no, no! Don’t leave,
I beg him silently.
You saw me! I’m here!
He’s going to come back. He’s not going to leave you here,
Chase promises.
He saw you.
But Chase’s absolute certainty enrages me. I tear my gaze away from the gap beneath the door/wall to glare at him.
How do you know? You’re not out there. You’re not even real!
I regret the words as soon as I think them because, in that instant, my hard-won illusion pops like a bubble, and Chase is gone.
I’m alone again, with nothing but the tattered and torn poster of Chase Henry, the same one my sister Liza had in her room, hanging on the opposite wall. He’s giving his best brooding smirk to one and all from the page, a single white feather drifting through the background behind him as a nod to the angelic character he plays. But it’s flat, two-dimensional. He’s not here.
As soon as the repairman’s footsteps retreat up the stairs, Jakes comes to my door.
“Are you awake in there, Mandy?” he asks softly in that quiet slippery tone that makes my stomach turn. “He left so quickly. Did you say something? I hope not. If he finds you, our special time will be over, and I don’t want that. Do you?”
His nails scrape against the false wall outside like it’s my skin, and trembling, I retch quietly, the bile bitter in my mouth.
It feels like forever, years, decades, centuries, but it’s probably only about ten minutes before the doorbell rings, and Jakes curses under his breath and limps toward the stairs to let the repairman in again.
I curl into myself, shaking with quiet sobs. I don’t have the strength to try again. And Chase isn’t here to push me.
I’m done. It’s over.
Except it’s really not—the repair guy will eventually leave and Jakes will come back—and I want to die at the thought.
Above my head, a commotion suddenly breaks out: shouting, and running feet that pound the floor so hard that my ceiling shakes, raining bits of dirt on me.
The noise jerks me out of my misery and into panic. Anything unexpected is probably bad. My time here has taught me that too well. Instinct has me scrambling away from the door to huddle in the corner, near where my chain is attached.
I cover my ears with my hands as the chaos above continues, climaxing with a loud bang that I realize must be a gunshot.
Jakes killed the repairman.
I feel a flash of grief, but it’s surmounted almost immediately by sheer panic. I’m next, no question.
I don’t know how much time passes. It feels like seconds and hours, both. My first clue that someone is in the basement again is the jingle of the tools hanging on the false wall and the loud scrape of the door as it opens.
A scream is trapped in my throat, as always, and I’m pressing myself against the wall before I realize that it’s not Jakes at the threshold.
Blond hair scraped back into a ponytail, a short snub nose, deep grooves inscribed between her brows, her mouth drawn into a tight line. It takes a moment for her features to arrange themselves into a face, one I don’t recognize. I haven’t seen anyone else in so long.
She’s wearing a dark blue uniform with a heavy black vest. P
OLICE
is printed in big white block letters across the front of the vest. The letters dance in front of my eyes, refusing to stay put.
“My name is Officer Beckstrom. We’re here to help you,” the woman says slowly. “Can you tell me your name?”
I shake my head violently. Jakes will be furious if I talk to her. A dim part of my brain registers that something unusual must have happened upstairs, if she’s here and he’s not. But I don’t trust it.
Her brows draw together, pity written across her features, and for the first time in months, I wonder what I must look like. “He’s dead,” she says gently. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
I just stare at her. Those words … that’s impossible.
“The HVAC guy called 9-1-1 when he saw you,” she says, when she sees my doubt. “Jakes ran when he saw us. He was going for a loaded shotgun in the back bedroom.”
To kill me. He threatened it often enough. I shudder. Or maybe he thought he could hold them off.
I don’t know which is right, and somehow that makes it harder to believe what she’s saying. But clearly something has happened.
“He has the key,” I manage to say eventually, my voice rusty with disuse. I lift my arm, showing her the chain and the padlock holding the metal band around my wrist. Thanks to my efforts to signal the repairman, fresh blood coats the dull surface, where the edges cut into my skin.
Her mouth tightens at the sight, but she nods and speaks into a radio attached to the shoulder of her vest.
Then she takes a few steps into the room, her gaze searching the corners before she turns her back on them and faces me.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” she says, approaching me with her hands out, like I’m an animal that might bolt.
She sounds so much like Chase that I look to his poster. But he’s still just paper. And I miss him.
“Can you tell me your name?” she asks again when she’s closer. She moves to kneel in front of me, and instinctively, I scoot away.
But this time, I answer her. “Amanda Grace.”
Her eyes widen slightly. “Amanda Grace,” she repeats slowly and with reverence, as if I’ve said something holy or wise. “We’ve been looking for you for a long time. We didn’t think you were—” She cuts herself off with a grimace.
But I know what she was about to say—they didn’t think I was still alive. I’m not upset. It’s a reasonable assumption, and one that would have been proven correct, eventually. Even now, I’m not 100 percent sure that they were wrong. I don’t feel alive. I don’t feel … anything. Maybe I am dead, and this whole thing is just a hallucination, my afterlife.
My mouth wobbles on the verge of a hysterical laugh. My version of heaven is simply being rescued from this hellhole. It does make a certain kind of sense.
Another officer appears at the door to my room, which has now been open longer than any time since I’ve been here. He is younger than Officer Beckstrom. His gaze skates over me, the bruises on my face and the horrible stained and see-through nightgown, before skittering away, two bright spots of color rising on his already flushed face.
Steadfastly avoiding looking at me, he moves into the room just far enough to hand Officer Beckstrom a small, familiar brass key. Then he retreats, but not before I notice that his blue latex gloves are stained red on the fingertips.
Jakes’s blood.
Jakes is really dead. That’s the only way he would have given up that key. The only way he would have given me up. The revelation snaps through me like lightning, and suddenly, I’m crying without any memory of the tears starting.
Officer Beckstrom murmurs soothing words as she removes the padlock quickly and efficiently and then the band around my wrist.
The chain drops to the floor with a definitive slap, and it is the single best sound I’ve ever heard.
In a matter of moments, Officer Beckstrom has a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and she’s leading me to the door. Away from the room. Out of hell.
At the threshold, I glance back just once, looking to the poster on the wall, my only company, my only reminder of home for so long, and I send Chase one last message.
You were right. Today was the day. Thank you.
But he remains silent and still, just ink and hope pressed into paper.
Amanda Grace
Present day
The closet in my bedroom at home is exactly sixty inches long and twenty-four inches wide. The floor is hardwood. Pine, I think.
It’s not quite long enough for me to stretch out completely, about three inches short, but that’s close enough. If I curl up on my side, I’ll have plenty of room.
“Come on, Amanda,” Mia shouts from downstairs, her voice carrying through my partially open bedroom door. “Let’s go!”
“I’ll be right there.” I will my feet to move, to take me out the door and down the stairs, but I am, for the moment, frozen.
I have good days and bad days. And today is definitely one of the latter. Sample Sundays always are.
The third Sunday of every month, Logan’s Grocery offers free bits of cheese, sausage, and burrito on toothpicks, and you’d think they were giving away hundred-dollar bills dipped in gold. The store is always swamped with people filling their carts and their mouths. I do all right during the week, when it’s mostly the same faces over and over again, but Sample Sundays are the living embodiment of chaos. And it shreds the last nerve I have. Strangers everywhere, loud noises, unpredictable movements. That’s pretty much the trifecta of crap that kicks my anxiety into high gear.
But staying home isn’t an option, either. Or, at least, not one I’ll allow myself to consider.
“Amma, stop staring at your closet!” Mia bellows. “It’s fucking weird.”
I grit my teeth. Sometimes having sisters, particularly ones who know you too well, really sucks.
“Mia,” my mom snaps sharply. Then her voice drops to a murmur, and I can’t hear her words but I recognize the pleading tone. I know exactly what she’s saying. The same thing she’s been saying for the last two years.
Give her more time. This is a coping mechanism …
Don’t push … she’s been through so much. There are bound to be issues.
We just need to try to understand …
“I don’t care,” Mia says defiantly at full volume. My younger sister has never lacked in confidence or lung power. She wants to be a singer or an actress or both. She’s been a drama queen since birth; now she’s just looking to go pro. “She’s the one who freaks out if I go without her. It’s her choice.”
I close my eyes. That is—or was—true, unfortunately. One of the side effects of surviving the worst possible thing to happen to you is that you’re left with this new awareness of the world. There’s no control, no true safety; it’s all random chance. Anything can happen at any time, to you, to the people you love. The world is full of sharp edges, just waiting to hurt you, one way or another.
The first day Mia went to work at Logan’s, six months ago, no one told me. I had a panic attack when she didn’t come home, and nothing my parents said could calm me down. It was a terrifying, helpless feeling, all this anxiety washing over me and not being able to stop it. I could understand what they were saying, that Mia was fine, that she would be home soon, but I couldn’t stop the alarm shrieking in the back of my mind or the tiny voice that whispered they once thought I’d be home soon, too.
It’s a little better now, especially since I started working at Logan’s, too, and our schedules mostly overlap. Mr. Logan, the owner, has known my parents forever and hired me without hesitation. It’s the epitome of pity employment, if there is such a thing. Still, being there, however difficult, feels more like a triumph than staying home, worrying and wondering.
“It’s been two years,” Mia complains. “How long do we have to live our lives around—”
“Mia! Can you shut up? I’m trying to study, and you’re upsetting Mom.” That’s Liza, emerging from the den, no doubt with a scowl, and escalating this fight to twelve on a scale of one to ten. Mia and Liza have never gotten along; they are polar opposites. And with me in the middle but preoccupied and unable to keep the peace, it’s only gotten worse.
“Butt out, Liza; no one asked you!” Mia shouts. “Amanda, if you’re not down in ten seconds, I’m leaving without you.”
“Mia, no, you can’t,” my mother pleads. “She worries about you.”
Dr. Knaussen, my current shrink, thinks I lack “closure.” I never saw Jakes taken into custody or even his sheet-wrapped remains. So my brain is still trying to protect me by keeping me afraid for myself and Mia, in particular. She’s the same age I was when I was taken. The logic is not hard to follow, even if it’s frustrating to live with.
That, however, does not explain why this lack of closure has presented itself as an obsession with my freaking closet. Then again, this is the same brain that produced Chase Henry as a “coping mechanism.” I didn’t even
like
his show when it was on, not after the first season, anyway.
“Mom, Amanda isn’t your only kid!” Mia protests.
“I know it’s difficult, but you might try not being a selfish brat for a day, Mia,” Liza says.
“How is this my fault?” Mia demands in an outraged shriek. “I didn’t even do anything! I’m just trying to go to work.”
“Girls, stop, please! Your dad—”
“Isn’t here. Is
never
here,” Mia says. “Nobody will say it, but it’s true. And it’s because of her.”