by Ann, Bry
“Someone got in my room,” she murmurs. “He-he…”
Her entire body twitches. Instinctively, I grab her hand. She freezes.
“Breathe, stay with me, sweetheart. Stay with me.”
She hisses out a long breath between her teeth and nods, stiffening.
“He got in-in. He handed me a ph-phone.”
“What did he look like? Can you give me a description? Or possibly a name? Did you know him?”
“No, I-I didn’t. I can’t give you a description. I-I can’t talk about him. I…”
“Hey, shh. Look at me.”
She’s trembling all over, head to toe.
“Look at me,” I say softly. “It’s just us. We don’t have to talk about anyone else. What did this man look like?”
“Uh, I think he was, um, darker skin, but I couldn’t place his ethnicity.” She gives me a glance out of the side of her eyes. “I know a lot of ethnicities, so…”
“Yeah, I figured. Go on.” I smile softly.
“Black hair. His eyes were hard to make out in the night. I… Can I ask a question before we continue?”
“Sure, go for it.”
She tenses her body and closes her eyes, clearly fighting to stay present. I sit back to give her space.
“How’s-how’s Sa…” She shakes and lets out a cry of frustration. “I can’t!”
She slams her fist on the bed once, then twice, then over and over again. After she’s exhausted her fists, she rounds on me, eyes flashing with a rage so deep it’s dangerous.
“Why didn’t you let me die?! Why couldn’t you give me that? Why can’t you just understand my note?” she shouts.
“I won’t let you die, Essie Taylor,” I state with conviction. Leaning in, I gently place my hand on her mattress. Her throat bobs with a swallow.
“Even if you want to. You know why?”
She scowls.
“Because one day, you’ll be happy. One day, you’ll be free and this will be nothing but a terrible memory. A memory that the sounds of the people you love laughing in your living room over pizza will dim. I'm fighting for that woman… and I don’t lose.”
“She doesn’t exist.”
“Not yet.”
“She died, Landon Parker.”
“What was on the phone?” I whisper.
All the blood drains from her face.
“Essie…”
“Vi-video. I…” An odd little smile appears on her face. Then, seemingly without a care, she cocks her head at nothing and starts ranting about how pelicans hurt when they peck at you.
She’s gone.
My hand reaches out and brushes one of many scars above her elbow.
“I won’t fail you, sweetheart.”
Pushing to my feet, I head for the door. It’s been a long day, but it’s not over yet. I have to talk to Dogwood about the new security measures we’re taking, since someone is on staff 24/7, and Essie will be back there first thing in the morning. I have to initiate the search for the cell phone Essie is referring to, see if there’s any chance they left it with her. I also have to reach out to Carson, because unfortunately, he knows more about my sister’s progress than I do at this point, it seems.
But first, I need caffeine.
Chapter Seventeen
Essie
Nine Days Ago
My head was full of birds. Beautiful blue birds with black and white wings. So gorgeous. Chirp, chirp, chirp…
They were talking. Just to me.
Then I was thrust out. Yanked out by a voice in my brain screaming danger, danger, danger.
I guess my brain can protect me from the dangers of my past, but the present, not so much. My head lifted off the bed, feeling heavy. “Who’s there? Landon?” I called out into the shadows of my empty room.
A dark shadow slinked across my room, closer to me. I made out the movement in the moonlight creeping through the window of my bedroom—my room at this facility they have me trapped in, rather.
“Tammy… or should I call you Essie?” a deep voice crooned to my left.
My heart stopped as my blood turned to ice. He called me Tammy. He called me Tammy. Voices echoed in the back of my mind, but the one time I wanted to, I didn’t leave.
“I asked you a question,” the voice hissed, coming out of the shadows.
I immediately took in his appearance.
Hair- Black.
Ethnicity- Unknown… nothing common.
Eyes- Unknown. It was too dark, but they seemed brown.
Height- 5’6-5’7.
Build- Average.
Possible relation to Marcus.
I didn’t know why I was logging all this. I didn’t know why it mattered.
Landon.
Shaking my head, I cowered, curling up in a ball as far back as I could get.
“Who are you? How did you get in?” I snapped, biting back my terror.
“Z always said you were pissy.” My body seized at the sound of his name. Oh God… a choked sound escaped my lips. “I was told to tell you this: did you ever stop to think about why Pamela was running away when she was caught?”
No… Pamela. I-I can’t. My brain started to short circuit. I could almost hear Z purring those words in my ear.
“Why?” I breathed.
The mysterious man thrusted something in my hand. It took me a minute to recognize it, having been away from technology for so long. A cell phone. It was a cell phone. When I just sat there, shaking, frozen, the man huffed, snatched the phone, clicked a few buttons, and thrusted it back in my hand.
“Just hit the green button.”
“No,” I choked. My body was shaking from head to toe.
Birds, birds, birds… take me away from here. Please, I cried out in my head.
Nothing. I was abandoned by my heroes.
“Do it or people will die.” He cocked his head to the side. “I was also told you have an aversion to murder.”
Who the hell doesn’t? That does not make me weak, asshole!
Scowling, I clicked the green button. What I saw on the screen had my stomach churning with a nausea so violent I had to close my eyes and breathe deeply to not puke over the side of the bed.
No. No. This can’t be.
“Look at it!” he roared, but quietly, so he didn’t raise attention to himself.
“Where’s my mom?”
The young girl with ice blue eyes and white-blonde hair sniffles, tears falling down her cheeks.
“M-mom?” she stammers, walking down a hall that makes my head spin. “Mom?”
She pushes open a rickety old door that I know by heart.
“No,” I whispered, feeling a tear fall down my cheek.
The door to our old room slams shut and an older man, with a face so similar to Z’s horrifically beautiful face, appears on screen.
“Hello. Essie, right? We miss you. Come home soon. Ellie’s relying on you.”
With a wink, the video goes black.
Tear stained, I looked over at the man in the shadows.
“What-what is this?”
He snatched the phone from my hands and slipped a piece of paper there instead. I glanced down at it.
Ellie Reynolds
April 20, 2013
Mother: Pamela Reynolds
Father: Rick Mercer
It’s a birth certificate.
No. How? How is this possible?
Pamela never said anything about a daughter. How was she not caught or killed from the get-go? How could she not tell me?
Pamela’s fighting spirit and her never giving up hope of escape make more sense if she had a daughter to get back to. She was always so fucking strong.
I miss her. I miss her so much. Every moment I'm awake, I see her. And Sage. I hope the kid’s okay.
“You have three weeks. Ellie has not been touched. Three weeks from today, that will change. See you soon, Tammy.”
With a shark-like grin and hungry eyes, he slinked out of the room
in that same slimy way he snuck in.
And, ‘cause my brain’s an asshole, a fog filtered over all my thoughts, taking me away to a world of darkness. Somehow, I knew I wouldn’t forget this.
* * *
Present
The last thing I remember is Landon being here, asking about the video. I told him as much as I could. Why would I do that? I could have gotten Pamela’s daughter, the one I instinctively know Pamela gave herself up to protect, hurt or worse.
It’s his eyes. His kind, crystal blue eyes that suck me in and draw me out in a moment of weakness.
No more. I won’t let him do that to me anymore. I won’t let him put Ellie at risk. This is my one chance to do something right in my godforsaken life and give back to the sister who did nothing but give to me.
Sliding my feet off the side of the bed, I test their weight. I'm weak, but with the use of a few walls, I should be fine. I will be fine. Damn it.
My heart feels hollow and my sanity feels fragile, but I won’t let anything stop me from doing this. Maybe if I save Ellie, Pamela’s little girl, I can somehow make my soul livable. But that’s selfish thinking.
This is my one chance. Security is switching shifts. During that time, the current staff meets the guards taking over in the lobby… and I'm alone. There are more guards outside the front door of the facility, but I won’t be anywhere near there. I also have to get past Edna and Robbie, the night staff tonight. That’s not bad, though. There will be security footage of me leaving, which Landon will no doubt pull, but I’ll be long gone by then.
If my mind can hold up.
Please hold up.
I use the shadows to creep out of my room and down the hallway. I first go to the end of the hall and glance over to see if Robbie and Edna are in the lobby. If they’re doing rounds, I'm fucked.
Thankfully, they’re both just chatting at the desk with the guards. Now’s my chance.
I run back down the hall to the back door. How is this facility so fancy and they have no alarm?
Idiots.
Doing one last check around, I push the back door open and sneak out into the darkness. My heart immediately starts pounding and my body starts to shake. Low blood sugar is my guess. Even though I'm fed regularly, stable blood sugar just doesn’t seem to stick.
I prop one hand against the wall and maneuver myself to the side of the building. Shit. I so want to curl up and just… stay here, but I have to move. I'm running out of time. Damn Landon. He’s the reason I'm so late. He kept coming! He hasn’t left my bedside for one day.
But now it’s time. More than time. I don’t know how I let myself get sucked in. He may be a “good guy”, but he still just wants things from me. It may not be sex, but it’s words. Answers. Stories. My story. Pamela’s story.
Never gonna happen.
Anyway. I pull myself to the side gate and plug in the code: 689. One time when Landon was here, a nurse came in to observe. She was in training. Well, she accidentally tilted her clipboard my way and I caught sight of all the codes and passwords. Since Landon was by my side, I was mentally stable enough to catch it. Though I don’t know how I remembered. My brain seems to pick and choose its insanity with no rhyme or reason or regard for my feelings.
Once the door is open, I climb through and run, being careful to make my footsteps quiet so the agents out front don’t hear me. I'm hidden by the bushes, but I'm not soundproof. I run as fast as my legs will go, which is not fast, but it means I can go hide. The staff is thorough. Landon taught me that. He taught me their names and their habits. He helped me escape, even if he didn’t know it. I never would have remembered enough to get free without him.
Thanks, Agent Parker.
My heart aches a little thinking of him, knowing how worried he’ll be. So I bury his memory. I bury his kind blue eyes and light, flirty words. I bury the companionship he offered me when I was all alone, even when I wasn’t aware. And I most certainly bury how he makes me feel like I can tell him things. Bad things. Secrets that I will never, ever share.
I glance down at my bandaged wrists, and that’s when my resolve crumbles. I fall in a heap behind the building I’m at, burrow myself into the concrete, and let the memory consume me.
“You have three weeks. Ellie has not been touched. Three weeks from today, that will change. See you soon, Tammy.”
The next thing I remember, I was gasping for air, huddled in the bathtub. I glance around the room once, feeling a chill run through my bones. I'm so cold. I’ve been so cold since Nix got me out. I push to stand on shaking limbs to get under my blankets. That’s when I see it. It’s by my bed, the sliver of light reflecting off a blade on my bedside table. Moving quicker, I hobble through the open bathroom doors and snatch the thing off the dresser.
Pamela has a daughter.
Pamela has a daughter.
That can’t be true.
Flickers of a pasture filled with animals come to life in my brain, but I hear Landon’s words in my head telling me to stay with him, and for the moment, it grounds me.
There’s a note.
I grab it and read: Oh, I forgot to mention, offing yourself is an option, though less preferred. You have two choices to save Ellie. Choose wisely, 214.
214. 214. 214. 214. 214. That number.
214 x 168= 35,962
214 958 = 0.22338204592
= 14.6287388383
No, Essie, stay here. I smack myself in the face and turn my gaze back to the knife. Then to the restroom. My head fills with images of filthy men. Of death: Jenny, Pamela… who knows what happened to the others. Of blood: my blood, their blood, little Sage’s blood. But what sends me over the edge, what has me dragging my body to the empty bathroom and sliding the knife across both of my wrists as deep as I can to be sure, is my role in all of it.
The world blackened. I made my choice.
… But I didn’t. I lived. I don’t know how. I don’t know how I survived that. I was on suicide watch for three days after that, per Landon’s orders.
I would have tried again, but they took my knife. They swept my room. I'm smart, but they have experience and that will win every time. Even thinking creatively, I could find no way to finish myself off.
So here I am.
Not to mention, after a few days, I realized they never said what would happen to Ellie once I'm gone. I'm no hero. I'm a sinner, a devil, garbage, the worst of the worst… but Pamela was an angel and Ellie is her daughter. I won’t let them steal her like they did her mother. Like they did Jenny, another angel.
I just won’t.
I push back up and keep walking. Every car that passes has my heart pounding harder, my brain spinning with nonsensical thoughts that I try to fight. I'm kinda failing. I'm only half-aware of my surroundings.
I'm walking the very edge of the street, away from people, in the darkest part of every night shadow, when a hand wraps around my forearm. No sound escapes my lips, but I'm stuck in a silent scream.
I look over and a man who looks so similar to the one who haunts my each and every dream, my each and every nightmare, comes into view. His evil is covered in a suit so no one would think to look at him, except for maybe appreciatively.
No words escape my lips as an evil grin takes over his face.
“Hello, Essie. Do I remind you of anyone?”
Chapter Eighteen
Landon
“How’s treatment coming?”
Evie’s gaunt, hollow cheeks have more color this week. Yeah, she’s still excessively thin, but her skin isn’t as grey as it was last week. Thank God…
“I hate it here,” she mutters.
“Yes, well, when you can take care of yourself, they’ll let you out.”
She scowls at me, but there’s not a whole lot of anger behind it.
“What’s going on with you? The dead last thing I want to talk about is me. How’s work? How’s life? Any clingy women whose hearts you broke recently?” Evie plants her elbows on the table with h
er head in her hands, all eager. “Spill.”
I chuckle. “Alright, you crazy. I’ll answer your pesky questions.”
She grins, and it warms my heart a little. I fucking love my sister.
“Work is…” I sigh and run a hand over my head. “It’s pretty heavy right now, sis, to be honest. My life is my work. And women, ha! I haven’t fucked one of those in far too long.”
“Shh,” she giggles. “If the staff hears you, you’ll get your hand slapped.”
“Oh shit, not my hand!” I gasp, placing a mocking hand over my heart.
Evie laughs harder, her blue eyes twinkling and all. My heart does a funny dance, thrilled I can make her laugh for even a minute. I wish I could do the same for Essie.
“Hey, Evie? I have a question for you,” I drawl.
“Your tone makes me nervous, but go ahead.”
She closes her eyes to listen close, like she always does.
“Okay. Think of your worst day in treatment.”
Her big blue eyes flash open with another angry scowl.
“Oh, sounds wonderful, bro.”
“I need your help,” I mutter, looking away.
Her entire body softens. “A case?” she murmurs.
I cock my head back and forth.
“A woman.”
Evie’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t push. She just closes her eyes softly and quickly squeezes my hand.
“Go ahead. I have a day in mind.”
“Okay,” I say softly. “Here’s my question. How could someone have made you smile on that day? Just smile, nothing more, nothing less.”
Her eyes snap open and a big, giant smile takes over her entire face.
“You’re in love, Landon, you manwhore!”
“I'm not in love, you little punk.”
She smirks.
“I'm serious, Evie. She’s been through hell and I want to make her happy. That’s all.”
“I know you don’t tell me a lot about work, but since when do you get personally invested?”
“Evie,” I growl.
She leans back, biting her lip to hide her smile.