by Sabre Rose
“Liar.” Roxy pokes her tongue out at my mother. “I’ve only just arrived. I was in the city visiting the Fam. I missed you!” Roxy hugs me again and I laugh. It’s a genuine laugh too. With Roxy, there’s no exaggerated gentleness, no allowance for what I might have been through. She treats me exactly as she would have before and it does me good.
“I’ve missed you too.” I squeeze her back. She feels so small in my arms, reminding me of Star. I wonder what’s happened to her, if she’s still trapped below the stable or if they’ve moved her with the fear of getting caught.
“Why don’t you two go talk in the other room while I make some breakfast. Dad’s down at the bakery, but I’ll whip something delicious up.”
Roxy hooks her arm through mine and drags me through the doorway and into the lounge. “I suppose you’ll be hungry. Did they, you know,” she narrows her eyes, looking over my body, “feed you and stuff? My god, Mia, this is so strange. I don’t really know what to say. Are you okay? Did they, um, did they—”
We flop down onto the couch.
“Let’s just not talk about it, okay? Let’s talk about something else. Anything else. I just need to feel normal again.”
She flashes a smile. “Gotcha. Right. Mindless chatter. I’m usually good at mindless chatter so, um, let’s think.” She starts to prattle on and I relax back into the couch, feeling more like myself than I have in weeks. She’s always been the chatter to my silence. Her voice is soothing, giving me a little hope that life could return to the way it was before. But as she talks, something catches my eye out the window. There’s a car parked across the street. It’s a fancy car, one of the sleek modern ones with tinted windows and shiny rims. But through the tint of the window, I can make out the silhouette of a figure watching the house. I sit up, straining for a better look while not exposing myself to the window.
“Mia? Mia?” Roxy’s touch on my leg makes me jump. “Mia are you okay? What are you staring at?”
“Nothing.” I dismiss my fears. There’s a policeman stationed outside. Surely if there was anything to worry about, they would have it sorted.
“Are you sure? You look as pale as a ghost.”
I laugh. But this time it’s strained and Roxy just frowns, knowing I’m lying.
“I’m just a little on edge,” I say to her.
“Well, duh. You’ve kind of just got home from being kidnapped.” She laughs, but then her face falls and she reaches out to rest her hand on my knee. The moment makes me freeze and the hot and heavy feeling I had in the back of the police car strikes me again, cutting off my air. I get to my feet and start pacing around the room, trying not to look at the car still parked over the road and failing.
Roxy stands and walks over to the window. “Oh,” she exclaims when she sees what I’m staring at. “I didn’t think. I should have said something. It’s my car. Dad bought me a new one because he went all safety conscious and stuff because,” she flashes a smile, “well, just because.”
I know I should feel relief, but I don’t. “Who is the person inside?” I almost whisper the words, a panicked feeling creeping up inside me.
She places a hand on my arm. “It’s just Remy. He really wanted to come and see you. He’s been so worried, but I told him he wasn’t allowed to come inside until I made sure that you were,” she screws up her nose, “you were okay and shit.”
I laugh at her bluntness, relief washing over me when I realize I had let my paranoia get the better of me. “He can come in.”
“Are you sure? He’s fine waiting in the car. He knows that—” She shrugs, choosing not to finish her sentence.
After assuring her that I’m fine with her brother coming inside, Roxy goes out to him. Remy embraces me awkwardly, holding me just a little longer than necessary. Even though they are twins, they aren’t identical, so it surprises me each time I see them together of how similar they look. Not because of their natural physical features, but because they have the same spiked hair and the same strange sense of style.
Mum calls out, letting me know that breakfast is ready and we all pile into the kitchen after she swears she made enough for all of us. Remy sits in the chair next to mine and he’s so close, I can feel the heat of his body. It takes all my willpower not to shift my chair away and place distance between us. I know I have nothing to fear from him but there is always a question prickling in the back of my mind.
What if?
But I push it aside. Last night, I gave the police what details I could of the man from the bar and the one from the coffee shop. I even told them about the man at the pool, though I seriously doubted if he could be my requestor. There was too much of a simplicity to him.
For a moment, as I look around the table at the familiar faces before me, I feel at peace. Probably the most peace I’ve felt since escaping. It gives me the smallest of hopes that maybe, just maybe, one day I will be able to sit here with my time in captivity being nothing more than a horrid part of my past.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MIA
“Let’s start with the one you said was called Ryker.” The sketch artist sits before me, partially hidden by the screen of a computer, a sketchpad resting on her lap. “Is there anything in particular that stood out about him? Just tell me the first thing that pops into your mind.”
His eyes.
“I’m not sure,” I stutter.
After Roxy and Remy left, Mum drove me back down to the police station to complete my interview. Once the detective had finished talking to me, he led me into the room with the sketch artist, hoping my memory would dish up the physical attributes of the men who had kept me captive. Part of me wanted to tell him that he was concentrating on the wrong people, that it was my requestor and not Ryker that they needed to be looking for, but I know that any information about Ryker and Marcel could lead them to my requestor. Even still, it feels like an act of betrayal to describe him to the woman before me.
“Let’s start with the eyes,” she says, as though she had read my mind. “What color were they?”
I close my eyes as though struggling to remember when in reality they are still vivid in my mind. The way they turned down at the corners giving him the faintest hint of melancholy. The way they were hooded and heavy and scorched with lust when they looked at me.
“Blue. I think they were blue.”
They were blue and green and gray. They were the color of the ocean during a storm.
“And what about the shape? Were they rounded? Almond shaped? Were there wrinkles in the corners? Could you see the whites above his irises or did his eyelids hang heavy?”
I start shaking my head before she finishes talking. “I’m not sure.”
“It’s okay,” she assures me, pulling some pieces of paper off the desk and handing them to me. “Have a look over these. See if anything looks familiar, reminds you of him.”
I stare at the hand-sketched eyes in varying shapes. None of them look like Ryker’s. None of them portray the torment and the conflict that dance within them, but I point to ones marked almond shaped and hand back the paper with a shrug. She scratches on the paper, drawing goodness knows what as I have hardly given her any details.
“What about his nose?” she asks next.
Again, I shrug. “It was just a nose,” I whisper and wonder if she knows that I’m lying.
Using both hers and mine as a frame of reference, she asks how wide it was, how straight, how elongated, if the end turned upwards or downwards.
I’m silent the whole time she sketches, my eyes skipping around the near-empty room and trying not to look at what she is drawing in case, if by some miracle, it really does resemble Ryker.
She flicks her gaze back over to me. “His lips?”
Full and soft and pink with the bottom lip drooping slightly.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” My voice breaks a little when she narrows her eyes. “He had a beard.”
Sighing softly, the woman opens one of the desk
drawers and pulls out a folder. “Have a flick through here and see if anyone seems familiar.” She gets to her feet. “I’ll be back soon.” And then she’s gone, leaving me alone in the room. A room which is small and has a single window that lets in a patch of light that falls over the desk.
Drawing in a shaky breath, I start to flick through the pages of mug shots, scared I’ll find Ryker looking back at me. But I don’t. None of the faces are familiar, all of them are too rough, too thuggish to be the man I fell for. But just as I hear the clipped steps of the sketch artist coming back along the hallway, one face leaps out at me. He’s younger, years and years younger, but I’m certain it’s him. He looks so innocent and almost sweet. The sketch artist walks past me and takes her seat on the other side of the desk.
“Here,” I say, handing the folder back. “That man is Marcel.”
She snatches the folder, pulling it close. “Are you sure?”
The urge to roll my eyes is real. It seems no matter what I say, someone has to repeat it as though I’m uncertain of my own mind. But then I remember all of the vague answers, the hesitant details and think that maybe I’d do the same in their situation.
The look on the woman’s face shows a little surprise and I wonder if there’s the possibility the police don’t believe me. They’ve checked every stable, and every empty building within a 50km radius and assured me that there were no hidden cells beneath them. In fact, this photo of Marcel is the first solid piece of evidence I’ve given them.
“Do you want to stop in for a coffee?” Mum glances over at me as her hands rest on the steering wheel.
We’ve just been down at the police station. Again. The photo of Marcel proved unfruitful, his family claiming to have not seen him in years, and all the tests came back from the lab as inconclusive. Although the police are still trying, there’s a wariness in the detective’s tone that wasn’t there before. Wariness and skepticism.
They’ve talked to the man at the pool, they’ve talked to the man who tried to buy me coffee, but both of them have alibis. It’s only the mystery man from the bar that they haven’t been able to find, and I think they are beginning to doubt he even exists.
Mum taps my knee. “Coffee?”
She slows down as we pass the café, waiting for my answer. I look at all the people inside, some lining up to place their orders and others already sitting at the table, sipping on the bitter liquid and shake my head. Even though I’ve been home for days, I’m just not ready yet. I keep jumping when people talk too loudly or coming out in a sweat if they sit too closely.
“You sure?”
I let out a frustrated sigh of air and Mum looks over at me apologetically. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just think it would do you some good, you know. Get out and about a little. Discover that the world isn’t all bad.”
I blink away tears and stare out the window at the passing shops and stores. Our town is a little town. One that I used to feel safe in. But now, with every new face, I wonder if it’s him. With every lurking shadow, my heart starts pounding faster. My ears strain to hear strange voices, trying to place them as the man who called me his songbird. But if he’s still out there, he’s just waiting.
To anyone looking on from the outside, there is nothing wrong with me. My scars are invisible. My bruises are faded and hidden. It’s hard for them to know the torment that’s in constant battle in my mind. The fear that he will try to take me again. The slight desire that he would so I would know if Ryker’s okay.
The police assured me that the likelihood of my requestor trying to take me now is slim. The officers stationed outside our house have gone, although they still drive past regularly, just to pacify my mum.
Life should be returning to normal.
But it’s not.
Ryker is constantly on my mind. I dream of him. Think of him. I replay every conversation, every interaction in my head, but instead of the terror I felt during some of those moments, it has been replaced with longing.
Yesterday was the first day Mum went back to work. And I got my period. Even though relief flooded me that I wasn’t pregnant, there was also a sadness I didn’t quite understand. It was like the final connection to Ryker was severed. As soon as my mother left the house, I phoned every hospital I could think of asking if anyone had been brought in with a stab wound to the shoulder. Of course, it was pointless. I was only met with clipped replies that they couldn’t give out that sort of information and annoyance that I had wasted their time by asking in the first place.
That night, I lay in bed and told myself I never loved him. The only reason I felt any attraction toward him at all was because of the situation. He showed a little kindness when I needed it. But in reality, I had only known him within the confines of the walls of a cell. Who he was outside those walls was unknown to me. Everything he told me could have been a lie. Was probably a lie.
But then I think of him sinking to his knees, and the way he looked at me and I ache for him. He invades my mind by day and my dreams by night. I constantly remind myself of who he is, what he did, but my heart won’t be told. It longs for him. Aches for his touch with painful precision.
But I will keep telling myself I don’t love him until it’s no longer a lie.
As if my brain enjoys toying with me, I catch a glimpse of a man out the window. He’s walking down the street, and I can only see him from behind, but there’s something about the way he’s walking, something controlled in his stance that reminds me of Ryker.
Immediately, my heart leaps into my throat. “Stop the car.”
Mum looks at me quizzically.
“Stop the car!” I say more urgently.
She slows down and pulls to the side of the road. I open the door before the car comes to a complete stop and climb out, starting to run down the road after the man who looks so much like Ryker.
With each step, I tell myself it’s not him. But with each step my heart pounds even more, convincing my body that what my brain is telling it is a lie.
The man has on a cap, his head bent down toward the ground. His shoulders are hunched slightly, something I’ve never seen in Ryker before but maybe his injury has affected the way he moves. It would make sense.
When I get close to him, I freeze, unsure what to do. Part of me knows that if I see his face, my heart will sink because it won’t be him. But still part of me hopes.
“Ryker?” I almost whisper his name.
The man keeps walking, but that’s when I notice the headphones covering his ears. Taking a deep breath, I reach out and tap him on the shoulder.
The man looks behind him with a curious glance, and just as I expected, my heart sinks.
It’s not him.
“Why hello there.” The man smiles brilliantly and tugs his headphones from his ears. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
The man’s eyes travel over me and he lifts a brow appreciatively. “I can be anyone you want, if you’ll let me.” He winks.
Before, with an encounter like this, I would roll my eyes and walk away, but now, bile rises in my throat. I turn away from the man, trying to hide my shaking hands, but as I do, he reaches out and grabs my backside, digging his fingers into the flesh and whistling low and long. Rage ignites, and I whirl around and slap him, leaving him reeling back in surprise.
“Bitch!” he hisses, holding a hand to his cheek. “I was just being friendly.”
“Friendly?” my mother says, marching up to the man, hands on her hips. She stands so close to him the man has to take a couple of steps back and almost stumbles.
My rage subsides as quickly as it rose, and I actually chuckle. Next to this man, my mum is small. Small but savage.
“What about grabbing my daughter’s bottom without permission is friendly?” There is fire in my mother’s eyes.
“You’re crazy, lady.” The man tries to back away, but there’s a parked car behind him and he just
ends up pressed against the side, wedged between it and my mother.
“Answer me!” my mother demands. “Tell me what is friendly about it?”
“I—I—” The man looks around as though he can’t quite comprehend what is happening. “It was just a bit of fun.”
“Fun?” My mother smiles coldly. “Well then, I shall have a little fun of my own.” Without hesitation, she reaches out and grabs the man’s crotch viciously. He howls and bends over in pain as my mother walks away, rubbing her hands together as though washing them of his filth.
I just stand, wide-eyed and stare at her.
“Come on. Let’s get you home.”
I follow her to the car wordlessly and climb into the passenger’s seat.
“Sorry about that.” Mum buckles herself in. “But I just saw red when he touched you like that. I should have had better control.”
“Better control?” I laugh. “That was awesome.”
“Awesome or not, I shouldn’t have let my anger get the better of me.” She shifts the stick into gear and pulls out onto the street. “What made you chase after him, anyway?”
I look out the window as we pass the man walking awkwardly down the road. “I thought he was someone I knew.”
“Who?” Mum doesn’t look at me, but I know she’s curious.
I stare at my hands on my lap.
“One of them? One of the men who took you?”
I nod, keeping my eyes down. Tears are threatening again, and I don’t want her to see them.
“But why would you chase after him? Why wouldn’t we just go to the police?”
I don’t want to tell her the truth. I don’t want to tell her it’s because every day I hope to see Ryker, that I miss him, that despite everything he helped do to me, I still want him.
“I didn’t know it was him for sure. Turns out I was right.”
She knows I’m not telling the truth, but she doesn’t push me.
“How about we invite Roxy over for a movie night? Watch something light-hearted and funny like we used to. Would you like that? Get things back to normal?”