My father said that almost no one was defiant after that, but there were two options for girls that were.
Either they'd give me cheap meth, shoot it into my veins and get me so strung out that I didn't care if I lived or died and all I wanted was to get high... or they'd lock me in a dark room for weeks, with nothing but a bucket to piss in and some food and water. Enough to keep me alive, but not enough to keep me from thinking I was going to starve to death.
They'd pull me out of the room occasionally, blindfolded, and take me to another gangrape, or a beating.
My father had said that he'd helped a buddy break women like that, but I thought he was just trying to scare me.
It worked, even when I didn't believe him.
Laying in that box, believing every word he'd ever told me, my teeth were chattering with terror.
Silence.
Then, out of nowhere – yelling. Gunshots.
Who was shooting? If the truck's bed was open, a bullet could hit the box. The metal was thick, but not bulletproof.
Was this how I was going to die?
More yelling, and screaming, too. I couldn't make out any noise above the other. The world had exploded into a roar of sound that was too much to bear.
It echoed around the box.
The noise mixed with my screaming through the tape over my mouth.
I started kicking the box, over and over. I didn't know if I was trying to drown out the rest of the noise or trying to be heard.
All I knew is that I didn't want to die.
I wanted to see Cory.
I felt like if I were in his arms, everything would be okay.
Even more than that, though, I wanted to see my sisters. I wanted to hug Krystal and let Karla sit in my lap while we read a story. I didn't want to be a cautionary tale as they grew up, I wanted to be their sister. I wanted to see them go to high school, get married, have kids.
I wanted to see them bloom into their best selves, away from my father.
I had to be strong for them.
I had to survive this.
If I just let myself die, all they'd have of me was a few pictures, and maybe a vague memory of us baking a cake. Like I had of my mother.
That wasn't enough.
I couldn't let myself die.
Deep breaths, deep breaths.
Finally, I got myself calmed down enough to realize that the noise had stopped being a wall of sound. I could hear individual people shouting again, even if I didn't know who they were shouting at.
There were no more gunshots.
I didn't know if that was good or bad.
Maybe there were two gangs fighting, and I'd end up with one no one could connect to my father. Even if, best case, Kandy got my texts, and wasn't too afraid or dismissive to call the cops, maybe I'd be taken to another state and no one could ever find me.
At least in my box, I was with my phone.
I didn't know if the battery was still holding out, but it was something.
Maybe.
Shit.
I heard the clank of the padlock.
The lid of the box opened.
Someone grabbed the tool tray.
I shut my eyes, not wanting to see who it was, not wanting to deal with the reality my life had become. I was afraid that, no matter what happened next, I was doomed.
“Tabitha?” a calm female voice asked.
I didn't say anything.
I was hunched in the box, tears streaming down my cheeks, curled up like a baby.
Lots of gangs had women in them, especially if they pimped girls out. It didn't mean anything that a woman was talking to me instead of Flores.
I couldn't let myself hope.
“Tabitha Lowe?” the woman asked. “You're okay. I'm gonna get you out of here, okay? I'm Deputy Murphy. Raelyn. Can you look at me real quick, please?”
It could still be a trap, some sort of twisted mind games, but I took a shaking breath and opened my eyes.
I winced in the midday sunlight.
After hours in the box, only tiny shafts of light coming through at the cracks, it was too much.
My eyes were streaming with tears and pain, but as I looked up, I saw a woman's face above me. Her brown hair in a no-nonsense cut framed a petite, heart-shaped face. She wore basically no makeup, and I saw a brown uniform and a starched collar as my eyes cleared.
“Would you like to see my badge?” she asked.
I nodded.
She held a big, shiny sheriff's badge where I could squint at it.
It looked real, not like some plastic toy.
“Okay, Tabitha, you're okay,” she repeated in that soothing voice. “You look really uncomfortable, all taped up, and we wanna get you out of there, but we don't want to touch you until you say it's okay. Okay?”
I nodded.
“We can either lift you out of the box first or take the tape off, first. Nod once for getting out of the box and twice for tape.”
I jerked my head twice.
“Okay, I'll get on that.”
She called over her shoulder at someone to pass her the baby oil. She never stopped looking at me, but I saw her shoulder move when someone put it in her hand.
While she waited for it, she explained.
“I'm afraid that if we just pull the tape off, it will really hurt you. It's been on for a long time. I don't want to hurt your lips, okay?”
I nodded, emphatically. The movement strained the muscles of my back and made me realize how tight and miserable my body felt.
It was going to really, really hurt when I got the feeling back in my tangled limbs.
I was glad I chose to get the tape off first.
“The oil helps. I'm going to pour the oil over the tape, and it might feel really weird, but it will help me get the tape off more gently. Is that okay?”
I didn't nod or shake my head. I really wasn't sure.
“Nod once for oil, twice for pulling it off without, please, Tabitha.”
Slowly, I nodded, twice.
Very carefully, she took the edge of the tape and started to pull it off my skin. It hurt, and I whimpered. She stopped to check that she should keep going, and I nodded.
The sooner I got the tape off my mouth, the sooner I could ask about Beast.
When she got to my lips, though, I had to shake my head.
"Want to try the oil?" she asked.
I nodded.
She very gently poured some of the baby oil onto my mouth and rubbed it into the tape all over. She was right, it did feel really, really weird.
I tried not to panic as the oil rolled toward my nose.
This woman wouldn't let me drown in oil, unable to breathe through my mouth. It was too much effort to go to. She wouldn't have faked a sheriff's uniform if she was just going to kill me horribly.
I had to take a deep breath and trust.
Finally, she got the thick coating of black tape off my lips, leaving half my face tender and raw.
"Don't try to talk, honey," she said as she eased off the last piece.
I ignored her.
"Beast," I croaked. "Cory."
"He's okay," she said. "He's just fine. I'm sorry, I should have said right away. Mr. Pittman is in the hospital. He lost a bit of blood, so he's still a little woozy last I heard, but all the doctors said that he was going to be just fine."
Part of me felt like I should be insulted at how repetitive she was being, like she was talking to a five-year-old.
The rest of me was glad.
It was hard enough to focus on what she was saying, I would have hated to miss anything.
"Kandy?" I tried to ask next, but my voice was lost to coughing.
"One second, sweetheart," she said, looking over her shoulder again. "Officer Coleman. I need a bottle of water and a straw."
She turned back to me.
"Do you want me to start soaking the tape on your hands with oil?"
I nodded.
She busied hersel
f with that for a few minutes, helping me sip a little bit of water, helping me get the tape off my hands. It had been put on too tightly, and the feeling returning to my hands made me gasp with pain, tears running down my face again.
Deputy Murphy kept a sympathetic babble the whole time, chattering away, giving me something to focus on.
"I thought you'd scoop me right out of the box," I said, making myself a little more comfortable. My legs, fortunately, weren't as badly off as my arms and shoulders.
"We used to, with kidnapping victims," she said. "Not that we've seen a lot, but it was departmental policy, you know?"
I nodded, grateful that she was keeping up the conversation.
"We learned that if you yank someone who has been even a bit little traumatized out into a crowd of deputies and flashing lights and maybe even news crews, it's harder for them to cope."
I nodded.
"Now, we wait for them to be ready if we can. Sometimes it's not safe, or they're hurt too badly, but you didn't have any other injuries and when I suggested leaving the box, you looked so scared. I shooed the other guys off. I mean, the guys at the ambulance are chomping at the bit to take care of you, so we don't want to wait forever, but we've learned that half an hour now pays off a lot later."
"Yeah," I croaked.
Thinking about how terrified I was when the lid was coming off the box, I was really grateful that she'd left it my choice.
"How'd you find me?" I asked.
"Your stepmother put her kids in the car and drove down to the nearest police station in her pajamas. She said she was afraid the 911 dispatch people wouldn't listen, and she wanted someone to read the texts right away. She wasn't sure where Beast lived, and she didn't know his real name, but she was sure that you were in trouble. Fortunately, someone realized Beast was the guy some of their officers were working with, and called them. An ambulance went right out."
I nodded, smiling despite everything.
Kandy left the house in her pajamas to get me help.
Tears pricked my eyes, but not out of pain. I was so touched and grateful. I'd never seen her so much as come down for breakfast in mixed company without a nice outfit and a full face of makeup.
"Ms. Lowe wanted to come with us and make sure you were okay, but the local guys convinced her she needed to stay with her daughters. They're all worried about you."
"I was worried about them," I said, still smiling.
"Once they realized Johnnie Lowe was taking you out of the county, they had someone sit down and call every department nearby to make sure the jurisdictional issues were handled. We knew a scumbag named Flores had a base in our town, so they sent a few cars over to check it out."
"You didn't track my phone?" I asked.
She grinned.
"We did, and it was a great idea," she said, "but your local cops knew a few places Flores might be. Tracking someone's phone takes time, and we have to get all the phone companies to cooperate quickly, and it costs us a hell of a lot more aggravation than just sending a few guys out to risk their asses."
I winced.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I didn't know."
Her eyes immediately filled with concern.
"Oh, honey, no, I was joking about politics. You did everything just right, okay? We're all so proud of you."
"Where's my father?" I asked, after another sip of water. "Did you catch him?"
She hesitated.
"He drew a gun on an officer and he was shot," she said. "He was alive and swearing when he got in the ambulance, and he was only shot in the arm, so he's probably going to be okay."
"Pity," I grumbled.
Her face lit up in a grin for a moment, and then she tried to suppress it and look serious.
"Speaking of ambulances, we really, really want to get you to the hospital, okay? We took as much time as we could, but we're getting worried."
"Okay," I said.
"Do you need help getting up?"
I nodded.
"Oh, wait," I said. "My phone. My phone. It should be here. I was recording him for a while. I don't know if it worked."
"Damn, girl, you were trying as hard as anyone to get that bastard locked up, weren't you?" she asked. "Good thinking. Even if it didn't work, we can tell him you were and it'll scare the crap out of him. That okay?"
I agreed.
I wasn't afraid of my father any more.
He could kidnap me again, but he couldn't make me obey him, he couldn't make me live in fear.
I thought I could stand up alone, but I was wrong. My legs wouldn't quite hold me, and my arms were too stiff to use to balance.
In the end, the sheriff himself climbed up and scooped me into his arms, carrying me off the truck and over to the ambulance. He was fit and strong, and the of of the biggest men there, even though there was a little grey in his beard.
I thought I might be intimidated, but he was too busy making jokes and teasing me about being too old to be carried around like his grandaughter after watching princess movies.
"My sisters love princess movies," I said, rolling my eyes.
He nodded, sympathetically. "It's like a disease, isn't it? One day, everything's normal, and then poof! Princesses and sparkles everywhere."
"Once, he came to work with glitter on his hat and didn't realize," one of the deputies walking with us said.
They put me at ease, with their laughing and joking.
When the EMT's got me settled, they agreed that they didn't have to do a full exam there and I could keep my clothes on, but they warned me that the doctors at the hospital would probably want to.
They asked me a ton of questions about what happened, but any time I got upset, they'd take a minute and go back to joking around with each other.
Deputy Murphy stayed with me the whole time.
Finally, she rode with me to the hospital.
I suffered through being poked and prodded, until I begged to go see Beast.
It apparently took both hospitals and three different law enforcement departments to decide on whether or not that was possible, but they finally agreed that Deputy Murphy could drive me back to my hometown.
The drive was almost three hours, from South Carolina to the middle of North Carolina.
"It's a good thing he crossed the state line," Officer Murphy said happily. "The charges get a lot worse, and we can sic the FBI on him."
I thought it would be a boring, awkward, drive, but she told me to call her Raelyn, and we talked about her three kids and about Krystal and Karla.
Finally, I started yawning, and she turned the radio on, low and twangy.
"Why don't you curl up and doze?" she asked.
I nodded, already halfway out.
My panic finally wore off, and I slept.
When I walked into the hospital, Raelyn at my side, I wasn't sure where to go. Fortunately, she marched over to the information desk and showed her badge, speaking to the nurse there in a low voice.
"Come on," she called, waving to me. "He's in the recovery room after surgery."
He needed surgery?
The older woman had to almost jog to keep up as I headed for the elevators.
I had to slow down to her pace as she helped me find the right ward, the industrial lights and windowless corridors all blending together for me.
When we heard yelling, though, we both sped up to a near-run.
Rounding a corner, I finally saw Cory.
"Where's Tabitha?" he yelled, slurring the words so badly I could hardly understand my own name. "Need to go find her. Need to find her."
He was standing by a hospital bed, swaying, wearing a hospital gown that strained at his broad shoulders.
He turned around and I saw that it didn't quite cover him up in back. His back and butt were revealed to the whole room.
A nurse tried to pull the curtains around his bed, to give him some privacy, but he heard and whirled, almost falling over, yanking them back open.
"No c
urtains," he slurred.
I walked slowly over to him.
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