“You haven’t yet,” he says. “But you will.”
I look away. He leaves.
I read the journal page.
I’m sitting outside of the house.
The husband isn’t home yet, as I knew he wouldn’t be. He never is. I won’t even bother killing him. He’ll barely notice they’re gone. I saw them eating through the window. Macaroni and cheese and salad. I heard the boy say it’s his favorite. He’ll have to learn to like things like venison and rabbit after we leave. The next time I write in this journal, they will be with me. My life will be whole, and so will theirs.
I think back to that night.
I’d been in bed. I’d heard something in my mother’s room. I’d gotten out of bed, and padded down the hall, stepping over a toy on my way. A dump truck.
She was in there, and she was begging for my life.
Please don’t hurt him, she’d begged. She was crying and I’d never heard her cry before. Her nose was bleeding and it was spattered on her shirt. Leroy had a gun.
“Run, Pax,” she’d screamed at me, but Leroy grabbed me. He’d told me to make my mom behave. Can you help your mommy be a good girl?
I swallow now, and acidic bile is in my throat. It burns as it slides back down.
I’ll do anything. Please don’t hurt him!
Anything? He’d asked, and his teeth were yellow.
He unbuttoned his pants and they dropped to the floor. He had a coiled snake tattoo on his hip.
Don’t tread on me.
My mom hadn’t wanted me to see, so Leroy had shoved me into the closet, but I could still see through the slats.
He shoved her down in front of him, grabbing her by the hair.
If you don’t do this, I’ll kill your son as you watch.
For so long, I had blocked these memories out of my head, but I can see them now. As if they’d happened yesterday. I can’t un-see them. I can’t shake them.
I was overcome with wanting to help her. Her shoulders were shaking and she was helpless, and I was the only one who could.
So I’d rushed out and tried.
And she’d died.
Trying to help her had killed her.
I won’t make that same mistake again.
I watch Zuzu on the monitor. She’s still now. She probably cried herself to sleep.
I can’t fight them, or she’ll die.
I can’t risk it.
I open another box.
I push the plunger down, and the heroin disappears into my vein. My consciousness goes with it.
This is for the best.
26
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mila
I’ve been in this bedroom for eight days. I have bled a little, off an on, but I try to keep my anxiety at a minimum, and I try to lay still in bed.
The only thing I can see is Pax on the monitor, but at least he’s untied now. That’s something. And he’s alive.
That’s everything.
He sits on the floor now, staring at the wall, and then abruptly, he climbs up and does push-ups. I lose track of how many. He moves fast, like a machine. I don’t know why he’s so frenzied and focused.
The doorbell rings. I can hear it vaguely from through the house. It rang once the other day, too. I have no idea who it was since I can’t see from this room. All I have here is a view of the gardens and the pool. Once, I thought it was charming and quiet. Today, it secludes and isolates me.
I did finally eat. I had to for the baby. I drank my water and ate my toast, and I cup my belly protectively now. While my baby is here, inside of my body, they can’t take it like they took Zuzu.
Children make you vulnerable. That is certainly true. They ripped my heart out when they took her.
I can’t think of her right now. Because if I do, I’ll lose my mind.
I put my hand on Pax’s on the television screen. He’s still now, quiet. Sweat beads on his brow.
Anyone on the outside looking in would think that we have the world on a string, but here we are… separated by a thousand miles and two locks rooms….against our will.
He’s there.
I’m here.
I take a breath, and steel myself.
There has to be something I can do.
I pace, then pace more.
And then… then… there’s a movement. Out of the corner of my eye.
I turn, and there is someone outside my window. Hunched down, but I still see them. Gasping, I cross the room and peer out, and Roger is peering back at me.
Pax’s driver.
His eyes are wide.
I’m sure mine are too.
“Are you ok?” he mouths. I shake my head no.
He nods in confirmation.
“What are you doing?”
Natasha’s voice comes from the doorway. I turn quickly, trying to block Roger.
“Staring outside. It’s all I can do. You’ve taken everything else.”
She smiles, and brings in a sandwich along with a bottle of water. “That’s true, isn’t it?” she agrees. “You only have what we give you at this point.”
My phone is in her pocket. I see the corner of it sticking out. I try to ponder a way to get it, but with Roger right outside, I don’t take the chance.
I sit on the bed so that her attention is on me, rather than the window.
“When are you going to let me go?” I ask her.
“Not until after I’m long gone,” she says pleasantly. I get the feeling she’s determined to not lose her cool with me again.
“What about my husband?”
She levels her gaze at me, and it is cold. “I think we already established that.”
Ice forms over my heart and shivers run down my spine. There isn’t much time left. I feel it.
I count the minutes until she leaves the room, and then I scurry across the room to my nightstand. There is a sketchpad inside, and a piece of charcoal for drawing. It’s not the best to write with, but it has to work.
I scrawl out a message.
Held captive. They have Pax at the lakehouse. Call my sister and tell her. We’re not supposed to call the police. They have Zuzu.
I race back to the window, where Roger is waiting, hunched down.
He reads my words and his eyes widen in alarm. I nod.
Hurry, I mouth silently. I flip the page over and scribble one last thing.
They’re going to kill Pax.
He spins around and is gone, hugging the side of the house as he goes. My heart is racing and my hands are clammy. Our lives are literally in the hands of someone else, a car driver that Pax hadn’t even wanted.
I try to focus. I try to sit still, but I can’t. My fingers shake, my toes. My mouth is dry, my thoughts are blurry. I have too much adrenaline and no way to use it.
So I get up and pace. I do circles around the room, and I feel like I’m going to hyperventilate. I breathe in, then out.
I don’t know what is going to happen, but I had to do something.
It was never going to end well.
At least this way, we’ll go down fighting.
Even if we all die.
Zuzu’s face flashes in front of me, and even though they’ve been using her to keep me docile, I know they’ll kill her too. They won’t have a choice. They’ll have to get rid of us all.
But Roger knows now.
He’ll tell Maddy and Gabe, and they’ll help us.
Gabe was an Army Ranger. He’ll know what to do.
He has to.
27
Chapter Twenty-Six
Pax
“You have a call,” the man tells me, bringing my phone into the room.
I stare at the phone in confusion.
“It’s him,” he adds.
Him.
Leroy.
I reach out my hand.
“What?”
“What a nice greeting for your old friend. I hope you’ve been enjoying your time there.”
I’m silent.
The room is spinning, and I’m not quite sure if my head is sitting straight on my neck.
“Keep going,” he encourages me. “Once you get to the end, once you finish all the boxes, you will achieve two things. First, Zuzu will be sent back to her mother. Second, I will tell you what you want to know. Your mother’s last words. Keep going.”
The line goes dead.
He clearly didn’t want me to say anything incriminating on the recorded prison line. He took quite a chance to get me on the phone at all. He must’ve thought I was too doped up to focus.
That’s partially true.
I do pushups to pump the drugs through my veins faster.
I need to work it though my system so that I can get to the end.
I have to finish.
I have to save my daughter, and I have to hear my mother’s last words.
I don’t know why I want to hear them.
I just do.
It’s a need at this point, as real to me as my need for heroin.
Slowly, methodically, throughout the day, I work my way through the boxes.
One
By
One
By
One.
I am focused on that.
No matter how the room spins, or the blackness threatens to overtake me, I continue.
I lost consciousness
Once
Twice
Three times.
When I wake, it is night.
Early evening, I think. The light is dying on the lake, in oranges and golds and ambers. I stare at it, watching it flit to and fro, and I put my hand on the window.
I loved this place once. I loved the views of the lake and the seclusion.
I can feel Mila here, even still. One of her pictures hangs on the wall, a breathtaking painting of the sun. It is an explosion of abstract vision, and I wish I was in the canvas, and away from here.
But I’m not.
And I only have a short way left to go.
I reach for the last box.
If I finish this, they’ll bring me the very last one.
It will be over.
I will have won.
Even if I die, I won.
28
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mila
It’s been twelve hours since Roger left.
The minutes have ticked past slowly. Natasha brought me a dinner tray, and it was all I could do to act normally.
Surely, something will happen soon.
Did Roger believe me?
Maybe he misunderstood.
It’s easy to be paranoid when I’m here alone.
Every sound lifts my head.
Every time, it’s nothing.
Every time, I’m crushed.
I pray. I pace. I pray. I pace.
Nothing happens.
I shower, I go to bed.
It’s the middle of the night before I hear something.
Something distant, something in the house.
It’s not a screech, it’s more of a crash.
A loud one.
I lunge from the bed for the first time in days. My legs are weak, and they almost give out, but I make it to the door, and I bang on it, screaming.
Through it, I hear a commotion. Scuffling, yelling, a loud shot. A shot?
Then,
It’s quiet.
Then.
Then.
“M’am, stand away from the door.”
It’s a man’s voice, assertive and loud. I step away, scurrying to the bed, and my door comes splintering in, loudly and forcibly, and the pieces fall onto the floor. Everything next happens in a blur.
People surround me.
Everything is buzzing.
My heart pounds.
There are so many people. Police, EMTs.
“Where is my daughter?” I ask someone. They are taking my blood pressure, taking my vitals, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders. My teeth are chattering, and I didn’t even realize it.
“We don’t know yet,” the EMT says. “Don’t worry, m’am.”
“And my husband? What about Pax?” I demand, and my voice is loud, and I might be screaming.
“We don’t know anything yet,” someone else says.
“Is he alive?” I ask, and I’m scared, terrified. I yank away from the EMTs.
“I don’t know yet, m’am,” she says again. It’s easy for her to be calm, because it’s not her life, her family, that we’re talking about.
I break away and run from the bedroom, and there is a body covered by a sheet in the living room. A giant bloodstain seeps into the floor, and through the sheet, and oh my God, that is Natasha. I know it. She’d dead. I know that, too.
I pause in my tracks, and my hand is over my mouth and my breath is in my throat, and then…
Then…
“Mila?”
My sister is rushing toward me in a jacket and she smells like the cold outdoors. She grabs me tight, scooping me into a hug.
“Oh, my god,” she moans into my hair as she rocks me to and fro. “Oh my God. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”
“What about Pax?” I say simply, and she pulls away and looks at me.
“I don’t know yet.”
29
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Pax
I’ve used everything.
Everything is empty.
The boxes, my heart, my soul. All of it.
I am a vessel and I have been used up. Depleted.
Now, all I can do is wait.
I am sprawled on the bed, and I’m not sitting, or lying. I’m halfway in between. I don’t have the balance to do one or the other.
I am flailing in time, in the moment. I am existing, and not much more.
I am only waiting.
For the end.
For the last thing.
It is night.
I will die at night.
It’s fitting, I decide, as the door opens and the moonlight shines in on the floor. I will die in oblivion. It’s where I belong, anyway.
“You have done well,” the man tells me as he eyes the empty pile of cardboard. He has the last one in his hands. “Are you ready to finish?”
I nod, because I am. When I am gone, nothing can hurt Mila again. She can take Zuzu and start anew somewhere, with someone who isn’t fucked up like me. I will save them by doing this.
“This is how it will work,” the man says, and he sets the box next to me. “Everything you need is in that box, including the last journal page. It will tell you what you’ve been wanting to know. After you’ve read it, you will finish it. Once it is done, I will take your daughter back to your wife. They will live happily ever after. Do you have any questions?”
“How do I know you will stick to your word?” I ask and my words are sluggish and slurred from the drugs.
“You don’t,” he says directly. “But I will. I have nothing against you personally. I’m paid to do a job. That is all.”
I nod.
“Anything else?”
I think on that. “I want to leave a note for my wife.”
“No. That’s not possible.”
“Will you send a message to her?” I ask. “Will you tell her that I love her?”
“If she doesn’t already know that, then you weren’t living your life right in the first place.”
“That’s true,” I agree with my captor. I don’t know why, but he sounds logical and I’m swimming in a sea of doubt.
He leaves, just like that, without another word.
I sit on the floor and I know it’s for the last time.
I won’t have to go through this cycle again. It will be over soon.
I open the last box.
There is a .45 revolver inside, and it gleams in the moonlight. I check the barrel. One bullet is in the chamber.
The last journal page is folded beneath it.
I take a deep breath.
The drugs have dulled all of my sens
es. I’m not afraid. I’m not even sad. I’m an empty shell, and all I need is the last piece of this puzzle. I need to know.
I put the gun on my lap, and I pull out the paper. The ink on this page is fresh, a vibrant blue.
I’ve thought a lot over the years about why Susanna had acted like she did that night.
She rejected me, and refused to go with me, and I have to admit, that was a surprise. It took the wind out of my sails.
I know now, though, why she did it.
She must’ve thought I would kill her son.
She didn’t trust me when I said I wouldn’t.
If it had only been her and I, I know she would have gone with me in a split second. I would’ve saved her from that life. But her son came in, and she had to put on a show for him. She had to act like she didn’t love me. I know it was a show. I saw how she’d looked at me every time I delivered their mail, day in and day out. She watched me, and she was lustful and she wanted me. I know it now, and I knew it then.
But some women, their instincts to be mothers overtakes everything else.
That’s what happened that night.
I’m sure of it.
She fought for that snot-nosed kid. And in the end, I asked her why. Right before he rushed in and killed her, I asked her why she was fighting so hard for him.
She looked up at me, and her eyes were so wide and full of tears. And she said-
The paper is ripped here.
Her response is gone.
Leroy Ellison, being the monster that he is, is going to deny me my mother’s last words. He brought me to the brink, then yanked it away. He was playing with me all along.
Rage billows in on clouds of red in my vision, and I find myself at the door, kicking and punching and yelling. No one hears, of course, and I turn, looking at the monitor. The men are in Zuzu’s room, and they are taking her by the hand. The one who does the talking looks directly at the camera, directly at me.
He waves goodbye.
A cold pang runs through my heart, and if they went back on their word with the journal, then they will go back on their word with my daughter.
My Peace (Beautifully Broken #5) Page 13