The Safest Lies

by Megan Miranda

  “We’re listening,” a low voice replied.

  It was suddenly so quiet I was sure I could make out four distinct heartbeats fluttering through the room. My hands tingled. The room sparked. Shadows and fears, come to life.

  A chill ran through the room, and I expected to see the cold puffs of breath from everyone else as they stared at the device in my hand. Ryan placed a hand on my elbow, like he was offering to take the walkie-talkie from me. But this was my house.

  I raised the phone to my mouth, pressed the button. “Hello,” I said. Not quite a question. Not quite a statement.

  A pause of static filled the room, and then, “What’s the offer?” The words were clipped and deliberate, emotionless.

  I stared at Ryan, at Annika, at Cole.

  “Do it,” Cole said.

  “And then what?” Ryan asked. “We give it to them, and trust they’re going to walk away? Leave us alone?”

  “And how do we just give it to them,” I asked, “without opening the door?”

  “Do you have any better ideas?” Cole asked. There was a small puddle of blood forming below him, but he didn’t seem to notice. I wondered if he’d gone numb, into shock.

  Annika was chewing on her thumbnail, staring at the door.

  I did not, as it turned out, have any better ideas.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, pressed the button on the phone. “We have money,” I said. “Around twenty thousand. It’s yours, if you leave. We’ll leave it outside the door, but you have to wait upstairs. We have to see you on the cameras. Outside. Before we open the door.”

  The static continued as we waited. No response. The silence stretched out, becoming something real, filling up the empty crevices, turning my muscles tense and putting my nerves on edge.

  “Maybe they’re deciding,” Annika said, shifting from foot to foot, scraping her heel against the concrete as she did. “Maybe they’re talking about the split.”

  Ryan shook his head. “No, this was a stupid idea. This isn’t how things work—”

  “Oh yeah?” Cole said. “Then how do things work, Baker? Enlighten us. Please.”

  “Okay,” Ryan said, his voice rising. “For one thing, you don’t get to bribe intruders out of your house. Because they have so much honor, right? Fair trade, they’ll say. Let’s shake on it.”

  I didn’t like seeing this version of Ryan, who wasn’t hoping for the best anymore. He’d moved past it, into reality: There were men outside, and we were inside, and Cole was bleeding, and they weren’t leaving. They had guns, and we had nothing.

  “Right, you know what’s stupid?” Cole said, staring at me. “Telling them they had to wait outside, Kelsey. They probably think we’re planning how to escape. You don’t get to make demands when we’re the ones trapped!” I could feel the desperation in his voice. He was starting to panic. His breath coming too fast, his arm shaking, pressed against his side.

  “He’s right,” Annika said. “We’re stuck in a cellar. I don’t see how we have that many options.”

  “It’s not a cellar,” Cole said, trying to twist in her direction. “You know what this is? This is the panic room. My mom told me about this.”

  “Stop it,” I said. And his gaze: I know, I know, I know what you are.

  Annika tilted her head. Picked at the polish on her nails, which I knew was a nervous twitch. Looked at Cole from under the mess of hair that had fallen in her face. Looked my way again, as if she were seeing me for the first time. There was a look she gave to people she didn’t know: slightly pursed mouth, eyes roaming, as if she wanted them to know she was mentally assessing them. It used to make me smile, make me feel like I was on the inside of her world. But now that look was turned on me, and I didn’t know what she would see.

  The walkie-talkie chirped, interrupting the argument. “We have a counter-offer.”

  That voice again. Low, deliberate. I pictured his mouth moving, the way he began to say my name….

  “Say something,” Cole said.

  I waited for someone to agree or disagree. I wanted to be sure, but there was only the silence and the waiting and the phone in my hand. Everyone’s faces flickered from the glare of the screens and the solitary flashlight. I raised the device to my mouth. “What is it?” I answered.

  There was a long gap of silence again, and I was halfway to repeating the question when the receiver beeped once.

  “Give us the money. And give us Kelsey Thomas. Then we’ll leave.”

  My name sounded like poison in his voice. I felt everyone’s eyes on me, even as the room filtered and narrowed to a point—me, they wanted me—because now they all knew what Ryan must’ve already suspected. They weren’t here for the money, or a burglary at all. Someone spoke my name at the front door because they were looking for me. All of this was because of me.

  Ryan was on his feet in the middle of the room, like he was waiting for a fire about to ignite, but wasn’t sure which corner it would spring from. But my focus was on Cole—staring at me, staring at the device, now fizzling with static in my hand.

  “No,” Ryan said. “Tell them no.”

  Annika shook her head too fast. “No way, Kelsey. No way. If we open that door, they’ll kill us. Look at him,” she said, pointing to Cole.

  But I was already staring at him. At the blood soaking through the makeshift bandage and his shirt. At the life dripping onto the cold basement floor.

  His eyes were locked onto mine, and I knew he was thinking the same thing.

  “One life for three,” I said.

  “No,” Ryan repeated, and Annika was still shaking her head.

  I pulled Ryan into the corner, turned so I couldn’t see Cole and Cole couldn’t see me, lowered my voice. “Is he going to die?” I asked.

  He closed his eyes. Didn’t answer at first. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not a medic.”

  “Best guess then.”

  He set his jaw. “I really don’t know. Eventually, if he doesn’t stop bleeding, I guess.”

  “Can you stop the bleeding?”

  “I’m trying,” he said.

  I touched his arm. “Look at him.” But he didn’t. He looked at me instead.

  Cole raised his voice from across the room. “We can get help, Kelsey. If they let us go, we can get help.”

  “No,” Ryan said. Hands up. “Final answer.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cole said, “I didn’t realize this was a dictatorship.” And for a moment, I was surprised that Cole even knew the term.

  “No, it is stupid,” Ryan said, and I saw the calm facade crumbling down. His voice rose; the air filled with tension. “You think they’re not going to hurt her? That we’ll have time to get help? You don’t trade people’s lives!”

  “Except you already are.” Cole lifted his hand to Ryan, palm out, and even in the dark, we could see it covered in blood.

  Annika was looking from the door, to me, to Cole. She seemed on the verge of speaking, and I was scared. Scared because I had thought Emma was my best friend too, and I had thought Cole had liked me, and they both had traded me in for nothing, in a heartbeat.

  And now we were bargaining with people’s lives. We were inside a panic room. We were panicking.

  Will you trade money? Your word?

  Will you trade another person?

  Turned out I didn’t want to see. Like looking down when you’re already hanging from a cliff.

  Her breath hitched. Her hands shook. Annika was unraveling, and I pictured her hopping down from the stone wall into the tall weeds even though there might be snakes, darling, then pulling me close and making sure I was okay.

  I placed a hand on her shoulder, and everything inside of her stiffened.

  “It’s okay,” I said. And I meant it. It was okay to want to be safe. To be willing to do anything for it. I understood how my mother would start with safety and go from there. At the sacrifice of everything else. I wanted her to know, I, of all people, understood: it was okay.

>   “No, Kelsey,” she said. “No.”

  And why was Ryan on my side? Just doing what I’m trained to do. It’s an oath. A responsibility. It’s his job. He can’t choose to give me up. He literally can’t. But deep down, I wondered if he wanted to. That’s human nature. Self-preservation.

  I handed Cole the device, because he was the only one who would do it. Then I turned around, hoping no one would notice the tears starting to come in the dark. Enough, enough.

  I wondered if this was what falling felt like. Giving over. The fear in the lead-up, and then a long calm. Your finger muscles failing, the cut too sharp, the will giving out, your whole body saying Enough. And letting go.

  “Don’t,” Ryan said, but I heard the beep of the walkie-talkie as Cole prepared to relay the message, sending me to my fate.

  “Okay, so how do we do that?” Cole asked the people on the other end. “Hypothetically. How do we know you’ll let the rest of us go?”

  The static filled the room.

  “Put down the device,” Ryan said.

  “No,” Cole said.

  “I thought this wasn’t a dictatorship,” Ryan said.

  “No, I just don’t care about the opinion of the guy trying to get in her pants at the moment.”

  “That’s not what I’m—”

  “No? Tell me, Baker, what were you doing here this evening? Nobody’s allowed in here, isn’t that right, Kelsey? Nobody sets foot inside the House of Horrors, and yet here you are.”

  What are you doing here? The same question I’d asked Cole.

  “I came to talk to her,” Ryan said. It made sense, and it sounded nice, and he had. He did come here to talk to me. Except. Except there was something in the slant of his face, the cut of his eyes away from me, which made me second-guess him. Or maybe that was just this room, twisting us all around.

  Like my mother, seeing the danger in everything first, instead of all the ways we could be safe. It was all in the perspective.

  Cole started laughing. “Of course you did. Talk your way right into the house, did you?”

  “He was leaving,” I said. “And then I noticed something was wrong, and he stayed.”

  “To be the hero, I bet,” Cole said. “And why do you think that is, Kelsey?”

  I thought everything was straightforward. Ryan followed me home because he wanted to ask me out. My mother acted the way she did because she was afraid for no reason.

  But nothing was that simple anymore. Not even this.

  “It’s not like that, Kelsey,” Ryan said, his voice low—but I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I want to talk to you, he’d said.

  The walkie-talkie crackled. “Send her out. You have our word.”

  “No,” Ryan said to Cole.

  “You don’t get to decide my fate,” Cole said.

  “And yet you can decide ours?”

  “You want us all to die alongside her?”

  Annika moaned again, hands over her face, and my fingers started shaking, my spine tingling, as Cole’s words echoed through the room, through all of us.

  Die. They thought we were going to die in this house.

  We were trapped in a room, and there were men outside, and they were trying to get in. How many ways could this possibly end?

  I should do something. I should. But all I felt was the dread in my stomach, and all I could hear were my mother’s fearful words, and all I wanted was the safety of walls and stillness.

  This was the danger. Right here. In this room.

  Everyone turns on you.

  This was the truth that could paralyze you, devastate you.

  This was why we needed the house. The four walls, the gate, the locks, keeping us safe. This was why nobody should be allowed inside. They push you out.

  Out there, anything can happen.

  But in here, they could rip your heart out clean.

  Annika grabbed my hand, as if she wanted me to be sure. Not her.

  “No,” Annika said. “If you open that door, we are all dead.”

  Then she started moving boxes again, slamming them around. “Come on,” she said to the others. And then, throwing her hands up in exasperation, she asked, “How are there no weapons? Seriously. If this place was meant to keep you safe, shouldn’t there be some sort of weapon? Is there no gun?”

  I winced. “No guns,” I said, repeating what I’d told Ryan.

  “Why?” she asked. “If this is supposed to protect you, then why?”

  “Don’t ask why,” Cole said. “Nothing makes sense. Really, Kelsey shouldn’t even be allowed to live here. Did you know that? That’s what I used to hear over dinner, night after night. But my mom can’t bring herself to take her away. To, quote, ‘be responsible for taking a child from a mother who obviously loves her so much, despite her faults.’ ” He shifted positions and winced. “I read through my mom’s notes years ago, Kelsey. You know what it is? Nonsense. All those sessions, year after year, they don’t make any sense. Your mother is lying,” he said.

  Cole had access to our secrets, and suddenly I was frightened of him. Of what he knew, and what he was saying…

  I couldn’t stop my limbs from shaking, but I didn’t think it was from the fear. “Really, Cole? Really? She’s scared for no reason? Then please, explain to me this.” I pointed to the door, but my finger wasn’t steady. “She just doesn’t remember.”

  He shook his head, contorted his face into something between a grimace and a grin. “There’s nothing wrong with her memory. Haven’t you figured that out by now? When I said it’s nonsense, I meant just that. She makes shit up. She pretends. My mom realized that, you know. It’s the one thing she’s sure of.”

  I had started shaking my head as soon as he began speaking, and I didn’t stop. “You can’t fake what happened to her. You can’t fake this house.”

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t afraid,” Cole said. “I just said it’s obvious she knows exactly what she’s afraid of. She just chooses not to tell. And now look what happened.”

  He was lying. This was a lie, and so he was a liar. “Shut up,” I said.

  Her, but not her.

  Me, but not me.

  This other version of us, just underneath my feet. Pull the carpet aside, lift the square, unzip the pouch, and meet someone new.

  Ryan touched my shoulder, grounding me. “Nothing in this house calls out for help,” he said. “It’s only for safety on the inside.”

  Even Ryan, now. Even him.

  See it, Kelsey.

  She didn’t want anyone else to come. She didn’t want anyone else to know she was here.

  She didn’t want the police here.

  The passports with the wrong names, and her fear of our names in the paper. The birth date from school not matching up with the one on the police report, the date I’d given them myself.

  The nightmares with the spiders. She remembered.

  We were hiding. And she knew exactly what we were hiding from.

  Cole looked at me as I slid to the floor across the room. I know. I know who you are.

  Who was I? The truth was, I wasn’t sure anymore. A girl who sprang from the earth with no understanding of her mother. With no father. Raised on fear and lies and stories that came tumbling down when you pushed too hard. Names and faces that didn’t match, dates that didn’t line up.

  This was not the Kelsey Thomas I thought existed.

  This was something dangerous—like something in the corner of my eye, taking shape. The edges of a shadow, sharpening and turning solid.

  “The papers,” I said. “They found us again from the papers.”

  “Who? Who found you again?” Annika asked.

  “Whoever took my mother. She was kidnapped, when she was our age. And now they’re back for us.”

  Annika’s mouth formed a perfect circle, and I thought, I should’ve told her. This was my best friend, and I should’ve told her years ago about who my mother was, why we lived this way. But I had been taught not
to. I had been raised inside the secret. Inside the lies.

  “They found you from the papers?” Ryan asked, turning pale.

  “We have to do it,” I said, ignoring him. “If they’ve waited this long, they’re not going to just leave. They might have my mother. I have to go with them.” Out there was danger. But out there were answers. Out there, somewhere, was my mother. Through that door was the only way to find her.

  “I’m not letting that happen, either way,” Ryan said. He looked at Cole, at Annika. “She saved my life, did you know that? Held us up with nothing but her fingers. Nobody hands her over.”

  Can you do one thing that defines who you are? Ryan placed too much emphasis on that moment—the one where we were falling. The one where I held us up with the joint of my fingers, as if there had been any other option.

  But there was, I realized. To let go. To find out what waited on the other side. But to do that, Ryan would have to let me go, too.

  “I’m not the girl who held us up,” I said. “You can’t base everything you think you know about me on that one thing. You can’t like me because of that. It wasn’t me. The girl in the car, that was somebody else.”

  “It was the Lodge,” he said, voice low, attempting to have a private conversation in a public place. “Not the car.”

  “What?”

  He stepped closer, talked closer. “Why I liked you. Why I like you. It’s not because of the car. It was from before, back at the Lodge. I thought you were fearless.”

  I started to laugh. “You’re insane. And wrong.” The Lodge had two functions: as a food and hang-out place for people with year-round passes, and as a hotel that, in the summer, remained half-empty. We rotated between checking people in, answering questions at the information station, and cleaning tables during the busy hours. The strangers, the uncertainty, the way things changed every day—all of it made me nervous. Ryan was the constant that kept me grounded.

  He stepped closer, hands held between us, like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. “You always did whatever you wanted. Ignored the assholes. Didn’t fake it, or smile when you didn’t mean it. Smiled, and laughed, whenever you did mean it. And when you smiled at me—” He dipped his head, like he was remembering. “You’re not afraid to just stand there, be yourself. And then I finally got up the nerve to ask you out, and you kind of said yes, but then changed your mind, so I was confused. I figured you were just trying to be nice, but didn’t really want to.”