by Hannah Jayne
Her pulse raced as Tim set a pot on an ancient hot plate and filled it with water. He stared down into it before dropping the hot dogs in.
“What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you, Janie. But I had to save you. Your parents are awful, awful people. Taking you away from them will teach them a lesson.”
Riley dragged her tongue across her chapped bottom lip. “You know they didn’t have a choice when they left.”
Her father’s sullen voice, telling Riley the same, hummed in her ears, and she missed her parents terribly. They wouldn’t disappear while she was here, bound to a spindly aluminum chair—would they?
She didn’t want to look at pictures anymore. She didn’t want “proof,” didn’t want any more creeping memories of life in this broken-down house. She had to get out, even if it meant getting on with her life should her parents abandon her.
Tim set a hot dog on a paper plate in front of Riley. He pulled out the chair across from her and sat down, his own plate in hand. She watched him pick up a hot dog and take a huge bite, juice dripping over his filthy fingers, his lips smacking as he ate. He gestured toward her untouched plate.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
There was no way Riley could sit across from this stranger, in the midst of this dirt and debris, and share a meal. She was about to say the same when a thought struck her.
“I can’t.” She tried to shrug her shoulders and the tape puckered with a tight sucking sound. “I need my hands to eat.”
Tim gazed at her, considering. “You’re going to be good, right?”
Riley nodded, keeping her eyes focused on Tim’s.
“’Kay.”
His fingers wrapped around the knife, and she tried not to look afraid. He slit the duct tape, and Riley’s whole body fell forward, blood rushing to her arms, shooting pins and needles. She waited for Tim to put the knife down while silently judging the distance from her chair to the front door. The house was small, much smaller than the Blackwood Hills one, but she’d have to cut in front of Tim to get to freedom.
It was worth it.
The door hung slightly lopsided on the frame, the bottom cracking with water damage. There was a lock that looked new, but she was sure a swift kick would knock the whole thing off its rusted hinges.
“Where—is there a bathroom here?”
“I’ve been working on it for a month now. It even has water. Do you remember where it is?”
Riley shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
Tim pointed toward the pile of debris. “You go right behind that and there’s the hall. It’s the first door.” He grinned. “Your bedroom is the second.”
The thought of her sleeping in this house, with him there, sent pricks of anxiety all the way through Riley. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to breathe deeply, to focus—anything to quell the unease that was welling inside her.
“Thanks.”
She pushed her chair back and stood slowly, certain that the thundering of her heart would set Tim off. He waited for her to stand then went back to finishing his dinner. Riley took one glance at the top of his head as he ate, and when the adrenaline surged through her, she took off running—or tried to.
Her feet were still bound.
The duct tape loosened up a tiny bit, but Riley was going down. Her body hit the moldy, dirty floor with a thud, and the wind was sucked out of her. But Riley refused to stop. She clawed at the ground, wriggling toward the door, her fingers digging into the floor. She felt the wood splintering at her fingertips, the old, dead wood pricking into her flesh. It hurt, but Riley didn’t care. She only wanted out.
“What are you trying to do?” Tim was standing over her, his body blocking most of the light in the room, throwing Riley into a dark shadow. “What are you doing?”
He was angry. As he yelled, spittle came out of his mouth and Riley thought about that night in the housing development—the car, the high beams, the man pounding on the sliding glass door and demanding she come out.
“That night.” Her chest was tight and sweat pricked out at her hairline and upper lip. “That…” She gasped, trying to suck precious air into her lungs. “Was…” Every word stabbed at her. “You.”
“You weren’t listening to me! Just like now.” Tim crouched down, his face a few inches from Riley’s. “You’re not listening to me!”
She was in full panic attack mode now, struggling to breathe as black streaks swirled in front of her eyes. Her head felt light but her temples pounded and she couldn’t remember what the doctor had told her to do. That seemed like lifetimes ago, anyway.
“What is wrong with you? Stop that! STOP THAT!”
But Tim’s proximity and his yelling was only making it worse.
“Stop!”
His hand sliced across her shoulder and connected with her cheek. She heard the smack of his palm before she felt the sting.
Everything stopped.
“You’re as bad as they are,” Tim spat, his voice low. “I don’t think I can trust you. Now don’t move or I’ll—I’ll have to…” His eyes flicked from her face to the floor behind her head. “Don’t you move or I’ll have to do something bad.”
The tears were pouring from Riley’s eyes as Tim stamped around the room, grabbing things from the shelf. He poured something on a towel and came at her with it. She tried to struggle; she used her arms to push him away, but he was strong and easily overwhelmed her, pinning her arms down and sitting on her chest. He pressed the cloth against her mouth and nose before she could protest, before she could scream. And then everything went dark.
• • •
Yellow-white sunlight poured over Riley’s forehead and she squinted, trying to block it out. Her head was throbbing to an angry, insistent drum beat, and she felt like she had been sleeping for days.
A little wiggle of something gleeful erupted inside of her. JD. Tim. Hempstead and Gail. It had all been a dream.
She opened her eyes, blinking away the fog and sleep then focusing on the blankets that covered her. The coverlet was cream-colored and smattered with delicate pink roses. She was in a single bed with a cheap white arching footboard. It stood out against the mildew-gray walls and the few remaining streaks of faded green wallpaper. Where was she?
It all came flooding back in a hideous filmstrip, and Riley pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs and gently rocking. Fear fueled every cell, and she was almost too terrified to move, thinking that somehow, if she could stay perfectly still, she could fade away, ooze into the mattress, disappear. Her fingertips grabbed the fabric of her pants and she frowned, realizing that she was in a pair of knee-length flannel pants with ruffles around the hem. The shirt she wore, sleeveless with a baby-pink polka-dot pattern, matched the pants.
It wasn’t the pajamas that scared her—it was the fact that someone had put her in them. She started to breathe heavily again, to feel the sharp edges of another panic attack coming on, but she refused to allow herself to focus on that when there were much bigger issues at hand.
Where was she?
Where was Tim?
Did her parents even care that she was gone?
There were slippers placed under the bed for her, and Riley grimaced as she slid into them—they were her size, exactly, but nothing she would ever pick out. The swirly pink and purple pattern was too girly and young, something a child might like.
Because Tim had shopped for his little sister.
Riley would have thought she was numb to the cold, nauseous feeling that thinking about Tim shopping for her gave her, but it was back again, full force, and she felt the urge to heave. She stamped it down and picked her way carefully across the half-decimated floor, refusing to consider what made the gnawing little holes in the floorboards. She pressed her ear against the door first
and, hearing nothing, slowly turned the knob.
The door was locked.
She jiggled the knob then pounded the door, kicking it with her slippered feet. “Tim! Tim! Let me out of here!”
There was no response on the other side of the door, and Riley rushed to the small window above the bed. She refused to call it “her” bed. The window was narrow and long, with slits of light pouring in through the boards tacked haphazardly on the outside wall. There was no screen on Riley’s side, and most of the window glass had been shattered, but the boards crossed out any opening bigger than Riley’s ring finger.
She turned back to the room, her eyes scanning for anything that could help. The remains of a white dresser were useless, the cheap pressboard crumbling in her hand. The closet doors had been removed and the graffiti in the closet cavity had been hastily painted over. There were only three hangers in the closet, and new clothing, tags still on, hanging on each one. There was a pair of stiff jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a short-sleeved one. There were packages of thick white gym socks, panties, and sports bras in a bag on the bottom of the closet, and set carefully next to that was a pair of knock-off gray Converse in Riley’s size, seven and a half. She shuddered thinking of Tim, wondering what he said when he shopped for her. Did he mention they were for the sister he was planning on stealing?
Her clothes—the clothes she had come in with last night—were nowhere in the room. Neither was her purse. But she wasn’t going to dwell on that. She grabbed the package of socks and shoved a pair on then slid on the sneakers. She refused to touch anything else Tim had bought for her, but she needed the shoes for traction. She gripped the pole the clothes were hanging on and yanked with all her might. It bowed and the wood groaned. She shimmied it from side to side and one side broke through the wall. She was able to yank the thing down then, coming with it, landing with an “oof” on the wood floor.
She heard running footsteps then and the lock tumble on her door. She quickly shoved the pole back in the closet and jumped back into bed, pushing her sneakered feet under the covers and clamping her eyes shut.
Riley heard her door open. Her whole body went stiff when she heard Tim’s shuffling feet come closer. She could feel his hot breath, heady with the scent of strong coffee, brushing over her cheek as he leaned down toward her. He put his hand on her head, and it took everything Riley had not to shirk away, not to cringe as he stroked her hair.
“I’m so happy that you’re home, Janie. We’re going to have so much fun together, just like we used to. I saved you from them, Janie. They are very, very bad people.”
Riley mashed her face into her pillow and bit down hard on her bottom lip. She felt her teeth slip through the skin and tasted her own blood, but it was the only way she could keep her mouth shut. Inside, everything was trembling. Inside, everything was fighting him, was reaching back to her parents, begging their forgiveness.
Please don’t leave me, Mom and Dad. Please don’t leave me here with him.
SEVENTEEN
Tim sat at her bedside for a few minutes more before Riley felt his hand go to her shoulder, gently shaking it.
“Wake up, sleepy head.”
She opened one eye carefully, worried that if she tried to pretend to sleep anymore, Tim might do something awful to her. She blinked and he smiled.
“Are you hungry? I got us breakfast.”
Riley tried out her voice, unsure if she could still speak. “I need to go to the bathroom.” She thought of Tim taking her clothes off and sliding on the stiff new pajamas, and her skin started to itch. “Can I take a shower?”
Tim cocked his head. “You’re not going to try to run away again, are you?”
“No.” She swung her head. “No, I won’t, I promise.”
Tim scrutinized her then slowly stood and went to the closet. “What happened here?”
He looked over his shoulder and Riley shrugged. “Old house, I guess.”
Tim picked up the clothing, mercifully not looking for her shoes. He set the jeans and the short-sleeved shirt on Riley’s bed. He pointed to the bag. “There are underthings in there. I’ll go get you a towel.”
A tiny flicker of something like hope rose in Riley’s chest as Tim left the room, leaving the door open. She rushed to it, wracking her brain, trying to remember what Tim said last night. Her bedroom was the second door from the bathroom, and the bathroom was right off the hall. She could make it to the living room. She could make it out the front door.
Riley crept to the doorway and swept the hall, relief crashing over her when she didn’t see Tim. She took the first step, her sneaker brushing over the threshold, her eyes focused on the open bedroom door at the end of the hall. She turned, silent as a mouse, and ran directly into Tim.
He held a big yellow towel out to her. “The bathroom is right there. I’ll wait here for you to finish.” He pointed to a spot right outside the door.
“Can I close the door at least? I would feel uncomfortable…”
Tim pumped his head. “That’s OK. I’ll still wait here.”
Riley slipped into the bathroom, closing the door on Tim. She was grateful to find an old-style slide lock, and she slipped it into place. She didn’t know if it would hold, but just seeing a locked door—locked on her side, not his—made her feel safer. Riley surveyed the decent-sized bathroom. It was surprisingly cleaner than the rest of the house. The tile floor was cracked and dated, but it was free of the garbage and broken wood that littered everywhere else. The toilet was hideous with a cracked seat and bits of rust, but it seemed to actually flush. There was no shower curtain on the bar above the tub, but there was a fresh bar of soap by the sink.
Riley checked the door a second time then checked every inch of the bathroom, looking for a weapon, a cell phone, a key—anything that would help her, anything that would fan the flame of hope struggling inside her.
But there was nothing.
The small window to the left of the toilet was a good six inches above Riley’s head, and even when she stood on the toilet, she could see that the heavy, swirled glass was rusted into place. Even if she could open it, there was no way her body would fit through.
She didn’t want to shower. If she was going to die here with her psychopath of a brother, there really wasn’t any point. But her skin was beginning to itch from the dirt and dried sweat, and she forced herself to turn on the tap, to strip off the foreign clothes.
She stood under the chintzy flow of lukewarm water and rubbed her hands over the soap. Tears started to fall as the clean, spicy smell of the suds filled the bathroom. It was the same way her father smelled—the same soap he used.
“I’m going to get out of here,” Riley muttered under the clattering sound of running water. “I’m going to get out of here no matter what it takes.”
She rinsed her body and her hair as best she could under the weak stream then wrapped the thin towel around herself. She shoved her bare feet into the sneakers and opened the door. True to his word, Tim was there in the hall, sitting on the floor. He was eating a donut, the pink box propped in front of him. “You want one?”
Riley was starving. Her stomach let out an embarrassing growl and she nodded. Tim handed the box to her and she picked a donut out, eating the whole thing in two bites right there in the hallway. He shook the box again and she snatched another one, vaguely wondering if they were drugged but not caring as the thick, doughy thing hit her stomach. Her mouth was coated in sugar but she took a third donut anyway, eating this one more slowly as her stomach caught up to her brain.
“You were hungry. Maybe we should go somewhere for lunch.”
Riley stiffened. “Go out?”
“Yeah.”
Riley’s heart started to pound, and suddenly she felt light and airy, even with a quarter pound of donuts weighing her down. If she could get out of this house and into civilization, she could
get away.
She nodded. “I need to get dressed first.”
“We’ll go in a little bit.”
She took a tentative step. Then, “Where are my clothes?”
“They’re in your closet.”
“No.” She shook her head. “My clothes from before.”
“You don’t need them anymore. You don’t need anything from before anymore. You have new clothes. And a new house, and a new life!” Tim smiled. “A new old life.” He shooed her away. “Go inside and change.”
Riley went into her makeshift bedroom and pulled the packages of underclothes from the bag. She slid the bra and panties on and shimmied into the jeans—they were stiff and a little baggy, but they would do. She pulled the long-sleeved shirt over her head and put her feet properly in the sneakers.
Then she pressed her ear against the door.
She could hear Tim whistling to himself in the other room. Then she heard him flick on a radio, settling on a news station. She turned then was sucked back to the door when she heard the radio lady start, “Still no word on the Crescent City girl who went missing yesterday morning. Police are still holding a school friend of the girl’s, but he hasn’t been charged yet.”
Riley’s throat tightened. She felt a nagging pain for JD then remembered the broken charm, the way he chased after her, screaming her name.
He could rot in there, Riley thought, peeling away from the door. But I’m not going to rot in here.
She picked up the clothing pole from the closet and wrapped her towel around one end. She used the toweled end to push the rest of the glass out of the window, then pressed hard against one of the wood slats, praying that it was as old and rickety as the rest of the house.
“Janie, are you ready? Come out here!”
Tim was knocking on her door.
“One second!”
She dropped the pole down on her bed and balanced herself on the metal headboard. She could feel the cool wind from outside sweeping over her face, reddening her cheeks. But the pole hadn’t budged the board tacked over the window. So Riley did the only thing she could think of. She pulled the sleeve of her new shirt over her hand and picked up a shard of the broken glass. Even through the cotton shirt, she could feel the sharp, mangled edge. She slid it in her pocket and jumped off the bed, going for the door at the same time Tim opened it.