by Tom Leveen
I pushed past David. He whispered my name. I ignored it.
I got mad.
I got mad at whoever took Tara, some son of a bitch just like Rebane. I got mad at myself for letting the fear paralyze me. I was sure as hell mad at Rebane for terrorizing this girl, and for doing the same to me and David.
In the last few seconds of my life, I was free.
“I said leave her alone!”
Rebane blinked. Frowned. Then smiled. “Oh, missy,” he said. “I’m so sad we won’t be able to have any fun before I plant you. But them’s the breaks.”
He took a step toward me. Raised the gun to my face. I felt like I could see down the entire length of that awful cylinder to the shell beyond, primed and ready to tear my head off my shoulders.
Then Rebane shifted his aim and pulled the trigger. The room exploded, and I fell backward into Jody on the cot.
Audible pain ricocheted down the base of my skull, through my spine, and into my knees. Ten pounds of wet sand poured into each ear, heavy and damp. My ribs vibrated like a xylophone, quaking and threatening to puncture my lungs. Smoke congested the air, choking me.
I screamed, What happened? but the sound only echoed at the back of my throat. It was like talking underwater, heavy and muted.
I ran my hands down my body and back up. Everything was in place, as far as I could tell. I was alive.
David fell.
He dropped to the concrete floor in a heap, like his bones had been yanked out of his skin. I shouted his name, but stopped after that because the sensation of speaking while deaf made my eyes water. Jody whimpered behind me while I faced up to Rebane again. The freedom I’d enjoyed for all of three seconds was gone.
“And now you,” he said, and swung the pistol toward me.
Thoughtless, my mind blank, I took my rubber band off my wrist and pulled it against my right index finger, stretching it back past my wrist using my left hand. I pointed it at Rebane’s face and let it go.
The band snapped against his cheek. Rebane’s face wrinkled up, and he gave a surprised squealing sound.
Then he grinned. Carnivorous.
“All right,” he said in a low voice. “A little fight in you. I like that. I like that. C’mere.”
He tucked the pistol into his back pocket and lunged. Before I could react, he was on top of me. Pinning me against Jody, the cot, and the wall. In seconds he was straddling me, keeping my legs pinned between his own, one calloused hand around my throat. My eyes rolled crazily, my breath cut off.
Both my hands automatically flung to his arm and pulled, tore, grabbed. I pried at his wrist with both hands, wishing I had longer nails. He just grinned and continued muttering profane things, things he had done to Jody, things he was going to do to me, all my worst nightmares growing and taking awful, tangible shape as his other hand touched me, scraped at me, like some rabid beast that should be put down—
Whether it was from lack of oxygen, or that I’d remembered more of what David had said—I stopped struggling. Let myself go limp. Don’t try to beat his strength.
“Yeah,” Rebane grunted. “That’s it. Yeah. Just relax. Just relax, baby.”
My hands fell to my sides and my eyes closed.
That’s when I felt it. A hard square tucked into the coin pocket of my jeans.
My pillbox.
Rebane didn’t release me, but his grip on my neck loosened ever so slightly. I could breathe again. Barely. My heart rampaged in my chest. My breaths were short, shallow, scarcely enough to live.
Rebane fumbled at his waist. With his belt. The sound of the buckle tinkled in my ears, making them want to bleed. I used my right hand to dig into my coin pocket.
“Almost there,” Rebane whispered. “Almost there, baby.”
Pulled the pillbox out. Flicked it open. With the ease of years of practice, flipped my cutter into my fingers.
“Yeah,” Rebane said. “Yeah, here we GAAAAH!”
Mustering what remained of my strength, I reached up and dragged the blade across his wrist as hard as I could.
Blood spilled from the wound. Rebane roared and fell backward, his pants down around his thighs. I heard the pistol clatter to the floor. His right hand immediately went to his left wrist, trying to stop the blood.
Screaming, I leaped at him. Slashed at his face. Found skin. Tore the blade down his cheek, opening another gushing wound.
“You rotten bitch!” he roared. “I’m gonna—”
I rolled off the cot. My blade dropped. I scooped the gun into numb hands and pulled the trigger.
Deafness. A total vacuum. Everything in slow motion.
Rebane froze, eyes bulging in the dull candlelight. He clutched his belly. Curled over. Fell to the floor.
He was still breathing.
Not for long.
I shuffled on my knees over to him and shoved the barrel of the gun to his head. Said things, I don’t know what. I couldn’t hear myself. Began to squeeze that trigger to end him, make him pay.
. . . eeeee . . .
I paused.
. . . ellie . . .
A distant groan. I turned.
David, on his side, one hand pressed against his collarbone, reached out to me with his other hand. My hearing cleared up and I heard him saying my name.
“Pelly . . .”
Still alive, my voice said. He’s still alive, got to get out of here, got to . . .
I ran up the stairs. The door was locked with a round combo lock, just as Rebane had said. But I still had his gun.
Wincing against the noise and recoil, I shot two bullets into the door around the latch, like I’d planned to do with the hammer earlier that night. It worked. The wood splintered out, and I managed to bash the door the rest of the way open.
I needed a phone. But what I found first were the keys. Rebane had unlocked the padlock, and tossed it and the key ring on the hallway counter. I grabbed them and rushed back downstairs. After a few tries I unlocked Jody’s chain. She stumbled off the cot and climbed up the stairs on her hands and feet like it was a ladder. I dragged the shackle over to Rebane’s feet, trying to ignore the blood spreading across his shirt. I quickly locked his ankle into the shackle.
“That’s how it feels,” I said.
Then I slid over to David. “Can you move?”
“Not good,” he moaned.
“You have to,” I said. “Come on.”
Somehow I got him to his feet, and we climbed out of the basement. In the kitchen hallway David lost his footing, and he dropped to the floor.
I leaned down to haul him back up, but he shook his head. “Cops,” he grunted. “Hurry. Ambulance.”
I spun around, looking for David’s phone. Nothing here. Ran into the kitchen. Found Jody already on a black wall-mounted telephone. Giving directions.
“They’re coming,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
And don’t remember much after that.
EIGHTEEN
When I came to, Jody was beside me. She helped me sit up and lean against one kitchen wall.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Think so,” I said. “David . . .”
“He’s still in the hall, he’s alive,” she said. “The cops are on their way. You blacked out, I think.”
I nodded. My lungs seemed to take up my entire torso. Everything inside me felt painfully inflated and raw.
Jody stood up and leaned against the doorway leading to the living room, looking around and blinking as if it were a sunny day and she was coming out of a cave, except it was still night and there were only two lamps lit. She’d wrapped a blanket around her waist.
“How long?” I whispered. “How long have you been down there?”
Without turning, Jody said, “Two years. I think.”
“You did say ‘Help me,’ right?” I said. “At the coffee shop the other day?”
“Yes. I didn’t think you would, though. No one has before.”
“Before? It wasn’t the first time? Why did he take you out there?”
Her narrow shoulders shrugged up. In the distance I heard sirens.
“Part of his fantasy, his power trip,” she said. “I think it made him feel strong. He took me to restaurants sometimes, or the store. I wanted to scream, but . . .”
Something about her words formed another question for me. “Jody? How old are you?”
“Seventeen now, I think. Maybe eighteen.” At last she turned, and I saw both premature age and incredible youth in her face. “Who is Tara?”
“A friend,” I said as red flashing lights penetrated the curtains of the picture window. “Just a friend I haven’t seen in a long time.”
“Your name’s . . . Pelly?” Jody asked.
“It’s short for Penelope. Yeah.”
“Thanks for saving my life, Penelope.”
I wanted to put a hand on her shoulder, or hug her, or something—but couldn’t stand. “You’re welcome,” I said, feeling inadequate.
The front door crashed open, making us both jump. Two cops lunged into the room, guns clasped in their hands, pointed at the floor.
“He’s in the basement,” Jody told the cop. “He’s not going anywhere. He’s chained to the wall.”
“My boyfriend’s shot,” I said weakly, not aware I’d even used that particular word until a lot later. “He needs help.”
I don’t know how much time passed after that. I saw paramedics coming for David and wheeling him out on a stretcher. I called to him, but the EMTs said they needed to get him out. Then another set of paramedics got Rebane out of the basement and onto another gurney. He was not conscious.
Jody and I were both led to a third ambulance. We answered ten thousand questions, half from the EMTs, half from uniformed cops. The next thing I knew, we were in the small Canyon City hospital being looked over by doctors.
I know that at some point my mother was called. I know that at some point a nurse told me David would be fine. I know that someone else said they thought Rebane would live. I know that Jody got whisked away by some cops, and we didn’t even say good-bye to each other.
And I know I fell asleep for what turned out to be almost twenty-four hours.
NINETEEN
I became a minor celebrity for the second time in my life.
When Tara had disappeared, I’d been too young to be interviewed for Abducted, the TV show, but not anymore. I got phone call after phone call from TV stations asking for interviews. First they were calling me at the Hole in the Wall, which ultimately made me quit. Eli and the rest of the staff didn’t need to be bombarded by this stuff.
By the time I got home, the media people—newspapers, websites, TV shows, you name it—had tracked down my address and even my mom’s cell phone number. Surprisingly, Mom took it in stride, and I couldn’t help but admire the way she really told off some of the reporters.
“She’ll let you know when she’s ready,” she’d say. “Until then, we ask that you respect her privacy.”
But during one particularly obnoxious call she ended with, “So screw you and the horse you rode in on!” which made us both laugh so hard we almost fell to the ground.
I hadn’t laughed with my mom in a long time.
Mom had come up to Canyon City with Jeffrey to pick me up from the police station. She hugged me so tight I thought she’d snap one of my ribs. She kept chanting, “I’m sorry, Penelope, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over in my ear.
Jeffrey thought I was the ultimate badass, which I kind of enjoyed. Dad rushed home for the first time ever, and hugged me for so long it hurt my neck. I didn’t mind so much.
A MONTH AFTER I RETURNED from Canyon City, I woke up and moseyed into the kitchen for breakfast. Freshly made waffles, melting butter, and hot coffee made for an excellent first-thing-in-the-morning aroma.
“Morning,” I said as I walked into the kitchen. I plopped down beside Mom and reached for the carafe of orange juice to chase away my morning mouth. Jeffrey was in his room getting ready for school.
“Morning, Pelly,” Mom said, but was frowning with one hand over her mouth. “They haven’t told you yet, have they?”
“Who told me what?”
“The police found three bodies buried in his backyard,” she said. She didn’t have to clarify who she was referring to. “Three girls. They were beneath a bed of flowers. Ugh! What an awful human being.”
The juice curdled in my mouth.
The flower garden. Such pretty flowers. Without asking, I knew one of them was named Leslie.
I felt chains twisting around my ribs, squeezing the air out of me. My heart began knocking from the inside, bam! bam! bam! Let me out . . .
No, I thought. Stop. You are safe. You are safe.
I finished my juice and wiped my mouth. “No,” I said. My voice came out higher than normal. “They hadn’t told me that. Was one of them . . . I mean, Tara wasn’t . . . ?”
“No,” Mom said, touching my hand. “Not Tara.”
I nodded. I didn’t think so either. Had to ask.
“There’s an article here, if you want to read it,” Mom went on. “But I don’t suppose you’d want that.”
“No,” I said. The invisible chains around my body began to relax and drift away. “Not today, anyway. I’m a little distracted.”
Mom reached for my hand and squeezed it. “I’d imagine so.” With her free hand Mom brushed at her cheeks. “I’m so glad you’re safe, Pel.”
Didn’t know what to say to that, so I just squeezed her hand back.
Mom sniffed and coughed, then got up with her empty plate and put it in the sink. “You have an appointment later today, remember.”
“Four o’clock, yeah, I know.”
“How’s, um . . . how’s that going?”
She hadn’t brought up Dr. Carpenter since I started going back, which I appreciated. But I also appreciated that she was asking.
“Good,” I said after swallowing a mouthful of waffles. “She said I’m making progress. I don’t know what that means, though. Maybe I’ll ask her today.”
Mom smiled and pulled me over to her so she could kiss my head and ruffle my hair.
Jeffrey bounded into the kitchen with his usual enthusiasm. He gave me a hug from behind, nearly choking me out.
“Hey, sis!” he cried in my ear.
“Hey, Jeffrey,” I said, reaching behind me and tickling his ribs.
Jeffrey shot away from my fingers and went straight for the fridge. “You gonna see David today?”
“You bet,” I said. “He’s picking me up in a few minutes.”
“So then after school can he come over and play games?”
“I’ll ask him,” I said. “But probably, yeah.”
“Awesome!”
I smiled at my little brother as he poured himself juice. “Little” didn’t seem to fit anymore. He was almost as tall as I was now, and probably going to get a lot taller.
“You’re a crazy little nut factory, you know that?” I said as he sat at the table.
“Look who’s talking!” Jeffrey said.
“Exactly. You’re a nut factory because you make me nuts. Get it?”
My brother rolled his eyes. And I laughed.
David pulled up to the sidewalk a few minutes after Mom and Jeffrey left. I went out to meet him, locking our door behind me. I climbed into the truck and kissed him.
“Morning, sunshine,” David said. “Mint mocha?”
He passed me the white cup with the Hole in the Wall logo on it.
“You are a god among men,” I said. “Thanks.”
&n
bsp; “So?” David asked, pulling away from the curb. “How you feeling about today?”
“Nervous,” I said. “Hey, I talked to Jody last night.”
“Whoa, no kidding?” David said. “She call you?”
“Yeah. It was surreal. She’s on medication, and getting therapy, so we sort of bonded over that.”
David snickered, and so did I.
“I know, right?” I said. “And I asked her why she never tried to escape.”
“She never did?” David asked.
“No. She said it was like Stockholm syndrome or something. Like she’d started depending on him. She said she was afraid she’d even started to enjoy it.”
“Wow,” David said softly.
I nodded. I knew what Jody’d meant, to some degree. I thought about the psych hospital I’d lived in. How it had gotten so comfortable. So easy after a while. Easier than dealing with the real world.
I didn’t tell David this part, but on the phone Jody had asked me, Do you think you can be addicted to something that makes you feel awful? Even when you know it’s wrong, that it’s not good for you? I don’t mean drugs. I mean people. Or thoughts.
Or memories, I’d said. Yeah. I do.
“Anyway, she just wanted to say thanks again and all that,” I went on to David as he made a slow left turn.
“Very cool,” David said. “I’m glad you got a chance to talk to her.”
“Me too,” I said.
Up ahead I saw one of the few things that still scared me. My right hand reached for my left, searching instinctively for my rubber band. It wasn’t there. Hadn’t been there, in fact, since I fired my last one at Rebane. The memory almost made me laugh. But—not quite.
I took a deep breath through my nose and exhaled slowly from my mouth, the way David had been showing me. It worked. My thoughts settled into a jumbled pile instead of zipping around like little angry bumblebees. It was a start.
David pulled into a large parking lot and, after jockeying a bit, managed to find a space somewhere in the middle. The lot was packed, and people streamed toward the building in the chilly air.
“Ready?” David asked, turning off the engine.
“No,” I said.