You Could Have Saved Her

by Elizabeth Ballew

  “Very good,” the man said. “Jordan, be a good son and carry this girl inside. It doesn’t look like she’s much up for walking.”

  Jordan nodded before approached Zoe, and I fought the urge to place myself between them. Zoe was so vulnerable and defenseless that it was difficult for me to just stand back while this stranger - this kidnapper - brought her into his house.

  “Calla, be a dear and come with us to the house without a struggle. It will really help things go much smoother if you cooperate. I truly do not want to do anything drastic, but if that’s what it comes to, remember that I gave you the option.”

  Teeth protesting with how much pressure I applied, my grip tightened around the gun in my hand. All it would take was to point and pull the trigger. That’s it. Just lift your arm and shoot. The tension left my shoulders as I slumped over. I couldn’t do it. There was no way I could bring myself to kill a man in cold blood, no matter who it was.

  The man chuckled, and I glanced up at him. “I was waiting to see what you would do, and I’m glad you decided to make the right choice. You could have easily shot me before I pulled the knife on you, but then my children would have no choice but to retaliate, and they can be quite the handful when they aren’t under my control. I’d hate to see what happened to your friend if they were to do that, not to mention your sister.”

  I froze. With everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I’d completely forgotten about Lily. What kind of person am I that I’d forget my sister was in trouble? This wasn’t just about me and Zoe. This was about my family.

  Releasing the gun, I let it drop to the ground with a clang as this madman gestured me forward. We walked down the block and through the French Quarter until we reached a row of houses sectioned off by fences. They looked so normal and inviting that it was hard to believe a kidnapper lived there with his children.

  The house he ushered me to enter was right in the middle of the street surrounded by what appeared to be very friendly neighbors. He grabbed my arm gently as he waved to a man mowing his lawn, then a couple who were sitting on their porch enjoying the day. Little did they know that the man they were smiling at was currently in the act of kidnapping two people and who knows how many others were already trapped inside him home. How did you live next to someone for so long and not realize how horrible they were? It made me wonder how many people were friends with psychopaths, murderers, kidnappers, or some other crazy person without knowing it. Did that happen a lot.

  I considered calling out to someone for help, but I had no doubt that gentle grip on my arm was nothing more than a warning. If I tried anything, Zoe - who was already inside the house - and Lily would pay for it long before they were brought to justice.

  Forcing my legs to carry me up the steps felt like I was willingly walking towards my end. Heavy chains made them hard to lift as my pulse raced and my stomach lurched. When you watch the movies where the main characters are being taken somewhere by the kidnapper, you don’t really get to see what’s going on inside their heads. Maybe they are kicking and screaming and you think ‘why is no one going to help her?” or they are willingly leaving and you think ‘this girl is an idiot,’ but you don’t get the full picture until later when the reason is revealed. But those are just movies, and they could never prepare you for what to do if it ever happens to you.

  Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would be in the situation I was now. When something horrible happens or tragedy strikes, you think, ‘at least it can’t get worse,’ or ‘it can only go up from here,’ but never that your life will just continue to spiral until the world is crumbled down around you.

  When the door slammed shut behind me, it sounded like bomb exploding in my head. A switch was flipped, and I suddenly understood the gravity of my situation. I was inside a madman’s house with his children who were just as crazy. I was effectively trapped with no clue how to escape.

  “Come this way. I’m sure you’d like to see you sister. It’s been a while since you’ve seen each other after all,” the man said as he led me through the house.

  Again, I was surprised with how normal it looked. There weren’t chains and locks everywhere. There weren’t cages hiding in the corners. There was a beautifully designed Livingroom and kitchen. The bathroom we passed was filled with bright yellows and oranges, paintings of flowers hung on the walls. He opened a door in the hall, and my stomach leapt into my throat as I stared at the stairs that led down into the basement.

  “Relax,” he said urging me forward with light pressure against my back. “We worked really hard to make a wonderful living space for you. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

  As I moved down the stairs, taking my time, I swallowed hard, trying to get my racing pulse under control. I could barely hear over the rushing in my ears, and the further down we went, the louder it got. At the bottom was another door which made me pause. It looked like they built a room inside of the basement.

  I jumped as the man leaned passed me to slip a key into the lock, and he chuckled as if my reaction to his sudden movement was amusing. It wasn’t like I was in a den of wolves waiting for the next shoe to drop.

  The door opened, and I was met with an overwhelming feeling of dread and hopelessness. If I stepped through that door, there was no turning back. I would be effectively trapped with nowhere to go and go ability to escape my fate. Until that door was shut and locked with me on the other side, there was the possibility I could run back up the stairs, out the front door, and never look back.

  “I know what you’re thinking, and I can assure you, it isn’t a good idea,” the man said. “You’re not the first to try it, and if you think I wouldn’t have precautions set up, you’d be mistaken. Now, before I’m forced to do something we both might regret, why don’t we go in and say hi to Lily.”

  Swallowing hard, hands clenched into fists, teeth gritted as I bit back my harsh words that would only make my captor angry, I stepped forward into the room, and froze. There was no mistaking what I saw. It was an exactly replica of the house upstairs, except on a smaller scale. We were currently standing in the Livingroom which branched off into the kitchen. If I moved down the hall slightly, I’m sure there would be a brightly lit sunflower bathroom covered in yellows and oranges.

  “Lily darling! Your sister is here to see you.”

  My stomach churned at the way he called my sister darling. It felt wrong and disgusting. If he ever called me that, I probably wouldn’t be able to stop myself from throwing up right on his ugly polished work boots. The kind that were made for construction but had obviously never been used for that purpose.

  The sound of a door opening and closing drew my attention to the right, and my breath caught in my throat as my twin walked out of the room, except she no longer looked anything like me. Her once beautiful, dark brown hair had been bleached so much it was almost white, the edges frayed and sticking out in every direction. The long, flowing length had been cut above her shoulders.

  Her skin, which used to be golden from being out in the sun so much was now so pale she looked sick. Dark circles under her eyes suggested she hadn’t been sleeping, and her thin physique made me think she wasn’t eating either.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered.

  What the hell happened to her? All this time I was so angry at her for leaving. I’d finally found her, and all I could think about was how much I wish that had been the case. Unable to stop myself, I ran to her, stopping just in front of her when she flinched and jumped away from me. What she must have gone through to be so afraid of her own sister, the person she’d lived with, grown up with her entire life. I was her built in best friend and she couldn’t even look me in the eyes.

  “I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted,” the man said with a laugh as he walked back out of the room. The lock clicking into place sounded like a bomb going off in my head.

  The room was silent for a while, neither of us knowing what to say or how to break the silence betwe
en us. I gasped as Lily slumped to the floor, landing with a thud on the carpet covered concrete. Tears slipped from her closed eyes as she dropped her head into her hands, shoulders shaking with her sobs.

  “Lily? Lily what’s wrong?”

  Kneeling next to her, I gingerly placed a hand on her back, not wanting to frighten her further. Quiet mumbles escaped her mouth, garbled by the tears and the hands covering her face. It took me a moment to realize she was saying words. I’m sorry. She repeated the hushed words like it was a chant, and the more I tried to comfort her, the more inconsolable she became.

  “Lily, please tell me what’s going on. I just want to help you,” I said, fighting back tears of my own.

  Her head popped up, cheeks wet, makeup smeared, snot running from her nose. She looked at me with eyes filled with anger and sadness, and something akin to pity. I stepped back, brows raised.

  “Why did you have to come here?” she asked, and I frowned.

  “What do you mean? You’re the one who said you needed help.”

  Her eyes widened as she wiped her face with the edge of her shirt. Taking a deep breath, Lily stood and walked back into the room from which she’d emerged. I followed her inside and froze, gasping at the memories that flooded through my mind. It looked exactly like her bedroom at home.

  “It looks the same doesn’t it?” she asked. “It’s not though. Not even close.”

  The more I stared at the room, the more I realized she was right. There were a lot of similarities, sure, but there were even more differences. We stood in the middle of a room built inside of a basement after all. There was only so much that could be done.

  “What happened to you?” I asked. “The note-”

  “The note was real. I couldn’t stay there anymore after mom died. It was too much, too hard for me to deal with. I got your messages. I know you were angry, upset that I left you alone with grandma and grandpa, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay there and continue living like nothing had happened… like nothing changed,” she explained, collapsing on the edge of the bed.

  It was so surreal having a conversation with my sister while she sat on her bed in a room that looked almost identical to hers. It felt as if we’d never left, as if I could walk out that door and mom would be in the kitchen making pancakes for breakfast.

  “If you got all my messages, why didn’t you respond to any of them?” I asked, hugging my arms around my chest. “Why didn’t you say anything at all? You don’t know the half of what I went through. I thought you would’ve at least come to mom’s funeral.”

  “I wanted to,” she whispered.

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  Instead of answering, she gestured around herself, reminding me of where we stood. “You’ve been here since mom’s funeral?” I gasped.

  Lily shrugged, picking at her nails. “Longer actually.”

  “Since when?”

  “…. days,” she mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Three days,” she repeated with more emphasis. “Three days after I left, Jaelyn invited me to stay with her until I found a new place. I fell asleep on the couch upstairs and woke up down here.”

  Three days. That meant she’d been living in this fake house for months. Every time I cursed her for leaving, every time I got angry that she wasn’t there, Lily was here going through who knew what, trapped in this sunless, lifeless place.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “What are you sorry for? It’s not like you’re to blame for what happened to me. You couldn’t have known.”

  “I should have at least looked for you. I should have come sooner-”

  “No. You shouldn’t have. You should have stayed away and lived your normal life and forgotten about me!” she yelled, and I jerked back.

  “Why-”

  “You think I wanted you to end up here like me? I wasn’t sad and lonely being here by myself. I was relieved. Every day that passed without you here meant you were free and not destined to live out your life stuck in a pretty cage. I didn’t want you to come here and rescue me. I wanted you to stay away.”

  My heart hurt to think about how much I’d hated her over the last few months, and she’d been happy that I did. If I’d been less angry and more concerned, I might have looked for her. What would I have done in her situation? If I was the one trapped here, would I be glad I was alone, or would I want Lily here with me? I didn’t know, and that thought scared me more than anything.

  “If you felt that way, then why did you text ‘help’ to me?” I asked.

  Shaking her head, she sighed. “I didn’t. I haven’t had my phone since I woke up down here. He must have sent it, pretending to be me, so you would try to come find me. I should have known he would do something like that.”

  “Who are these people? Why would they go through so much trouble to keep you here?”

  Twisting her hands in her lap, Lily frowned. “They didn’t want just me,” she said. “They wanted both of us.”

  “Why? What did we do?”

  She shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

  How could she not know? Didn’t she ask? Shaking my head, I forced those kinds of thought out of my mind. Blaming Lily for not having the answers wouldn’t do either of us any good. There was plenty of time to figure out the whys later. For now, we needed to figure out how we were going to get out of here.

  “Well I’m here, and there’s nothing we can do about that now. We need to focus on finding a way out of here,” I said, and Lily gave a forced laugh.

  I glanced at her with one raised brow. “You don’t think I’ve tried already? There’s no way out of this room without the key, and he never goes anywhere without it. I even tried seducing his kids, both of them, but that didn’t work either. They are both completely loyal to him.”

  “His kids? Do you mean Jaelyn and Jordan? Their brother and sister?” I asked, eyes wide.

  Lily rolled her eyes. “What did you think they were?”

  My face heated. “Jordan said they were cousins. How was I supposed to know they weren’t?”

  Shaking her head, Lily sighed. “You always were so gullible.”

  “I get it, you’re smarter than me, but there’s two of us now. If we work together, I’m sure we can find a way out of this. We just need to come up with a plan-”

  “Just let it go, Calla. There’s no way we’re getting out of here. You might as well just accept your fate,” she said, climbing under the covers and rolling to face the wall.

  “Lily-”

  “I’m done, Calla. I’m tired of fighting. There’s nothing left for me to fight for anyway. I’m just… tired. Please leave me alone.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, anything that would change her mind, but I couldn’t think of anything. Lily had been here for so long that she was ready to give up - if she hadn’t already. Nothing I could say or do would make a difference right now, not unless I gave her hope, and right now, I didn’t have much of that myself.

  NINE

  Walking around the makeshift house, I was surprised at how many functioning appliances there were. From what I could tell, the microwave, hotplate, coffee pot, and even the blender all worked. They were bolted to whatever surface they’d been placed, but they worked, even the television in the living room worked. It looked like it only received basic cable channels, but a DVD player was attached with a very large selection of movies and series to watch. The fact that there was not a working phone present did not come as a surprise, however.

  When I opened the door to what I presumed was my bedroom, I only barely managed to contain my anguished cry to see that it too looked exactly like the one from our childhood home. Sucking in ragged breaths, I forced myself to close the door and return to the living room. It was the most normal room in the place, all things considered, and it was the most unlikely room to give me a panic attack.

  After my precursory self-tour, I moved over to peruse the bookshelf sitting aga
inst the wall next to the television. To my dismay, it held all of my and Lily’s favorite books. Mom read to us before bed almost every night growing up. It led to our love of reading today. My stomach lurched to think of what someone would have to do to get this much information about us. How long had they been watching us before now?

  A knock on the main door made me jump, and I spun to face whoever was entering. Back to the wall, an overwhelming sense of demise filled my mind. With nowhere left to go, I reached behind me and grabbed a book from the shelf. At the very least, I would go down fighting.

  “Do us both a favor and put down the book, Calla. I’m not here to hurt you, so the least you could do is give me the same courtesy,” Jordan said as he entered, shutting the door behind him.

  “You mean like you hurt my sister?” I asked, glaring at the man.

  Jordan put his hands up, palms out as if he was calming an irritable child. “I never laid a hand on your sister. I had nothing to do with her being here, that was all Jaelyn and my father. You were always my favorite,” he said with a reassuring smile, taking a step in my direction.

  My hands tightened into fists at my sides as I held my ground. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  He stopped advancing, and I released a breath. “Of course,” he said.

  I swallowed hard, wishing that Lily was in here with me instead of us being separated by a closed door. Would Jordan do something when she could come out at any moment? Would she hear me if I screamed? Clenching my jaw, I fought the urge to call for help. Lily lived like this, with this fear and uncertainty, every day alone. If she could handle it, then so could I.

  “I’ve watched you for a long time, Calla. It took me a while to work up the nerve to talk to you, but I’m so glad I finally did,” he said wistfully.

  “I didn’t know you felt that way about me,” I said, feeling my pulse race in my head. “Why didn’t you say something before now?”