by Jette Harris
Grandpa, whom Heath Stokes had referred to as “the functioning alcoholic,” was not holding things together as well as Heather was. His new-found sobriety was not treating him well; He had been sick often over the past few days. He had not touched a bottle since she had moved in. He reckoned that was quite a feat for someone who hasn’t been sober a day since April 1975. Whenever he was in doubt as to what to do, he looked to his granddaughter. Her straight back and bowed head made him stand up straighter.
“How you doing, kid?” Grandpa asked when they were back in the car. She had barely spoken with him all week. They had always been so close. This distance added to the pain of losing his daughter; He didn’t want to lose his grand-daughter as well.
Heather sighed. “Do I really have to do this?” They were on their way to the reception. It was the last place on Earth she wanted to be. She just wanted to curl up in her old bed, in her parents’ house, with her heavy blanket pulled over her head.
Grandpa didn’t answer. Instead, he pursed his lips and clapped his hand over hers. “It’s not for you or me,” he reminded her. “Sometimes in life, you just have to… step away from yourself. Sometimes, you need to do things for others, even if it hurts.”
13
May, 2006
Heather’s head did not just ache; She felt as if her skull had been cracked open and scabbed over. She touched her head gingerly. Her scalp was tender. The hair around the wound above her ear was stiff and matted. When she opened her eyes, all she could see was white. Pushing up on her elbows, she pulled herself back against a wall. The room was about three feet wide and four feet deep. She could only see white because everything was white: white walls and white Berber carpet. The metal louvered door was also painted white. She leaned forward to peer through the slats, but they were angled the wrong way. Someone on the other side could see her, but she could not see out.
“Monica?” Her head throbbed as she spoke.
“Heather?” Monica’s voice was thick with tears, but she sounded relieved to hear a friendly voice.
“Are you OK?” As Heather stood, her head spun, giving her the sensation of teetering over. Putting her arms out to steady herself between the walls, she listened for where Monica’s voice was coming from. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not OK.” Monica began to sob. Her voice came from a short distance in front of the door. “He—he—” she paused, trying to control her voice. “He took my clothes...”
Heather froze as this new horror sunk in. Her chest tightened. To her surprise, she still had all of her clothes: her blood-splattered t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.
“Don’t worry: I’m coming to get you,” she assured her crying friend, “and we’re going to find your clothes.” She began to kick the slats.
“Stop!” a familiar voice hissed. “He’s gonna hear you.”
“Witt?” Monica cried.
“Just be quiet!” He was on the other side of the wall to Heather’s right.
Monica ignored his warning. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Who else is with you?” Heather whispered, leaning close to the corner.
“Z’s here.”
Heather’s heart fluttered. “Zachariah?” she called.
“You shouldn’t draw attention to yourself,” Z’s voice replied. “He’ll hear you, and he’ll pull you out.”
“What’s going on? What does he want?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Monica still did not bother to keep her voice down.
Silence fell. She could hear one of them shift.
“He’s a pervert,” Z broke the silence.
“Yeah, he—he does things…” Witt added.
“To you?” Monica demanded.
Witt was silent.
“To both of us,” Z confessed. Witt remained silent. Heather could hear him sniffling.
She thought for a moment. “Are you guys… wearing clothes?” she asked.
“He gave us robes.” Witt’s voice was still thick. “They don’t cover much.”
“I’m getting us out of here.” Heather kicked the slats again.
“No, you stupid bitch!” Witt growled, “He’ll hear you!”
She ignored him. After a few kicks, there was enough of a gap between the slats for her to reach through and grab the door handle. It was locked, but it was just a turn-button lock. She shoved the door open with such force, she collided with Avery Rhodes’s bare chest.
She froze, staring up into his black eyes. Any words, any scream stuck in her throat. The next thing she knew, she was on the floor and he was tearing Taser nodes from her torso.
Rhodes pulled her to her feet. Her muscles were tense and charged. She lashed out, but he grabbed her arm, twisting it behind her. She shrieked as the tendons stretched to their limit and the joint threatened to pop from its socket. Using her shirt collar and arm, he steered her out the door and onto a second-floor landing. Twisting to pull herself free, she stumbled. He began to drag her. She caught glances of the house as she was dragged: a banister over a library, a spiral staircase, and several other doors. In her terrorized state, she imagined they all hid little closets filled with children.
Rhodes pulled her to her feet and shoved her through a doorway opening onto a short, dark hallway. He kicked the door shut behind them. At the end of the hall was another white room containing a bed, a bedside table, and a wicker chair in the corner. Facing him, Heather caught a glimpse of his dark eyes and raised fist before he slammed it into her head. She hit the floor. The tender place on her scalp radiated with pain and a strange stretching sensation.
The room reeled as he lifted her and dropped her onto the bed. She had the sudden sensation she was sinking into the plush mattress. She fought to sit up, but he climbed on top of her.
“No,” she groaned, trying to push him away. He smiled, slapping her hands aside as if they were play-fighting. Her movements were uncoordinated. She felt him jerking at her limbs. She was becoming increasingly colder; He was stripping away her clothes. He kissed and bit her skin as he worked his way down. Whenever she attempted to push his head away, he would look up at her with a mocking smile. As he wrestled with her jeans, she caught him in the side of the head with her knee. He grunted, then retaliated by sinking his teeth into the soft skin of her thigh. She bellowed in pain.
After tearing her jeans off, he tried unsuccessfully to use his hips to wedge between her legs. Baring his teeth, he forced his fingers between her thighs and attempted to pry them apart. She strained against him with burning muscles. Her powerful legs refused to open to him. Emboldened by this little triumph, Heather grabbed his face and dug her thumbnails into his eyes. Grabbing her wrists, he was able to clutch them in one fist and pin them over her head. He wrapped his other hand around her throat.
“Just relax.” His gentle tone was not persuasive. “Open your legs.” He tightened his grip in frustration. “None of your friends were this obstinate… Open—your—legs.”
As his hand squeezed tighter, she gasped for air. Her muscles were becoming weak. Her vision faded. The last sensation she felt was Rhodes’s hand forcing itself between her legs once more. Before he could slide it up, Heather was somewhere else, floating very far away.
14
July, 2003
There was nowhere for Heather to hide. The pumps she had stolen from her mother’s closet pinched her feet; A blister had developed on her little toe and the back was rubbing her heel raw, to the point it had started to bleed. The only black dress she owned was made of a heavy, synthetic material not designed for humid, ninety-six degree days. She squirmed as sweat ran down her back and between her breasts. She was surrounded by faces she had never seen before. People she had never met before wanted to stop and tell her how incredible her mother or father had been when they were in high school, or at some job she had never even known they had held. Her throat was tight. She steadied her shaking hands by clutching a cup, long drained. She feared if she opened her mouth, it would
open a floodgate of tears. She perfected the art of smiling and nodding.
One of her father’s Georgia Tech professors was describing Heath’s leadership qualities when Heather saw something out of the corner of her eye. Trying not to appear disinterested (or worse, rude), she scratched the back of her neck to cover her glance out the front window. There was a small group of people standing on her lawn. They weren’t wearing black or looking solemn; They were wearing bright colors and jumping around, waving their arms at the house.
Heather took a deep breath, feeling something warm in her chest for the first time since the night of the accident. “I’m sorry,” she interrupted the man’s reminiscence. “I’m not—I’m not feeling very well.” She backed away, then shot toward the stairs.
Grandpa emerged from the kitchen, catching her with her foot on the bottom step. “Heather?” His eyes were watery, his voice strained.
A pang of guilt struck her, but her heart was racing at the prospect of escape. Her mind froze as she searched for an excuse. “I—I can’t do this anymore,” she stammered.
He looked at her solemnly, then stroked her hair. Nodding, he faced the crowd in his living room as she raced upstairs. He was accustomed to people staring at him, the drunken war hero; It was their sympathetic expressions now that made him uncomfortable.
Monica’s mother, Lauri Shatterthwaith, was the first to question Heather’s absence. With Thi gone, Lauri did her best to fill her friend’s shoes as a maternal figure. This was not easy with a newborn, three small children, and a teenager constantly reminding her of her own mortality.
Rescuing Tex from a group of weeping biddies, she whispered, “Where did Heather disappear to?”
“Uhhh…” While he was searching for an answer, he heard a thud upstairs. He hadn’t heard that sound in twenty years, but he knew what it meant. He glanced out the window just in time to see Heather, dressed in her running clothes, jump off the roof—not even bothering to climb down the old magnolia, as her mother once had. She didn’t pause when she hit the ground, but landed lightly and shot off toward the group waiting on the lawn. It was the track team. As they stampeded away, one at the front dropped a white sign with bold, black print:
GRAB YOUR SNEAKERS!
“She wasn’t feeling well,” Tex lied, “so I sent her upstairs.”
15
May, 2006
When Z first woke in the house, his mouth hurt. His tongue was dry, and he could taste stale blood. He remembered hitting the pavement, but could not recall what came after. At first, he thought he was chilly because the room was cold. He gasped when he realized he wasn’t wearing clothes. Jumping up, he hit a wall. His head throbbed. The white paint was glaring. Rust-colored streaks appeared on the wall where his skin had broken on the pavement when he fell.
Without even trying the doorknob, Z kicked the door in front of him. It shuddered thunderously. He kicked it again, and it flew open. As soon as he stepped beyond the threshold, he was thrown back by a sharp, stinging pain across his chest. It knocked the breath out of him. Falling to his knees, coughing and wheezing, he looked up.
It took Z a moment to recognize Avery Rhodes without any clothes on. He stood in the doorway, a telescoping baton in his hand. That explained the baton-shaped burning across Z’s chest. The man glared down at him.
Z remembered what had happened in the parking lot after he had hit the ground. He had jumped back up, innervated by the jolt from the Taser. Before he could reach Rhodes, he shocked him again, then once more as he was writhing on the ground. The man smiled down at him. He had whipped out the baton with a thnk! and smacked him across the head with it.
Rhodes hadn’t even hit him that hard.
Not like in the white room. The pain in his chest was so acute, his muscles refused to cooperate when he commanded them to move. Rhodes surveyed the damage to the door frame, then the door.
“Couldn’t wait your turn, could you?”
“What?” Z intended to ask, but all that came out was a short pant: “Wh—wh—wh—?”
There was movement just beyond Rhodes’s naked body. Witt milled along the opposite wall, trying not to look at Z. He was wearing a white silky robe. Z looked back up at Rhodes. The scene was so surreal, his head began to throb again.
Rhodes swung the baton back, making Z flinch, but the man was simply motioning for Witt to enter the door opposite. He did so obediently. There were streaks of blood on the back of his robe and crusted down his legs.
As soon as the door clicked closed, Rhodes turned back to Z. “Now, it’s your turn.”
“What?” the word finally exploded forth. Z jumped to his feet. Rhodes maneuvered behind him, pressing the baton against his throat and pulling it tight with the crook of his elbow. Z tried to shout, but he could only rasp, “—off—Get—the fuck—off—”
“Yes…” Rhodes hissed. “You have the right idea.” He jerked the naked boy toward the door. Z threw his weight to the side. Stumbling, he fell to his knees.
“Very well,” Rhodes said. He pressed the baton against his back, and shoved him down to the floor.
16
When Heather regained consciousness, sunlight was filtering in through the window. Her stomach contracted and bile rose in her throat. Rolling off the bed, she fell to her hands and knees and dry-heaved. She stood, coughing, and staggered into the hallway. There was a small bathroom on the left. She threw herself at the toilet to avoid letting loose upon the floor.
She vomited until her ribs ached, adding more pain to her already-taxed body. When the sickness subsided, she pulled herself up to the counter and leaned over the sink. Turning on the cold water, she wiped her face and rinsed out her mouth. She was incredibly thirsty and hungry, but didn’t think she could ever eat again for the sickness. Her throat felt tight and rough, as if someone had rubbed it over with sandpaper. Her nose burned from the vomit.
Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, Heather froze. Slowly, she stood upright. Her face was flush and sweaty, but her body was pale and chilled. Her nose throbbed. There was a bright red rift where it had fractured. Her flesh had been vandalized: hickeys on her breasts, bite marks, bruises—the imprint of furious hands—on her throat, wrists, and thighs. She felt like she was going to be sick again, or, worse, begin to cry. Before her body could decide which, Rhodes walked in.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” he said with the affectionate tone of a lover. He didn’t appear to notice her state of shock.
Snatching a towel from the rack, she threw herself against the far wall. She tried to cover her body, but it was just a hand towel, too small to be very effective. As he stood in front of the toilet and urinated, she stared at the opposite wall. When he was done, he snatched the towel from her, wiped his genitals, then tossed it on the floor.
Heather used her arms to cover her breasts and crossed her legs as well as she could without compromising her balance. Rhodes leaned so close to her, she could feel the heat radiating from his body, but he didn’t touch her. She refused to look him in the eye. She forced herself to continue staring at the wall.
“I enjoyed last night very much,” he said gently. “I really wish you had been conscious for it.”
Closing her eyes, she shook her head. Rhodes reached up to touch her cheek, but she jerked away. He grabbed her face and forced her to look him in the eye.
“Now I know,” he said, “who the trouble-maker will be. I may have to kill you first.”
First? Heather stopped struggling. He could see the question in her eyes and smiled.
“But it was great fun,” he chuckled. Grabbing her arm, he dragged her out of the bathroom. She struggled clumsily, still trying to cover her body. She feared he was going to throw her back on the bed, but he turned to the bedroom door, unlocking it with one of the keys dangling from his neck. He pulled her back to the White Room, on the opposite side of the landing.
The door to Heather’s closet-sized room had been reinforced by several flat bars. Even if sh
e did break the slats again, there was not a gap big enough for her to reach her arm through. He shoved her in and slammed the door shut.
Heather pressed her bruised body into the corner. In the stillness and silence, she could not block out the pain: She felt torn and stretched. The sensations painted a vivid picture of what Avery Rhodes had done to her. Hot rage and choking shame flooded her chest as images played through her mind. She could not block them out. Sinking to the floor, she finally began to cry.
17
Heather cried herself to sleep. She woke to Rhodes opening her door. She hugged her knees to her chest. He ignored her with no more than a cursory glance. He placed a Styrofoam bowl inside the door, then shut her in again. She heard the other doors open and close, followed by shuffling and scraping.
The bowl was full of oatmeal. She had never been a fan of oatmeal. The sight of it twisted her stomach. Every muscle in her body was sore and screaming. Breathing was painful. Eating would be impossible. She dropped her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. The pain was just beginning to fade back into sleep when the door opening again made her start.
Rhodes looked down at the bowl. “You’re not eating. You need to eat.” Heather shook her head. He crouched before her. “Did you just shake your head at me?”
“No.” Her face burned for such a cowardly response. She forced herself to relax. “Yes.” She sat up a little straighter. “I can’t eat right now. My—my throat hurts. I won’t be able to swallow.” Rhodes did not look satisfied with this answer. “I should be able to eat tomorrow,” she conceded.