Now they’re starting to notice. What feels like hundreds of cameras and people whip my way. There’s a hush for one moment, then the noise starts back up as questions spill across the front yard at me.
“Get away from her!” I try waving away the stragglers still hovering around Sam’s car. When that doesn’t work, I shove them. “Get away. Just leave her the hell alone.”
When one of the guys I push away trips and lands on the grass, there’s another hush of silence. I look up to see them all staring at me, cameras rolling like I’m a spectacle and nothing else.
“This is what you want, right?” I lift my arms and shout. “This is what you’ve been waiting for? To confirm just how messed up I am now?”
I spin and wave at the man I just knocked on his ass. Flashes fire around me. I feel like with each one, a little of my soul is taken.
“To see just how positively fucked up I’ll be the rest of my life? To see what ten years of being held against my will has done? To see this?” I shake my hair behind my back and draw a line with my finger across my neck.
Photos fire faster. The street has become a giant flashing strobe.
“My family’s been through enough! The people I care about have suffered enough.” I think about the article on Torrin. Lava replaces the blood in my veins. “Can’t you see that?!”
That’s when I drop to the ground because I can’t hold myself up anymore. Adrenaline got me out the door, but now that I’ve burned through that, there’s nothing left to keep me going.
“I’ve been through enough.” I cup my face in my hands. “Just leave us alone.”
The noise blasts through me, encapsulating me at the same time. Questions fire at me, but I’ve given all I have to give. I don’t have anything left.
The front door’s not far, but it feels like I’ll have to cross an ocean to reach it. I can’t stand. I don’t think I can crawl. I’m stuck. Every flash going off catches another shot of me losing myself on the front lawn of the house I grew up in.
I wonder if there’s an inner circle in hell reserved for reporters too. After my experience with them, I think there must be.
When I feel a couple of hands reach for me, I startle.
It’s my mom, and she’s smiling at me with strength in her expression. “Come on, Jade. Let’s go.”
As she starts to help me up, another pair of hands reaches for me from the other side. It’s Sam. She’s not crying anymore.
“I can’t get up,” I say when I test my legs. If I had muscles in them a minute ago, they’re gone now.
“I know,” Sam says, guiding me up with my mom. I drape an arm around each of their shoulders as they turn our backs to the cameras and guide me toward the house. “We’ll help you.”
SINCE I BROKE my silence with the media, I decide to do the same with the police. The detectives working my case have been patient, and unlike the home-wrecking media, I think their reasons for wanting to know what happened to me are legitimate.
The detectives agreed to meet at my house, and even though they said I could have whomever I wanted present during the interview, I’ve decided to do this on my own. My decision practically sends Dad into cardiac arrest. I guess that to him, it feels like I’ve just benched the captain of the team when the championship game is going into sudden death overtime.
Torrin would have been here if I’d asked, but I didn’t ask. I couldn’t ask. Not with everything I’ve already done to him. After the article in the newspaper a few days ago, I’ve tried to build a little distance between us. I don’t want to do that—we’ve had ten years of “distance”—but I have to. It’s what’s best for him.
I know he was confused when I said I was too tired to go out the other day or when I wouldn’t come to the phone when Mom told me he was on the line, but confusion can fade—a ruined reputation can’t.
Mom set up the farm table in the kitchen with mugs and a coffee pot. She even baked cookies and lit a candle like she was trying to make the interview a little easier on me. I appreciate her efforts even though I know the only way the interview will be easier on me is if it never happens.
I know the detectives are here when the noise from outside rumbles to a roar. The damn vampires do the same thing when the delivery driver shows up. After my display in the front yard, they’ve gotten a taste for blood that won’t be satisfied until they’ve drained me of every last drop.
I don’t feel far away from that last drop.
Dad greets them at the door, and I hear footsteps echo closer. I’ve taken the seat at the table closest to the door because I want to be able to escape if I need to. I need to know I’m not trapped.
I’ve got on an oversized cowl-neck sweater, even though it’s summer, because of the scar. I caught a glimpse of one of the photos taken that day on the lawn, and it made my scar look different than what I saw in the mirror.
I didn’t know how large and ugly it was until I saw it in a photo.
I asked Mom to pick up a few tops that would cover it, and she did. She picked up a few colorful scarves too.
“Miss Childs, good to meet you,” a woman in a charcoal suit says as she and who I guess is her partner approaches.
Dad lingers in the doorway for a moment before leaving with a sigh.
“I’m Detective Reyes, and this is Detective Burnside. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us.” She holds out her hand for me to shake, then something flickers on her face.
She’s about to lower her hand when I grab it. I shake it gently. Even though touching others has gotten easier, it still burns a little. Kind of like an arm waking up after sleeping on it all night.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to do this.” I reach for the pot of coffee and pour some into all of our cups. Mom left cream and sugar out, but none of us take any. “Thanks for your patience.”
Detective Reyes is clearly taking the lead in the interview since, other than smiling at me and sliding into a chair across from me, Burnside hasn’t said a thing. I wonder if that’s because the department thought putting a female on the case would make it easier on the victim. I wonder if everyone sees me as being so damaged I won’t trust another man again.
Maybe they’re right. I don’t know.
Burnside pulls a recorder out of his jacket and sets it on the table. I stare at the thing I’m about to spill my soul out to, and I wonder if when I’m done, I’ll feel better or worse. I think I know.
“First off, how are you doing?” Reyes takes the lead with the questions as I’d guessed she would. Burnside’s probably just here as a formality.
“I’m okay,” I say on autopilot. My expression even knows the way to form so I seem convincing. “Each day gets a little easier.”
When Reyes nods at me, I get the impression she knows my secret though. She knows, but she doesn’t say anything.
“We’d like to ask you some questions. I realize some of them might be uncomfortable for you, so just take as much time as you need, okay? We cleared our schedules for the rest of the day, so we’ve got nowhere to rush off to. Take as long as you need.”
The thought of spending the rest of the day with these detectives, answering questions about those ten years, makes the room sway. I have to grip the edge of my chair to stay in it. I take a breath and nod. I’m not ready, but that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone anymore.
“The night you were taken, how did Jackson get you into his van?” Reyes folds her hands on the table and waits.
No one’s taken a drink of his or her coffee. No one’s sneaked a cookie from the plate in the middle of the table.
“He said he was lost. Had a map and was trying to find Driscoll Street.” I swallow and try to remember without reliving the scene. “When I got close enough, he injected me with something. I don’t know what, but it made me foggy right away, and then my body kind of gave out, and after that . . . I don’t know how long I was blacked out.”
“When you woke up, where were you?”
I try to figure out how to keep my voice as emotionless as Reyes’s. “In a dark closet. I didn’t know it was a closet at first, or that it was inside his house, but that’s where I woke up. I don’t know if it was hours or days later. I’m guessing days.”
The essence of the panic I awoke with floats up from the place where I’ve tried to bury it. My breaths quicken.
“And how long did he keep you in the closet?”
“I don’t know.”
“What would you guess?” Reyes presses.
I want to tell her what dark like that does to a person. How direction and time and everything are lost and totally meaningless. “I don’t know.”
“Weeks? Months?” Reyes pauses. “Years?”
I don’t know, so I go with answer B. “Months, I think.”
“And what did you do during this time?”
Besides survive? “I screamed a lot at first, thinking someone might hear me. Then I moved on to crying. Then I gave up on that and mostly just slept.”
“And what did Jackson do during this time you were in the closet?”
I know what she’s asking. I thought this had been clear and confirmed by the hospital tests, but apparently no one can believe that I spent ten years with the man who kidnapped me and wasn’t molested in some way.
“Nothing. I mean, he talked to me. Brought in fresh water and food and a fresh bucket, but that was all the contact I had with him at first.”
“What did he talk about?”
I stare at the recorder. A little red light flashes on it, and I watch that until it puts me into a trance. “He called me Sara. He referred to me as his daughter. He talked about memories of them going to the park, the time he taught her to swim. He said that he wasn’t going to let anyone take me away from him again. He promised he’d keep me safe.”
“And did you say anything back?”
I blink, focusing on the red light again. “At first I tried to convince him that I wasn’t his daughter and to let me go, but after a while, that dark closet just kinda broke me. By the end, I would have said anything, been anyone, just to get out of it.”
Burnside shifts in his chair.
“When he finally let you out, what happened then?” Reyes continues.
Even though she doesn’t have a notepad in front of her, I can tell she’s crossing off questions one at a time.
“Um . . .” I rub my neck and tug at the neck of the sweater. “He chained me up. At first the chain was only long enough to move around a bedroom, but as time went by, he kept adding a little more length until I could move around most of the first floor.”
“Did he ever take the collar off of you?” Reyes glances at my neck, but her eyes don’t linger there.
“No. Never. I slept in it, showered in it. It never came off.”
“So you never had a chance to escape? To get away from him?” Reyes’s index finger taps the table like she’s knocking at something.
“Never.”
Her finger stops tapping. “So you weren’t aware that when we found you, the end of chain wasn’t tied up to anything?”
My throat goes dry, but I know I’ve heard her wrong. “What?”
Burnside and Reyes exchange a look.
Reyes leans in closer. “The other end of the chain you were tied to wasn’t connected to anything. It was just sitting on the basement floor. There was a padlock attached to one of the links, but we have no idea when Jackson unlocked it.” Reyes pauses, looking at me. “Do you?”
The ground feels like it’s crumbling beneath my chair. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you right.” I shake my head, trying to clear it. “Did you just say I wasn’t chained to anything when you found me?”
That can’t be what she said. I know I heard her wrong. There’s no way he took off the lock keeping me there so I could get away. There’s no way he would have chanced me getting away . . . unless he knew that I’d accepted the chain and would never try to fight it . . .
God, I’m the baby elephant. Actually, I’m the adult elephant whose will to fight’s been crushed.
Whatever’s left of my soul detaches and dissipates into the dark.
“When we found you, no, the chain wasn’t attached to anything. You weren’t tied to anything that would have forced you to stay there.” Reyes exhales, and I can tell from the way her expression falters that this next question will be a hard one. “Did Jackson ever leave the house?”
I nod, knowing where she’s going.
“Why didn’t you try to escape, Jade? Why didn’t you try to get away?” For the first time, I hear emotion in Reyes’s voice.
My head is spinning, and I feel like I’ve just been thrown in that closet again. All sense of time and direction and meaning drain from me. I’m floating in a black vacuum.
“I didn’t know . . . I didn’t try. I just stopped trying after a while and gave up.” My voice is shaking, but I’m not crying. I think this is what shock feels like.
“So you don’t think Jackson freed your chain because he was letting you go?” Reyes asks.
My head lowers. “No, he did it because he knew he’d broken me.”
Ten Years Ago
I’VE HEARD IT said that love makes us weak. It makes us weak because our survival instincts, along with our reasoning, become dulled. We first consider every move through the filter of that love. In a way, what we love makes us better people, more intuitive and less impulsive.
In another way, it makes us worse. It turns us into an immoral, corrupt being that knows no bounds when it comes to protecting what it loves.
I’ve come to accept that what we love makes us weak. I’ve learned something else on my own though, ever since becoming a prisoner of this black room—what we love is what kills us too.
I want to die. My will to survive has been extinguished. My hope of being found has been consumed by this black world. Even my anger has been tempered into something so dull I can’t feel its heat boil in my veins anymore.
I’ve been missing for weeks. Maybe months. Hopefully not years, but I know that along with hope, I’ve lost all sense of time. The chance of finding a missing person after one week is one in one hundred. The chance of finding a missing child in my situation after the same time is one in one thousand.
Every day that ticks by, those odds get worse. Every second that ticks past feels like another nail pounded into my coffin. I’m dead to the world. I’m practically dead to myself.
A few sleeps ago, I woke up and couldn’t remember my name. It passed in a few moments, but in that span of grappling for my name, I came to realize that I’m slowly breaking away. Piece by piece is falling into a black abyss I’ll never be able to collect them from. They’re gone forever.
Nothing can be plastered into those crumbled places either. Nothing. So when the last of me crumbles away, I’ll just be gone. Too empty to even become a ghost.
Gone. That’s what I feel like.
Dead. That’s what I wish I could be.
I haven’t screamed in dozens of sleeps—that’s how I now measure time, in sleeps—because screaming doesn’t do anything but hurt me. I’ve stopped kicking at the walls in hopes someone will hear because hope was the first thing to wither. I don’t claw at the walls anymore, looking for a weak spot, because I know the only weak thing in this black world is me.
What I love has made me weak.
It’s what I’m holding on to that’s responsible for wishing myself dead. If it weren’t for the life I had that I’m still clinging to, this wouldn’t be such a stark contrast. If it weren’t for everything and everyone I loved back in that life, I wouldn’t feel like I’ve been dropped into the worst place on earth.
Maybe if I don’t cling to that life so hard . . . maybe if I don’t hold onto those people I loved . . . maybe if I don’t still grasp how crazy I loved him, this will be easier. Maybe if I build a wall between the two worlds, I can find some shadow of a new life.
Maybe if I saw at that life and them and h
im until I’ve severed the connection, I can move on . . . to whatever life this is.
I cry again when I think that because I know I have to do it. It’s the only chance I have of being let out of this place that’s gnawing at the very marrow of my soul. I need out of here before I become one with the black, and I’ll never be able to accept this life while I’m holding on to the old one.
I curl up more tightly on the mattress. My muscles feel kind of dead from underuse, and my body feels the same. At the same time it feels softer, it feels bonier. I can count my ribs now, and I can’t lie on one side for too long or my hipbone starts to ache. My body, along with what it encases, is withering away.
I don’t have long—at least, I don’t think so. I’ve started sipping at the water now, and I’ve nibbled on the bars, but if it isn’t the lack of water and food that does me in, there’s no shortage of backups. For all I know, he’s planning to kill me. I know if I had access to something lethal, I’ve been in dark enough places that I’d do it. Lack of sunshine, lack of movement, lack of human interaction . . . I’m not sure if those can kill me, but they feel like they can.
“Sara.” That name. That voice. That trio of knocks on that thick door.
He’s wearing me down. He’s trying to break me down. Once he does that and I roll over, I’ll get something as a kind of reward. I know that. Yet another pro-con of growing up around cops.
I don’t know what that reward will be, but more will come if I continue to bend to his will. He demands. I submit. Reward. I know the whole point of bending is to get someone to their breaking point because once they’re broken, a person can build them back however they want.
I know he wants to break me. I know he wants to build me back into Sara, his daughter. I know that’s why he took me because if he did it for the typical reason men abduct young girls, that would have already been revealed. In that way, I don’t have to fear him, but at this point, bending to breaking and becoming Sara seems just as terrifying.
All I’ve got left of myself is my name and the images of the life I had. If I become Sara, all of that goes. If I bend, then I’ll break, and a knife will run across the throat of that whole life.