Never Tear Us Apart (Never Tear Us Apart #1)

  She’s lived there a year. The deed is in her name only. No guy. I’m assuming she doesn’t have a guy.

  I’m really fucking hoping she doesn’t have one.

  The interview is on right now—I’m watching it again because there’s something about Katie’s voice that soothes me. Gives me hope. Makes me yearn. We’d forged such a connection then, when we were young and felt like no one else understood us. Her parents severed that and I told myself it was for the best. I didn’t need her, didn’t want to need her, so I forgot about her.

  Or so I thought.

  Now I’m fucking obsessed. I want to meet the Katie of today and tell her I’m sorry. That I hope she’s happy. I want to ask her if the ghost of my father still haunts her.

  Because he haunts me. Constantly.

  “What are your plans for the future?” Lisa asks Katie. The interview is almost over.

  “Right now I just live day by day,” Katie responds, her sweet voice filling my head, invading my thoughts. I pause in my search and lift my head, studying her image on my TV.

  So beautiful. Her golden-blond hair is long and wavy at the ends and her blue eyes are dark, like a midnight sky. She looks innocent. Like an angel.

  She could be my angel. She could save me. If I could just see her, talk to her. Just once.

  “You must have some plans, don’t you? Things you wish for? A career? Marriage? Children?” Lisa persists.

  The flinch is there, so subtle I’m sure the average person wouldn’t notice.

  I do, though. I saw it. Her eyes flickered the slightest bit and a twinge made her wrinkle her nose. She didn’t like those questions.

  “I don’t know what’s in store for me. I’m going to school, living on my own for the first time, and I like it. I do hope that someday I will find someone, but I . . .” Her voice drifts and she’s silent for a moment. She bends her head, her hair falling in front of her face, and I watch, mesmerized yet again, even though I’ve seen this many times. “I’m not sure it’s in the cards for me,” she finishes softly.

  “What isn’t in the cards for you? Marriage?” Lisa is like a dog with a bone. She never lets go. Not until she gets what she wants. And she wants to sexualize Katie. In a nice way, in a proper way, with marriage and children and all the things we’re expected to do as good little citizens of the world.

  “All of it,” Katie says with a nod, lifting her head, her gaze meeting Lisa’s once more. “I don’t know if I’m capable of it. Of trusting anyone.”

  And that last sentence is what kills me.

  He ruined everything. Fucking everything for this girl. She trusts no one. She believes she can love no one. Worse, I wouldn’t doubt for a moment she thinks she’s unlovable.

  I can relate. I am unlovable. At least, that’s what I always believed, for all these years as I continued on and tried to find a new way to live my life. Not under the shadow of my father, who sits on death row almost gleefully. I wonder what he thinks of Katie’s interview.

  Because I’m sure he watched every single fucking second of it. Just like me.

  Just like me.

  He wasn’t coming back.

  I figured he was full of crap. A liar. I didn’t know who he was. Or what his name was, either. What did he want? How did he find me? I didn’t even know where I was. I caught a glimpse out of the storage shed’s dirty window the first night I was brought here, right before the man slipped the blindfold over my eyes and shrouded me in darkness. But all I saw was an empty backyard, with the exception of a lone, faded and chipped horse that looked like it came from a carousel leaning against the fence. Seeing that horse made me feel sad. It didn’t belong here.

  I didn’t belong here, either.

  The man hadn’t come back since early this morning. He brought me a donut for breakfast and I devoured it, not caring that the glaze was damp and sticky and that it tasted stale. I was starving. I was still starving. My stomach growled and I pressed my forehead against the wall, closed my eyes, and willed the hunger pains to go away.

  My mom’s face loomed in my mind and I squeezed my eyes closed even tighter, trying to cling to hope, to the future. I saw her face, Daddy’s face, my sister’s face, Sarah’s face, and I hoped they weren’t too worried about me. That they were looking for me. Were they? Would they find me? Would anyone find me?

  No.

  The tears came. Slowly. My eyes burned, my throat ached, and I swallowed the sob, forced it down like it was food and would sustain me for a little while longer. I needed something to sustain me. I’d lost all hope. He’d be back soon. He’d touch me, force himself on me, put his mouth on me, and oh my God . . .

  I banished the thoughts, the horror, the realness from my brain. Shuttered it closed, like I’d become so good at doing.

  When I shifted my legs, the chains were loud as they clanked against the floor and I winced at the twinge between my legs. I hurt everywhere, but especially there. I was bruised and battered, the inside of my thighs black and blue, my chest, my legs and arms . . .

  Marks everywhere. He was brutal in his handling of me. Like I was a rag doll, tossing me around, readjusting me, spreading my legs, moving my arms, tilting my head just so. He wanted me to look a certain way, every single time, and I didn’t understand it.

  I thought about his hands. Blunt fingers. Wide palms. The sound they made, like the crack of a gunshot when he slapped my face. The sting of my skin every time his hands made contact, the crawling just beneath my flesh, like little worms twisting along my muscles and bones, burrowing deeper inside me. I shivered, and fear made my stomach clench. He’d be here soon and I didn’t know if I could take another visit from him. I didn’t know if he could take another visit. After what happened last time . . .

  I tried to swallow. My throat was scratchy like sandpaper, the tendons enflamed. I had bruises there around my neck. I wouldn’t doubt if they were formed in the imprint of his fingers, five little marks on one side, five purplish smudges on the other. From when he choked me so hard my head hit the mattress with a dull thud again and again and I swore I was going to black out.

  I’d rather pass out. So I wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. I was already so tired of this. Exhausted. It had been only a few days. I’d lost count exactly how many, but I couldn’t stand it anymore. I needed to go. I needed to escape before he ended me for good—

  The door of the shed suddenly swung open, letting in a sliver of waning sunlight, and then it was gone, the door shutting with a foreboding, soft click. I went stiff, tried to hold my breath so I could hear him sneak in.

  The softness was what scared me the most. I’d rather he come blazing in here, his anger palpable, his voice loud. Instead, he crept in like a sneak. Like your worst nightmare come to life. Quiet and calculating, and with an eerie smile on his face.

  I kept my back to him, my muscles rigid despite my trembling. Everything inside of me ached and I pressed my dry, cracked lips together, trying to keep in the whimper that wanted to escape.

  “Hey.”

  At the sound of the soft male voice I whirled around. Shock and relief caused tears to spring into my eyes and I sagged against the wall. “You came,” I breathed.

  He moved toward me, the boy who I’d thought was a liar. I was wrong. He stood in front of me like my hero come to life, his dark eyes intent as he studied me, his mouth drawn into a thin line. My gaze dropped from his face to see he carried something I’d never seen before in his hand. It had long handles and the metal tip reminded me of pliers.

  It looked like a weapon. Like he could raise it above his head and smash it down on me in seconds.

  “A bolt cutter.” He lifted it up and I flinched, which he noticed. His gaze filled with pain, he settled on his knees at the edge of the mattress. “Come here—it’ll be okay. I won’t hurt you. I want to cut off the chain. First from your ankle, then your wrists. It’ll be easier that way.”

  Relief filled me again and my heart practically sang with hope. I moved a
way from the wall, thrusting my leg out toward him, desperate to be rid of the chain once and for all. I couldn’t miss the way he winced when he saw the bruises on my calf, my knee.

  My thigh.

  He ignored the bruises, the marks. His dark eyebrows scrunched together as he bent over my leg, his black-as-night hair falling over his forehead. The hair was unnaturally dark and I wondered if he dyed it.

  I also wondered why.

  “Tell me your name,” he huffed out as he reached for my ankle, his touch tentative as he maneuvered my foot just so. The action reminded me of him. Of the man who took me, and for a quick moment I seized up, my chest tight, my heart pounding.

  “Tell me yours first,” I whispered, the words rushing out of me, almost slurring together. My head felt woozy and I knew it was from lack of food. I was so hungry, so thirsty.

  He lifted his head, his gaze meeting mine once more. Dark and direct, serious and full of fear, he looked just as scared, just as unsure as I felt. “Will,” he whispered.

  “I’m Katie,” I whispered back, flinching when I felt the cold, thick metal of the tool as it curled around the chain and brushed against my skin.

  “Don’t move, Katie,” he warned me, his gaze dropping from mine once more so he could concentrate on the task at hand. I watched, too. Noted how his hands gripped the handles of the bolt cutter and he inhaled deeply, as if he needed to prepare himself. Give himself strength. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  My heart tripped over itself. That was the exact moment I knew this boy was my guardian angel, sent to protect me. Only me.

  He was mine.

  “So.” Dr. Sheila Harris folds her hands in her lap, the docile smile on her face unassuming. Nonthreatening. “How’s your week been? Have you been making progress toward your goals?”

  I tear my gaze away from hers, keeping it focused on my fingernails. My cuticles are a mess and I pick at them, tear one so hard I start to bleed. She asks me this question every single time I’m here, though the goals part is new, a reference to the conversation we had last week. “Oh, you know. The usual. I did an interview on national television with Lisa Swanson. No biggie.”

  “I saw the interview.” Amusement laces Dr. Harris’s tone. She’d known I was doing it. The interview had been a topic of discussion for a while. It was part of my plan. One of my goals in the hope that I’d find peace, find strength.

  Not sure if I agree with those goals, but I’m trying.

  “What did you think?” I ask.

  “I thought you were very brave,” she says, her tone now solemn. “You revealed more than I expected.”

  Lifting my head, I study her covertly. She’s watching me, that neutral smile still planted on her face, ever patient, ever kind. “I wanted to be completely honest and open.”

  “Do you think that was smart?”

  I think about it before I answer. “I’m not sure. It’s been crazy,” I admit. “All sorts of media outlets reaching out to me. Agents. Publicists. Magazines. Websites. They all want to talk.”

  “You didn’t think that would happen?”

  “I knew it would. That part didn’t come as a surprise.” I’d been fully prepared. Or so I thought.

  “What did, then? Come as a surprise?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. I’m lying. I just don’t want to admit that I thought I would feel better after I told my story. That I’d somehow feel purged clean. Stronger.

  The problem? I don’t feel any different than I did before the interview aired. Oh, at first I did. I felt relieved, like I purged it all out of me. But now? I’m the same. No different.

  Not healed.

  “A lot of people are curious,” Sheila states.

  “That definitely surprised me. The sheer number of people who’ve watched the interview and want to know more.” I stress the word more because it’s something they’ve said repeatedly. More of my story, more about my future, more about my past, more, more, more. I feel like I’m being torn in twenty different directions and I don’t know which way to go.

  “I don’t think you should’ve been surprised. The media gobbles this sort of story up. Look at those poor girls who were held captive all those years in Ohio. And Elizabeth Smart. Jaycee Dugard. The world was enthralled with their stories. They still are. Every one of them has published a book, done multiple interviews. Some speak in public venues. They’ve turned their tragedies into a message of hope and strength.”

  “I’m not sure I’m capable of that,” I admit.

  “It’s something we can work on, don’t you think? Not that you need to become a public figure, but trying to find that purpose? Digging deep and discovering your inherent strength? It’s in there, you know,” she says, her tone assured. Like I should never doubt her.

  “You really believe that?” I hate that I sound so full of doubt.

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know.” I heave a big sigh. “I sometimes wonder if it was a mistake, doing that interview.”

  “How do you feel at this exact moment?”

  “I wish I were a hermit,” I say without hesitation.

  Dr. Harris laughs softly. “You’re already a self-proclaimed hermit.”

  Ouch. I change tactics. “I wish I didn’t exist.”

  The laughter stops. “You don’t mean that.”

  I shrug. Give no verbal reply. It’s true. If I didn’t exist, I wouldn’t have to deal with any of it. I brought this on myself, so I have no one else to blame.

  That’s not true. I blame Aaron William Monroe for doing this to me. I wouldn’t still be suffering if he’d just murdered me and been done with it. Done with me.

  The thought alone makes me flinch, as if his rough, icy fingers are wrapped around my neck at this exact moment and are trying to choke the life out of me.

  “Are you all right?” Dr. Harris asks, and I say nothing. I’m sure she saw me flinch. She doesn’t miss a trick, my therapist.

  We remain quiet for a few minutes, the ticking of the clock that sits on a nearby bookcase the only sound. It drives me nuts, that repetitive tick-tock, tick-tock. I think she has it in here on purpose, to drive all of her patients insane so we have no choice but to fill the silence with our problems and troubles.

  Finally I can’t take it anymore.

  “I wonder sometimes what would’ve happened if he’d—killed me,” I admit, swallowing hard.

  “You’d be gone. There’s nothing to wonder. You’d have no future. You’d have been a dead twelve-year-old with a devastated family and a man would have been free to kill numerous other girls after you,” Dr. Harris says point-blank.

  She’s trying to shock me, convince me my train of thought is pointless without saying it out loud. She can’t tell me whether what I think is right or wrong. That goes against her counselor’s code or whatever.

  “Would it have been better, though?” I ask. “Not for my family. They would have suffered no matter what.” I think of my father, then immediately banish him from my mind. I’m still upset over the way he treated me, but there’s nothing I can do about that. He’s gone. “For me,” I add, lifting my head to meet her gaze. “Would it have been better for me?”

  Her face is impassive as usual. God, I wish this woman would show an iota of emotion. Just once. Though I guess this is what makes her so good at her job.

  “It would be over,” I continue. “Done, you know? I mean, look at me. I live a shell of a life. I rarely leave the house. I go to school from home. I don’t really have friends. A nonexistent social life with the exception of hanging out with my sister and her boyfriend on occasion, and that’s just lame. And of course, no man will ever want to . . .” Be with me. Touch me. Kiss me.

  My voice drifts and I clamp my lips shut, closing my eyes to ward off all the ugly thoughts. They bombard me at the worst times, always when I’m feeling low, knocking me even lower, taking my breath and my strength, all in one swoop.

  “Are you feeling lonely, Katherine?”
br />   I open my eyes and drop my head again, not wanting to see any sort of pity in her gaze, not even a glimmer. She may remain stoic most of the time, but every once in a while her eyes give her away. Just for a second, almost as if I imagined it. “Sometimes,” I admit.

  “You should try and get out more. Join a club or something,” she suggests.

  I start to laugh but there’s no humor in it. “Right. A club. Which one should I join? Do you think a surviving victims of serial killers group exists?”

  She ignores my sarcasm. “There are all sorts of support groups out there, Katherine. I’m sure you could find one that suits you and your needs. I have resources. Plenty of information I can send home with you.”

  Information she’s tried to shove on me before. No thanks. Not interested. “I can’t go out in public right now. People might recognize me.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to do the interview,” she points out, and that does it.

  I’m sort of pissed.

  “You’re right. I thought it would be therapeutic, considering these visits really aren’t.” I leap to my feet, my entire body shaking I’m so upset. “I should go.”

  Dr. Harris looks up at me, one brow lifted. “Do you think that’s wise?”

  “I don’t know.” I feel like I’m about to crawl out of my skin. “I don’t think it matters. I can’t help the way I feel.”

  “You’re conflicted.”

  “Always.”

  “Why?”

  I slump back into the chair, all the air leaving me, my lungs feeling deflated, my head spinning. “I don’t know. I want to live. I’d rather be dead. I want to be strong. It’s so much easier to be weak. I want to confront my fears and face them head on. I want to run away and pretend I don’t exist.”

  “But you do exist. You’re trying your best to be strong.” She leans forward in her chair and I want to shrink into mine. “First thing you tackled was the interview. Telling your story.”