Page 8 of The Last Lost Girl

She shakes her head. “You can’t come with me, though. You don’t belong there.”

“I don’t belong here, either,” I tell her, throwing my arms out. “Yet here I am.”

She sighs. “I know.”

Belle has told me that for as long as I can remember. She says it was the first thing she said to me after crouching down and asking if I was lost. She tucked my hair behind my ear and told me that a busy intersection wasn’t where I belonged. Then she asked if I’d like to go and look for my parents and walked me across the road to a nearby park, where she found it empty.

four

I know I’ll be late if I don’t leave now, but I can’t bring myself to pick up my bag and walk out the door. The soles of my Chucks seem impossibly heavy. I don’t want to leave Belle alone, but I don’t really have a choice. The rent and bills that are nearly due pirouette through my mind, but even their impending due dates do nothing to stanch the feeling in my gut that says she shouldn’t be left unsupervised.

“I’ll do what you asked,” she breezily vows, trying to assuage my unease.

“What’s that?” I ask, then nibble my thumbnail.

“I won’t set another fire or try to fly away while you’re gone. I’ll at least wait until the end of your shift so I can hug you and say goodbye properly.” She bobs her head resolutely, decidedly.

I narrow my eyes. “And the cat?”

She slips a sly glance toward the door. “Don’t worry about him.”

“Belle,” I warn.

“Fine,” she relents, then amends, “I certainly won’t bother him – while you’re gone.”

I don’t miss the fact that she doesn’t promise not to eat him when I return, but that’s a battle for later. And if I’m home, I can intervene then.

My eyes narrow when I consider how she answered… so confidently. As if it might be impossible for her to even think about flying, fires, or Garfield. I wonder if the shadow is placating me so I’ll leave and he’ll have Belle’s broken mind all to himself. “How can you promise to remember all of that?”

“I won’t need to remember. I’ll be sleeping.”

“You’re tired this early?”

“Nope. I took sleeping pills,” she answers with a shrug.

Just like that, a new fear is unlocked in my heart. Would the shadow tell her to take the whole bottle? Had she already? “Where did you get sleeping pills?”

She rolls her eyes. “At the pharmacy, silly.”

“When?”

“Yesterday, I think. Or maybe the evening before,” she ponders.

She obviously has no idea. “I want to see them.”

With a groan, she leads me to her room and dramatically opens the drawer of her nightstand. And there they are, a clear plastic bottle of blue liquid-gels that promises to softly guide her to sleep. “I’ve already taken them, so I’ll be asleep before you know it.”

I blink at her. Just when I think it can’t get worse…

The bottle isn’t quite full.

“How many did you take?”

“Seven,” she answers brightly.

The proper dosage is two. And she took seven. SEVEN.

I snatch the bottle and stuff it into my pocket.

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