Page 7 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

I feel exhausted but good for the first time in a long time. All day I’ve been looking forward to turning on the laptop again in the evening and learning more about the blonde girl. I vowed not to read all of her previous posts all at once, but to divide them up like a box of chocolates. As if I had to save parts of her life for bad times. Plus, this way I’ll have something every day that helps me get through the night.

After the meal, I put batteries in the plastic ceiling light, place it on the wooden table for now and take down the two oil lamps. Just in case I black out again, I lock them in a closet along with anything else that can break. Finally, it’s time to boot up the laptop that I placed near the stove an hour earlier so it isn’t quite so cold.

I log in to my temporary profile that I created last night. Ben Hoover, not Brendan Connor. No personal information, no profile picture. With a pounding heart, I click on the Louisa bookmark.

She swapped her header. Today, Louisa is standing under an apple tree and laughing with the sunshine. The twinkle in her eyes looks like a rising star in the northern sky.

I take a deep breath. If I have another attack now, it must be her. Then, I should not be looking at her. All day long, this fear of a new attack has bothered me alongside all the anticipation. I just can’t figure out what could have triggered the flash. Hopefully not her, just the overexcitement of my rusty nerves.

Without taking my eyes off of her, I pull out a cig and light it. After a while, when nothing happens, my concern eases and I read through the information she shared about herself in the profile.

My friends call me Lou.

I have to smile. It feels strange, like a frown. Okay, Lou it is. I’ll call you Lou if you like.

Age: 16

Luckily not fourteen or fifteen, I would have been scared of myself.

Favorite color: pink, yellow

Hated subject: math

Favorite subjects: sports and art

Hobbies: fashion, music, dancing

Just a real girl. Doesn’t like math and loves fashion and dancing. For some reason, I think that’s cute although it sounds naive and superficial. My gaze returns to her oval face. To her Alaskan-blue eyes. They shine so brightly, I shudder again. The hot-cold tingling pours from my stomach into my abdomen. It’s disturbing, I can’t remember the last time I felt something like this. Have I ever felt something like this before? I look at her again, shaking my head. She looks like there is nothing in her life that could harm her. Nothing she fears. Admirable.

After a while, I tear myself away and scroll down to her first post:

Hello, everyone, it’s me, Lou, soon to be 16 and on Facebook as of today. Finally! The best thing is: I already know that I’m going to love it. It took me three weeks to convince my brother of how harmless things are around here *rolling my eyes in exasperation*!

Oh, right, before I forget, send me a friend request if you are looking for friends and be sure to send me a message! Also: Is anyone here good at math? I need help with my homework—probability calculation *gag*!

One hundred and thirteen comments. Mainly from guys. Lou replied to a few, mostly to those offering to help her with math.

Hey, honey, you look so good I wanna take a bite of you. What are the chances you’d let me taste you once I do your homework for you? Greetings, Matthew.

Excuse me? This ass Matthew Fox looks like he’s in his forties. Luckily, Lou ignored him. Although…she liked the comment.

My pulse is pounding hard in my temples and I feel anger boiling up inside of me. I would love to leave a comment about his statement but the post is over a year old. I come across a few more silly pickup lines that Lou didn’t like. That’s good.

After reading through all the comments, I have to force myself not to look directly at the next entry. I scroll up again. She seems to be very active. The dates of the last posts confirm that she shares something new every day.

I have no idea how many hours have passed or how many cigarettes I’ve smoked. At some point, I even had to recharge the laptop’s battery. By now I have a pretty good idea of who the blonde girl with the blue eyes really is. I took some screenshots of her best photos and saved them in the Lou folder. She loves lemon cookies and chocolate donuts. She says she has four brothers. The one called Avery seems to be passionate about cooking. Lou posted pictures of her favorite meals that look like works of art and always wrote below: Chef Avery recommends today. Her favorite dish is spaghetti with sundried tomatoes, basil, pine nuts, and garlic.

She even posted a photo of another brother. Liam. Lou took the photo as he was doing a headstand in the garden and wrote below, Liam, the Buddha, Scriver. Oops, I hope I haven’t locked your soul in my phone now. If so, sorry! she captioned with a smiley face at the end.

Sometime that night, I force myself to stop reading. I find it a bit scary to be so intensely involved with only one girl, so I click on a few other profiles. But none of the young women speak to me. It’s like I'm bewitched. I keep coming back to Lou with her open laugh and shimmering blonde hair that looks like it’s reflecting a million rays of sunshine. How would it feel in my hands? How might Lou feel?

When I shut down the laptop, it’s two in the morning. The raven in the poplar tree opposite the log cabin is doing its usual squawking concert. It always does that around this time. Usually, it wakes me up from the nightmare where I am pounding my fists against Jordan Price’s face over and over again until blood runs down his nose and lips and he begins to stagger. And, like every time, I don’t stop. I give him a final hard uppercut to the chin. He doesn’t fall—he flies backward through the gloomy battle arena. I hardly notice anything anymore and only when the wild cheers of the spectators die down do I see the unnaturally twisted neck. Someone next to me whispers something and then everything’s quiet.

So quiet that even in my dreams I hear the crow’s caw like a death knell.

However, today it’s not Jordan Price who receives my punches, but Matthew Fox.

I ram my fists into his stomach and shout that I will kill him if he goes near Lou.

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