Page 2 of Where We Ended

“We’re hiding.”

There was a loud commotion in the room next to ours, so I pulled on Natty’s arm until she was sitting next to me in the cabinet, then I shut the door.

“Who do you belong to?” I whispered, feeling her warm arm next to mine.

She whispered back, “Lilly. She told me to go somewhere for a while…she always tells me that when she has people come into her room. I saw this big dresser and wanted to hide inside it.”

Boots echoed on the floor right outside our wardrobe and then there was yelling. It was muffled through the cabinet, but Natty let out a small gasp of fear and huddled closer to me. I grabbed the dead flashlight and held it in my hand watching the door. I could use it as a weapon, even if it wouldn’t do much, it might do something.

“We just have to stay hidden until they leave, and then my mom will wake up and it will be okay.”

Natty’s small hand found mine and she squeezed tight.

“I’m scared.”

I looked over at her in the dark. “I’ll protect you.”

“What’s your name?”

There was another shout and then it sounded like someone’s boots were fading.

I waited until it was quiet again, and all I could hear was our breathing then I whispered,

“Silas.”

ONE

NATTY

PRESENT

It’s funny what you think about when you’re worried your life might be ending.

A favorite memory, a star speckled sky on a humid summer night. That first kiss. That last hug from a loving parent.

My tortured mind tossed up the image of a massive bullfrog, all green and slimy with large, cloudy eyes. The memory was so crisp and clear and agonizing.

So frustratingly annoying.

That frog was supposed to name me victor of the summer frog hunting championships. It had slipped through my fingers at the last second, making me the loser and crowned Silas as the winner.

It was such a stupid memory, but it was stuck there, like a broken record, running on repeat until all I could see were those bulbous eyes staring back at me from under the water. That moment wouldn’t have changed a single thing about my life, and yet I remember how badly I wanted to win. I just wanted Silas to see me best him at just one thing. Frogs weren’t his specialty, they were mine.

I was better at catching them, drawing them and even taking notes about them.

Which used to drive him crazy because keeping tabs on all the wildlife we’d come across out in the grove was his obsession.

He had to ask me for facts about them, and it used to make me feel a thousand feet tall.

I didn’t have a clue why that memory from over sixteen years ago was rotating like a carousel in my head. I was ten and felt like I was the coolest girl on planet earth, all because I felt like I knew more than my foster brother.

Maybe I needed that memory to ground me because if I thought about my current condition, I’d start to lose all hope. It was easier to focus on a competition my ten-year-old brain never got past than the fact that I had been kidnapped and was currently being held hostage.

It helped that I had a theory about this room.

While some might argue that the space didn’t really matter, knowing the details of my prison helped me make peace with my fate. It helped me feel in control.

I was nearly positive that I was being kept inside a garage…well at least in some respect. I had walked the length of the walls and knocked on each stud; there were no buttons or switches anywhere along the walls from what I found, but the space was empty and cold. I had found sealed water bottles along the floor, my boot tripping over them as I moved in the dark. Popping the lid, I would sip the water until it wasn’t entirely full, and then I’d set it down as a marker against the stud.

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