Page 1 of Bind Me

Prologue

SASHA

Daddy’s shouting, and I jolt awake on the plush red couch that’s still built like a fortress of pillows and toys.

My heart’s thumping loudly as his angry voice pierces the warm silence. It’s late afternoon, the sky outside the window bright in pinks and oranges, but inside our tiny living room, it feels like midnight.

Clutching Mr. Fluffy, my teddy bear, I get to my bare feet and stumble across the cold wooden floor to the back fly-screen door.

“Mommy? Daddy?” My voice is thin.

No one answers me, but my heart’s racing faster now that they’re arguing. Mommy’s always angry at us, which makes Daddy shout.

Things have been hard, I’ve heard them say in the past, but I hate that they yell all the time. I may be only six years old, but I understand plenty and know it has something to do with not having enough. I’m just not too sure what enough is, but I pray most nights for the universe to give us more enough so that they’d get along.

Looking outside through the fly-screen door, I see them all the way down by the water’s edge, where the river rushes past our backyard. Our house is all by itself in the woods. Our neighbors, who have a cat I play with, are a long walk down the river, so they won’t hear them. Mostly out here, any noise is just from cicadas and frogs.

Daddy’s arms slice through the air, animated and angry. I’ve never seen him so mad, not even when I spilled paint on the carpet in my room. Mommy stands there, her back as straight as the tall trees that line our property, but her face is wrong… like she’s wearing a mask, one that smiles with no warmth, no love. No Mommy in it.

A gust of wind tugs at the curtains on the open window, drawing my attention. When I look back outside, Mommy is stepping toward him, her hands reaching out, trying to hold him like she always does. But he’s shaking his head, stepping away from her.

“I don’t even know you anymore,” he shouts loud enough for me to hear the words. “How many have you taken so far?”

What is he talking about?

I just want to yell, to tell them to stop, to tell them I’m hungry, and to ask when dinner is. My voice feels like I’ve got peanut butter stuck in my throat. They’ve told me before not to butt into their talks. They are for adults only.

Daddy is shouting again. Then he grabs her by the arm and starts to drag her toward the house, his face red, as if he’s about to turn into one of those monsters he says don’t really exist.

My breaths are going too fast now, and my hand is on the door handle, pushing down on it.

“You need help.” Daddy’s voice is a thunderstorm, loud and scary. “How could you let yourself be used like that?”

Is Mommy sick? Did someone hurt her? The idea has my stomach cramping up. She’s smiling strangely again, and the breeze has the hairs on my arms lifting. Last time I felt that way, I was in the woods, face-to-face with a large snake. Luckily, Daddy came in time to save me.

Mommy suddenly pushes him away, her hands driving against his chest. It’s not a little shove like when you want more room on the couch, but strong enough to send Daddy stumbling backward. His arms fly out to catch something that isn’t there.

A scream rises inside me when Daddy suddenly steps on a slippery, dead branch and falls over.

“Daddy!” I shove myself out into the yard to help him. My bare feet hit the cold, rough earth as I rush away from our home. The wind picks up, howling, tugging my clothes. I can’t leave Mommy and Daddy out here fighting.

I have to stop them.

They will listen to me.

Trees are swaying crazily, the leaves shivering, as though even the woods are angry today.

Mommy doesn’t pay attention to me hurrying toward them. I drop Mr. Fluffy and run faster.

She turns to my daddy and leaps at him, then drags him into the water by his arm. He barely has time to get his balance and get up. Except, she doesn’t look right… or normal. Not with how she takes fast, jerky movements, how she pulls my daddy so easily, seeing as she’s smaller than him.

“What are you doing?” I scream louder this time, my voice barely breaking over the wind and the splashing river.

“Get back in the house,” she yells at me, but I don’t stop.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. She has been mean to me in the past, even hit me a few times, but she never attacked my daddy.

“Mommy, let him go.”

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