Page 25 of Cook

Setting the photo album and notebooks aside on the bed, I accepted the camera. It was heavier than I expected and had been cleaned, mostly, but dust was stuck beside the lens and into the space between the metal dials.

I fumbled with the weight of the camera and the awkward angles. Vivi corrected my hold and then turned it on. I pointed the lens towardher and snapped a picture.

She blinked wildly. “Oh, geez, dear. You’re burning film on me.”

“Film,” I mused.

She chuckled. “Yeah, not something the kids know much about anymore. You’ll just have to toss that when you develop it.”

I put the camera back on my lap, and Vivi stopped shaking her head.

The doorbell rang, and I jumped to my feet as Vivi whipped her head around to look toward the door.

My heartbeat sped. “Who’s here?”

Cook would’ve just walked in, so had Signora found me? Come to take me back? Cook said no one would know I was here, but still, my body quaked. I rounded my shoulders as though I could melt into the bed.

There was not a chance in hell I would let myself be taken back. I wouldn’t be used like that again. Could I escape through the back door? I could run, but where would I go? I didn’t need to know that now. I just needed to get out of this house and away from here.

The photo album and notebooks fell to the floor with a loud splat.

“Fuck,” I muttered, turning to Vivi, or where she had been standing. She was gone.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” chirped Vivi from down the hallway in a comfortable and polite tone.

A male voice answered, but I couldn’t pick out the words.

The front door creaked shut. Everything was fine.

You’re okay, Madeline,I told myself as I balled my hands into my hair and sucked down a deep breath. I thought I was past this anxiety. At least I hadn’t had this electric reaction since Cook took me away from that place. Not since he saved me.

People entering my hospital room sent jolts of fear racing through my veins. Doctors and nurses told me I was safe, but I didn’t believe them. After all, I had been through, how could I believe them?

But that was done. In the past.

Cook rescued me.

Not in a prison anymore. Breathe.

When my heartbeat calmed, I picked up the photo album and notebooks and set them on the bed next to the old camera. The voices fluttered down the hallway, and I followed them.

Not captive. I could go where I wanted. People weren’t here to hurt me. I was safe.

I wasn’t a weak little girl anymore. I was strong.

The moment Cook saved me from Signora, I changed.

Vivi sat in the living room, across from a man. He had closely cropped hair that screamed of the military and a square jaw on his young face. Beneath the scrubs he wore, he had broad shoulders but a trim frame, and he held a clipboard in his lap.

He and Vivi were drinking tea.

“Come in, Maddie.” Vivi waved her hand at the tea service sitting on the coffee table. “Come meet Leo Finch.”

The man stood and faced me, smiling, and all the self-talk I had been giving myself proved wrong.

His smile, I could tell, was supposed to be kind, but it showed his teeth. His lips peeled back in a sneer. His pink tongue slithered out like a snake as he licked his lips. He would eat me alive.

I stumbled back a step.

---