Page 26 of Not Your Hero

And we got out of line quite often. Gary was a little worse than I was. He seemed to enjoy getting in trouble, or maybe he just liked seeing how far he could push him before he reached his limit. Nevertheless, we were treated like animals in our home.

“Me either. Some days, I wish he was around for a little payback.”

“Would you do it?” I ask curiously.

“Fuck yeah, I would. He made us who we are, Nix. He made us the way we are. This isn’t normal for people. We’re not normal.”

He’s not wrong about that.

Chapter 16

Emerson

I feel weak. Weaker than I have been anyway, and yet I cling to hope I will get out of here. I don’t know where that hope is coming from at this point. I’ve tried and failed. Others have tried and failed. There’s nothing we can do but wait and see what’s in store for us the next day.

He keeps saying our time will be coming. Time for what? We don’t know, and I’m almost afraid to find out. Is he going to kill us? One by one? He could do it easily. I know he could.

All the girls are coughing, meaning they’re all sick as well. Is that what he wanted? Us sick and vulnerable? I try to think what he might have planned for us, but I come up blank. At first, I thought of trafficking. He could make money off us. He could sell us to the highest bidder, but not in these conditions. We’re sick, beaten, bloody, bruised. No one would pay for someone looking the way we do.

Then I thought maybe he was a cannibal. Maybe that’s his reason for keeping us but I quickly dropped that idea too when I realized he hasn’t taken any of us out of here. He would need to, right? To eat? The thought alone makes my stomach lurch.

I come up blank after that. I can’t think of one good reason why we’re stuck in this hell. I try to wrack my brain to figure out a connection between me and these girls, but there’s nothing. We don’t look similar so that’s not it. We don’t share the same parents, and from what I can gather from the few I can talk to, we don’t even live in the same city as each other. What does that leave? What more could there be I’m missing?

“Emerson?” I hear her little voice to my right. Mary. It’s Mary. I scoot across the cell and slip my hand between the bars, grasping her hand in mine. I squeeze it gently, but she doesn’t squeeze back. She’s cold. So cold.

“What’s wrong?”

“This is it, Emerson.”

“What?”

“I … I can’t do this anymore.” Her hands might be freezing, but Mary has been burning up with fever for days now.

“Yes, you can. You can’t stop fighting, Mary.”

“I can’t keep going.” She’s weak, and we all know it. The other girls cry at night, knowing she isn’t going to make it. They cry at night, knowing none of us are going to make it.

“I know, I know,” I whisper, keeping her hand tucked into mine. She needs me now. She needs me to tell her she can go. She needs to know it’s okay to let go and damn it; I have to be the one to tell her that.

“Thank you, Emerson.”

“For what?”

“Doing what you could,” she whispers, her voice hoarse and barely audible.

“You want me to sing to you?” I ask her.

“Please.” Her favorite song is Mary Had a Little Lamb because that’s what her mom used to sing to her at night. So that’s what I sing to her now. I lay down, resting my head on my arm as I keepmy other hand through the bars, holding her hand. I sing to her, and I sing more.

I hear the cries from the others, I hear the soft sniffles, but I try and keep myself as calm as possible because I know this is what she needs right now. If it were me, I would want someone reassuring me that everything was going to be okay, too. I would want someone to hold my hand and keep me calm.

“It’s okay, Mary. Your mom is waiting for you,” I whisper to her. My heart shatters. It breaks in half, and I can feel the tears as they slide down my cheeks, but I quickly wipe them away so she doesn’t see them. I lay, holding her hand until the small light goes off and the bright, burning lights come on. I roll over so it doesn’t burn my eyes, facing the wall, but I never let go of her hand. That is until I feel him ripping it away from me.

I don’t bother trying to fight it or keep hold of it. I know she’s gone. I can feel it. My chest tightens as a flood of emotion slams into me. I can’t focus on the burn anymore. I can’t focus on my back he’s charring my flesh with this light. All I can think about is how she’s free now. Mary is free now.

She’ll never hurt again. She’ll never suffer, never be beaten or abused. She’ll never have to feel an ounce of pain again because she’s free.

The realization I’ll probably die in this place hits me harder than I thought it would. It’s like a damn brick has hit me in the chest, and I can’t breathe. Sounds rip from my throat that I don’t even recognize.

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