Page 93 of That's Not My Name

I need something to break the handcuffs. I get up and stretch toward the workbench, but my fingers hover a few inches from the boxes. Shit, I can’t reach it. I turn back to the cot. Maybe the cot’s legs are detachable, or I can break one off. I’ll at least have something to defend myself with when he comes back, even if it doesn’t help me get free.

I drag it from the wall, and something clinks to the ground. A screw sits in the dirt, the top scratched almost completely flat and it’s immediately clear why. I go still as a corpse.

There are names, hand scratched into the concrete.

ALISON

Krissy

COURTNEY

Arely

BEKAH

CARLY

SHEENA

ASHLEY

Each in different handwriting. Some names are darker than others, fading away with time, discolored by the moisture coming through the wall. But some are so fresh they look like they could have been carved today.

I look down at the screw. My hand shakes so bad I almost drop it twice before I clench it in my fist. My breath rattles in my lungs.

I’m not the first.

He’s taken other girls.

Holy shit.

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.

Are they all…dead? Are there other bodies in the backyard? How many fake Marys have been shackled to this cot? Did they all scratch their names in the wall so that someone would know they were here? Before he—

Oh fuck, I think I’m going to hyperventilate.

My eyes find the freshest name. There’s still concrete dust in her letters.

The door to the backyard opens behind me and I jump so high I almost fall over the cot. I whirl around, ready to gouge out Wayne’s eyes with this little screw, but it’s not Wayne.

A boy about my age stands in the doorway.

Chest heaving. Eyes wild.

A boy in a Beastie Boys sweatshirt.

TWENTY-EIGHT

DREW

I stare at her. She stares back. Neither of us blink.

For a solid five seconds.

My mind can’t process what I’m seeing in this small, damp basement. Or the girl standing there, staring at me like I’m a threat. Her green eyes are shadowed in bruises. Short brown hair. Floral jacket. Freckles. Bloody nose. Split cheek.

It’s not…she’s not…

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