Page 45 of Amnesty

“What am I looking at?” I asked, slightly confused.

“Notice anything different about this grass?”

I studied it, then looked around at everything nearby. “It just looks a little greener than the rest.” The grass here was patchy, but that was just the landscape of the island, not necessarily something odd.

“Exactly,” he murmured, then promptly blew my mind.

Eddie leaned down, taking large handfuls of the tall, greener grass, and tugged. It gave way, lifting off the ground like a heavy carpet, folding in on itself as he straightened.

Gasping, I stared down at the wooden platform that was hidden beneath it.

“I was right,” I echoed, almost as if I shocked myself.

There was a small metal ring bolted on the top of the hatch door and several large bolts that kept it bolted closed from the outside.

Trapped.

Locked away.

Hidden in the dark.

Hidden in plain sight.

Tears filled my eyes again. Eddie made a sound and yanked me to him. “This is fucking sick,” he rasped.

I didn’t say anything. My stomach filled rapidly with dread and this panicky, hollow sensation started to take over.

“All the locks are undone,” Eddie observed, something that had completely escaped me.

“Do you think h-he’s down there?” I quaked. “Hi-hi-hiding?

His arms held me tighter, so tight it almost hurt. “I don’t know.” Suddenly, he burst into action, practically leaping on top of the door and slamming two of the deadbolts home.

“What are you doing?”

He looked up, his blue eyes wild. “Trapping him inside. Keeping him there until the sheriff arrives.”

“You can’t!” I cried.

He frowned.

“I need to know, Eddie. Now. I need to ask him if I’m really Sadie. If he kept me down there all these years.”

A tortured sound ripped out of him. “You really think he kept you locked in a hole all these years?”

My chin wobbled. “I really do,” I whispered. “How else would I have known it was here?”

Eddie’s jaw worked, but I was past seeing his anger. Beyond really seeing anything except the past.

“He broke my arm down there,” I said, no emotion in my voice. “I chopped my hair down there because he got mad when I braided it…” My voice caught as I remembered the chains. “I was naked, chained… He raped me.”

A guttural sound echoed around the entire island. I jumped from the intensity of the sound. Reality came back, my stomach wobbled, and I swallowed, working to hold back the vomit.

“Fuck the cops,” Eddie said in a tone I didn’t recognize. In a tone that matched the sound I’d thought was an animal. “I’m going down there.”

My eyes almost fell out of my head. My mouth dropped open wide. He was standing there, legs wide and planted against the hatch. There was a gun in his hand, drawn and ready, as though he knew exactly what to do with it.

I didn’t even know he had a gun.

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