Page 2 of Pack Obsession

Something’s wrong with my chest. I can’t breathe right. The air comes in hiccups. My throat burns.

Have to look. Don’t want to look. But I have to check on them.

The closet door feels so heavy. My legs shake when I stand, and pins and needles from sitting so long stab my feet.

"Mommy?" My voice sounds wrong. Like it belongs to someone else. "Daddy?"

No answer.

The hallway’s dark now. Night came while I was hiding. Each step down the stairs takes forever. Have to be ready to run back to my hiding place if the mean voices come back.

But Mommy and Daddy aren’t here. Where are they? There was so much noise before. So much shouting. Now, there’s nothing.

Blue lights flash through the windows.

"Oh God, there’s a kid," a female suddenly says, and I twist toward a police lady standing in the open doorway to our house. She has kind eyes but a scared face. "Honey, are you hurt?"

I shake my head. Can’t speak. The words are stuck in my throat.

"Your parents... there’s been an accident. A car accident."

No. That’s wrong. There were men. Bad men. Screams.

"That can’t be–"

"Brake failure," she says softly. "Tragic accident."

Not an accident. Not an accident. Not an accident.

"Your parents..." She doesn’t continue.

There were men. Bad men. Screams. The memory of angry voices filters through the wooden slats of the cupboard.

"Where are my parents?" My question comes out tiny.

The policewoman’s arms wrap around me, but I can’t stop shaking. Red and blue lights keep flashing through our front windows, painting the walls. Outside, voices murmur about tragedy, about how awful, about poor little thing.

"Stay with me a bit, okay?" The policewoman’s words are gentle. "We’ll explain everything."

But I don’t want explanations. I want my parents. I want to tell them about the button I found this morning, the one that fell off Daddy’s favorite shirt from Hawaii. My fingers find it in my pocket now, blue with tiny white flowers. I’d meant to show him when he got home from work, meant to help Mom sew it back on while she told me stories about their honeymoon again.

The button blurs as tears fall onto its smooth surface. My thumb traces the little holes where thread should go, where thread will never go now, because...

Because...

Through the window, I watch as two black bags are wheeled toward a waiting ambulance.

The button slips from my trembling fingers, clicking against the hardwood floor and rolling away into the shadows—just like the sound of Daddy’s laughter at breakfast this morning, justlike Mommy’s kiss on my forehead, just like everything else that made the world make sense.

Chapter

One

CASEY

10 Years Later

Irun.

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