Page 38 of The Lair

The man grunted something under his breath I didn’t catch and jogged out of sight. I lay very still, barely breathing, barely moving my eyeballs for fear of attracting her attention.

Claudia punched some kind of code on the gated fence, opening a small door. She shut it as soon as she got to the other side, unknowingly locking me inside the warehouse lot again.

And I waited.

I waited for hours under that car for some kind of miracle to get me out of there alive.

I could hear distant masculine voices, which told me I wasn’t alone, and someone would see me if I moved. Claudia came back some time later, shouting that I’d gotten away, that the police would come at any second, and that they needed to leave.

My stomach sank. If they were leaving, that meant someone would take this car. And as I saw it, I had two options—to get run over and die, or to be found alive and then killed anyway.

I shut my eyes and begged my tears not to choke me up. I couldn’t make any noises. Not that it would matter, because just then I heard a voice shout, “Check the cars at the front!”

I was dead.

I was going to die at twelve years old at an abandoned warehouse somewhere, and nobody would ever find me.

I was never going to see my parents again. My siblings, Johnny and baby Cindy, either. I was never going to play with Milo again. I was never going to attend Mrs. Jada’s classes, to feel the beach sand between my toes, to try on new shoes I’d end up not buying, to go on hikes and complain within ten minutes that I was tired, to play mermaids at the pool, to jump on the trampoline to see how close I could get to the sky, to read a book under my blankets with a lantern, to laugh or smile or sing or grow up or fall in love.

My life was going to end today, and there was nothing I could do to change my fate.

I’d never been a religious person, and I still wasn’t then. But in that moment, with my eyes closed and my body curled in the fetal position under that car, I made the universe a promise.

If you let me get out of here safely, if you let me live, I’ll make it up to you. I promise to make the world a better place. I promise to try even harder than I was going to try before. I promise you won’t regret letting me live. I promise. I promise.

But the universe or God or whatever sentient or insentient being controlled our fate—if such a thing could be done in the first place—didn’t listen to me.

“I found her!”

Gravel pierced my skin as someone yanked me from under the car. The man with the dirty sneakers and the gray jeans grabbed me by the hair andpulled.

“You little shit,” he snarled, his smoky breath hitting my face. “You thought you were smart, huh?”

Claudia rounded the corner. Her impatient eyes set on me for no longer than a second before she turned to the animal manhandling me. “Get her in the van.”

“No!” I screamed, thrashing against his grip on my hair. I didn’t care if he ripped it all out, if it hurt so bad that more tears filled my eyes. “Let me go!”

“You’re not going anywhere.” He yanked harder. “Do as I say, or this will get a lot more unpleasant for you.”

I didn’t listen.

If I was going to die, I was going to fight until my last breath.

“Help! Please help! I’m a child! Help!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Claudia hissed. “Van,now.”

“No!” I tried kicking him like I’d done with Claudia, but he stepped away just in time.

When he started dragging me toward the warehouse again, Iscreamed. A bloodcurdling scream, high-pitched, louder than any other sound that had ever left my mouth.

It sounded as inhuman as I felt.

The man covered my mouth, but I bit his hand so hard, I tasted blood.

And then I screamed again because they were going to kill me no matter what I did or said.

I screamed.

---