Page 7 of Out to Find Freedom

If I had a knife, had something sharp, I would end it all myself.

Then again, I probably would be too weak to do it.

Maybe she was right. I was pathetic.

Slowly, I got to my knees as my anguished cries for Mrs Minna turned into pain stabbing through my side. I crawled to the bed and slid into it, breathing harshly.

Mrs Minna may have been eighty, nearing the end of her time on earth, but she didn’t deserve to have it end so quickly. She had children, grandkids. Ones she’d spoken of the first time I met her. She’d heard why I’d moved in with Gloria and had felt sorry for me. She even asked me in for a cup of tea and cookies. I didn’t accept, but I was grateful for the offer. Grateful she’d cared enough to ask. Gloria hadn’t cared when they’d brought me here. She never asked if I was okay, yet a stranger had. Mrs Minna was a good soul, and now she was lost to the world, to her family.

I should have gone in. I should have gotten to know her.

Now it was too late.

Because of me.

A cough jerked my body and I cried out, curling into myself, holding my side.

I wasn’t lying when I told her to kill me. I wished she would.

Then the pain would stop.

The hurt would end along with my life.

Maybe then I would see my dad, even my mum, again.

Chapter Three

Emerson

Noise woke me from my sleep. Blinking slowly, I rolled on the tiny bed, the one I’d slept on for the last couple of years, and peered out the small window to the real world. What the window showed was the neighbour’s house. What used to be Mrs Minna’s house before…. Hers was a little shorter in length than Gloria’s, so through the wired fence, I had a view of the back corner of the house, the deck, and some of the backyard.

Sleepiness evaporated when I saw people walking up and down the side of the house and in the backyard. I quickly ducked, my breath catching in my throat.

With shaky hands, I placed them on the windowsill and cautiously peeked out. Men, women, and even children of all ages walked by, carrying things such as deck furniture, computers, TVs.

Someone was moving in.

No one had lived next door since Mrs Minna was murdered. Though, Gloria had been right; the authorities didn’t class it as murder. It had been an accident—an old lady falling down her stairs. Where Lenny had laid her body after he’d broken her neck.

Clenching my jaw, I shook the threatening dark thoughts away. Finally I had something to watch, to listen to. Their voices were a little muffled, until I slowly and carefully reached up and unlatched the window. I pushed it out as far as it went, which wasn’t far since it had been made to stay closed enough so nothing, nor no one, could get in or out.

Their voices cleared, especially when I stood on the camp bed and tilted my ear to the window.

When others went back out the front or through the back door, a man stood there with a woman and a teen boy. He said, “It’s a nice joint.”

“It’s a little big. Four bedrooms for one man,” the woman commented.

“Maybe he’s got a woman we don’t know about,” the teen boy added with a cheeky grin.

The first man snorted. “Good. Means he’ll stop checkin’ my woman out.”

“Declan.” She sighed. “Ryan and I are just friends. You know this already.”

“Ryan? Since fuckin’ when did you start callin’ him Ryan?” the man demanded. He sounded very angry; I wouldn’t want to cross him.

Only the woman didn’t seem fazed by his tone. She put her box down on the back deck and waved her hand around aimlessly. “Since after the trouble I had.”

“Mum,” the boy groaned. “You say ‘trouble’ like it was something small. You were poisoned and kidnapped.”

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