Page 1 of Bottoms
Prologue
17 Years Ago
Dead.
The word floated around the walls of every room in the house. It was my house, but not. Mom and I were still going to live here, in rural Maryland. But it wasn’t my home anymore. Now it was the skeletal remains of the happy family that once lived here.
My family.
Strange faces sat on fold-out chairs while others crowded around each other to form tiny pockets of gossipers. Groups muttered and murmured while I slipped into the small spaces between the people like only a seven-year-old could. Everyone wanted to know exactly how my dad died.
Frankly, so did I.
My dad was a police officer and was killed in the line of duty. That was the only thing anyone seemed able to say to me when I asked what had happened. I figured there wasn’t any use in asking anymore. If I was quiet, I could learn so much more.
“I heard it was a robbery,” said one of the strangers standing in my dining room. I inched my way through the small pockets of space to get closer. I wanted to see if this version differed from the other stories I had heard. “James went in first, and the burglar shot him right between the eyes. And that’s why Marie insisted on a closed casket. She worried,” the woman paused, lowing her voice, “She worried Nessa would see. I heard the poor girl has practically stopped talking.”
There was a murmur of gasps amongst the other women as the circle expanded slightly. They were taking a step back and having sips of their drinks, but their eyes were prowling the crowded room. Everyone’s eyes were always looking for me, but if I was quiet enough, it was almost like I had turned invisible.
I snuck out of the dining room, eying the empty space at the table where dad’s chair had sat. Mom dragged it out behind the house, crying and muttering swear words the day after he died. She lit a cigarette after she lit the chair on fire. Dad would have gotten after her for both the cussing and the cigarette. I watched as she sat on the back steps of our house with tears streaming down her cheeks, smoking the entire thing. Dad never walked up to ask her if she had lost her mind.
I thought the answer to my dad’s question was yes. She lost her mind because she lost him.
I headed upstairs to my room, feeling relief as I went up the steps and the noise of all the people quieted. Closing the door to my bedroom helped to muffle the sounds even more. My purple comforter called me home, and I hurried underneath to block out the remaining voices. Now I was just stuck with the ones in my head. The never-ending list of things suddenly felt dangerous, and now my father wasn’t there to protect me. In the quiet, dark cave I created for myself, I couldn’t do anything other than think of every boogeyman my dad had chased away.
When night fell, I poked my head out of my bedroom door. Silence had fallen in the house. All the people were gone, but with them, they had taken the last of the life from this skeleton. My bare feet made no sound as I crept like a ghost through the halls, down to my parents’ bedroom. The door was shut, but I turned the knob slowly, anyway. By now, I knew I wouldn’t find my dad under the covers, but pain stabbed through my heart when I saw his empty side, regardless.
Mom was asleep in bed. A show played on the television opposite her. Careful to be quiet, I tiptoed to her table to grab the remote and turn it off for her. She always wanted me to turn mine off. There was a tall bottle of wine on the table next to the remote, and I frowned. That was another thing dad didn’t like mom doing.
I went back up to my room as silent as a ghost. Shutting myself in the dark emptiness. A knock at the window made me jump, and I almost cried out as I turned to look at the glass. Something inside kept my scream at bay.
Dad wasn’t here to come to save me, anyway.
My feet shuffled forward on their own, as if drawn by the noise. My heart hammered in my chest like the rabbit my dad bought for me last summer. More knocks started before I finally realized the noise was rain. My feet scrambled to get closer to the window, my breath fogging up the glass. The drops began to fall harder, and I pressed my palm in the middle of the clouded area, pulling it back to leave a perfect imprint. Raindrops started collecting into larger blobs of water, making their way through my art as they raced to the bottom.
I looked out through the clear path where my palm had rested against the cool glass, and I saw a man standing in the middle of our stone driveway. My heart pounded against my chest, trying to get closer. I hoped it was my dad, zombie or not, coming back to put our family together. Then I noticed the red burning glow of his cigarette, and my heart deflated. It couldn’t be my dad.
I decided to leave my view of the rain and curl back under the weight of my thick comforter, hiding away in my safe little cave. It felt like a reassuring hug if I wrapped it around me. The warm pressure mixed in with the steady beating of the rain, helping me to slip into a nightmare. A man with a lit cigarette watched me from the shadows while I ran through the dark streets of a city, desperately searching for my home.
1
The First Day of Pain
Present Day
Pain.AllIfeltwas pain.
My eyes snapped open as I tried to gasp for air, but could only breathe through my nose with the gag covering my mouth. Blinding hot pain shot through the back of my head and my shoulder as I tried to jerk upwards. It wouldn’t have worked since, apparently, my arms and legs were bound as well.
As my muscles gave out, I gave up any further attempt at sitting up, and I landed back on a soft surface. Desperately dragging air into my lungs through my nose while squeezing my eyes shut, I waited for the worst of the pain to melt into a constant throb. Once I could open my eyes again, I squinted into the darkness as my fingertips inspected the surface beneath me. It felt like a bed, so at least that was better than waking up on a cold, hard table. I was wearing what looked like a hospital gown in a dark, moldy basement. My throat felt dry, but it didn’t appear I could do shit about that.
Rage started to build inside me while I sifted through the hazy memories of what happened before I woke up bound to a bed. And not in a fun way. I had no idea if Colten was dead or not. He hadn’t fucking moved an inch the moment he crumbled. But there had been no sound to indicate he had been shot.
The guns in the hands of my captors did not have suppressors on them. I knew firsthand just how loud those things can be. Colten couldn’t have been shot. My breathing slowed slightly while I held on to that thought, repeating it like a mantra to distract me from the pain. I had almost reached a state of sleep when I heard sounds above me.
Opening my eyes, I could see tiny particles of dust floating down from the ceiling wherever the person above walked. Well, not just any person. Fynn.
I had no idea why he decided to keep me rather than finish me right there in the parking lot. According to the dust, I would have a chance to find out soon. A door creaked open, the hinge loudly screaming out the arrival of a visitor before heavy boots descended the stairs. The hard thuds of my heart synced up with his pace. My eyes strained in the dim light to watch the giant, hooded man slowly make his way toward me.
