Page 19 of Pretty Stolen Dolls

My body tenses as I follow her finger. At the end sits a boy porcelain doll. Messy brown hair. Overalls. A sad frown on his face.

I know this doll.

Benny.

She continues to speak, but I’m frozen in place, in the sweltering heat of the flea market once again. I’m with Benny and Macy. I’m packing the boy doll I want carefully into the box, promising him my dad will buy him, that everything will be okay and he’ll be mine soon.

I even broke my promise to a stupid doll.

“Stop crying,” he warns, regarding me through the bars, his tone hard, nothing like the man from the market.

“The papers say you’re fourteen.”

“I am. You know this, I told you.”

He studies me through the bars separating us. “I assumed you were older,” he muses to himself.

I assumed he was sane. I guess we were both wrong.

“Let me go! What have you done to Macy?” I demand, swiping at my tears.

“Nothing. She’s playing with her doll.” He unlocks the latch in the door and the bars usually blocking the space between us pull open in his hands. With a grunt, he pushes a doll through the gap.

My breath hitches on a hiccup. It’s the one from his booth—the boy doll I wanted.

“Here, have your dolly,” he tells me, gently shaking it at me.

Anger coils in my gut and I run toward the door, snatching the doll from his hand.

“I don’t want your stupid doll,” I scream, tearing at the doll’s hair and clothes before throwing it on the bed. When I run back to the latch, he’s glaring down at the mess I’ve made of his precious doll.

Good.

I already told him before I was too old for his stupid dolls.

“Let me out. I want to go home,” I bellow, tiptoeing to see into his face through the open latch.

Cold abyss stares back at me, choking me in its darkness, like it’s penetrating my body, obscuring me from the inside out.

A hand too quick for me to stop reaches in and grabs me around the throat, squeezing.

My eyes expand in shock, the blood vessels screaming for mercy.

A shriek attempts to escape me, but it’s without sound. He’s so strong. I claw at the hand stealing my life, but it’s having no effect. He remains stoic, staring in at me, his grip gaining strength.

I’m fading…dying…stop.

Air rushes into my lungs, scorching my raw gullet as I’m released. I drop to the floor and pain slices into my kneecaps, shooting up my body.

Clank.

“No,” I choke past the rawness scratching my throat, crawling away from the door that’s now opening. His shadow creeps over me like a dark tide—infecting me, overwhelming me, drowning me.

A hand grips my hair, dragging me to my feet while my legs flail beneath me. My follicles are set ablaze, the pain spanning my entire scalp.

“Stop, please,” I beg, my voice broken and hoarse. “I want to go home.”

“Thisishome now,” he tells me, not one inflection of emotion in his voice. So matter of fact.

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