Chapter XIII

THE DAY I WAS RETURNEDbegan like any other.

I woke up with the dawn, light streaming through the barred window, blanketing the dirt floor. Willa slept heavily next to me, sweetly oblivious. I took a moment to savor everything—her sticky breaths against my neck, her tangle of hair between my fingers, the threadbare kitten shirt she still insisted on wearing.

David opened my cell door and motioned for me to follow. I stroked her forehead and pulled the moldy sleeping bag over her shoulders. Then I hesitated. How could I leave her?

Willa cracked open a sleepy eye. She sat up, hands rubbing her face. "What's going on?"

I slipped off the bed and pulled on Hope's sweatshirt. Willa's blood still stained the front. "I'm going somewhere," I said.

"Can I come?" Sometimes I still hear her little voice in my sleep. The slight lisp, the way she depressed her R's.

"No." I moved to the door.

"When will you be back?" she asked.

I couldn't face Willa. My lips parted. I didn't have the words. I won't be back. She scrambled from the bed and latched on to me. "Come back soon. Promise?" She peered up at me, her chin resting on my chest.

I nodded solemnly. Then I fetched a windbreaker from the corner and wrapped her up in it. "It's going to be cold tonight. There's a surprise in the pocket." A brown agate I'd found by the creek.

"Remember, you promised," she said as I stepped over the threshold.

I didn't say anything back.

David led me through the narrow hallway, passing Hope's door, then Charity's—both rooms empty. Both girls gone.

We hit daylight, and I squinted even though it wasn't particularly bright. I searched for the position of the sun. The wagon was parked near the break in the trees. Star whined in her kennel, wanting to follow me.

David opened the back door and gripped me by the shoulders. He stared into my eyes. "Have I ever told you my story about the boat?"

I shook my head.

"My parents divorced when I was young. My mother never had a maternal instinct. Not like you." He half-smiled. "I was angry after. How could she leave us? After all we'd given her. My father was drinking more and more by then. He had a boat, and I took it without his permission. The water was rough, angry, and I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't out for more than half an hour, not too far from shore. The boat started to take on water. I didn't know what to do. Steering it was impossible, so I hid in the bathroom."

David exhaled and leaned against the car. "There was this little light in there, and I remember watching it as the water rose above my knees. Finally, the whole damn thing capsized. The light shattered. It was dark. But I managed to right myself. The boat was upside down, and I was floating in that tiny bathroom, with only enough space and air for my head. I begged for my life. Called out to my mother. I was so scared. I was stuck in there for the whole night, enough time for my skin to soften and begin to slough off. Right when I was on the very edge of giving up, divers came and rescued me. My father waited on the dock, and I ran into his arms, this shaking broken mess." He flexed out the tremors in his hands.

"I got fixed up and was home within a day. While I rested, my father came to my room. He told me he knew I had taken the boat. He had seen it capsize from the dock. He heard my cries and knew I was alive in there, but he waited to call for help. Then he asked if I would take the boat out again without his permission. I said no, of course not. I had learned my lesson." He stopped. A crow cawed in the distance.

"I'm sorry," was all I could say. I didn't know why he had told me that sick story. It made me angry. I thought about David on that boat. How scared he must have been. How his fear had turned into anger. Rage. Hurt. Hate. Torment. I kind of pitied him.

"It wasn't my father's fault," David said. "He was out of his mind. Losing my mother. She should have been there. She should have stayed." A pause. Sometimes David seemed so fragile. Afraid. Like he knew he was always destined to come up short. To be forgotten. David drew closer to me. He placed a blindfold over my eyes. "Make me proud." Serendipity tied my wrists together. The engine of the wagon revved. Michael behind the wheel. I listened to the wind in the trees and the babble of the creek.

David repeated the terms of our deal. "I'll be watching you and sending you messages. You won't know where I am. But I will know where you are. I'll let you know when it's time. I want to see it on the news. I want to see she's dead. Then I'll let Grace go." He paused. "If you breathe a word of this to the police, I will kill Grace. Do you understand?"

I nodded so fast and hard, I thought I might break my neck.

"No one would believe you anyway," he added. He shoved me into the backseat.

"Wait," I cried out, my fingers digging into the fabric seat. Panic inched up my spine. "Please take care of Grace. Please." No answer. Whoosh—the door slammed shut.

The wagon started and lurched forward. Pressing myself into a corner, I counted to five, ten, twenty. Inhaled. Exhaled. I slipped my arms under my feet so that my tied hands were in front of me. Then I waited. For the wagon to stop. For Michael to backhand me. We kept driving. I brought my hands up, thumbs hooking under the blindfold to raise it just enough to see under the edge if I laid my head back at a certain angle. Then I looped my feet through my arms, so my hands were behind me again. We were going fast, flying down a gravel road. I'd lost some time—a few minutes. The clock read 10:21 a.m. I noted the speed on the speedometer—needle hovering over forty miles an hour.

Michael sat at the wheel, bandana in place. He reached up and pushed the rearview mirror down so he could gaze into the back of the wagon. I hunched over but counted the right and left turns, glancing up occasionally to catch the time. David may have wanted to stay hidden, but I wanted to know where I'd been kept.

By one o'clock, we were on a main road. Cars whizzed by. I thought about opening the back door and letting my body roll into traffic. But I dug my fingers into my back instead.

After two hours, we entered another park. Michael barked for me to lie down, but before I did I spied a family gathered around a camping van. Forty-six minutes later, Michael swerved into an abandoned dirt lot—Bear Canyon Trail, #888, closed for maintenance. The wagon stopped, and I was thrown back again.

"End of the line for you," Michael said, opening the door. He yanked the blindfold from my eyes. With a callused hand, he untied my wrists. From the front seat of the wagon, he produced a package wrapped in thick paper. "Everything you need is in there. Bury it in the woods. Remember where you buried it. Come back in a few days, when the attention dies down. This trail is lightly used, but someone should come along and find you. Wait at least an hour. You got all that?"

I nodded and took the package from him. Inside was a watch, wires, gunpowder.

He grabbed my chin. "What are you going to do with the package?"

"Bury it in the woods." I wondered what it would be like to die. Would it be painful? Probably. But I hoped it wouldn't be. I hoped it would be over quickly. That it would be gentle. Soft. I decided I'd think of my mother when I did it. Willa too.

"How long are you going to wait before finding help?"

"At least an hour."

He forced my chin up. "Until then, hide. You got that?" he asked again.

"Yes."

Michael watched until I disappeared into the woods. Package in hand, I darted off the trail and let the trees swallow me whole. While I waited for an hour, I repeated the information I'd gathered. We drove approximately forty miles an hour. We turned left at 10:35. Right at 11:55. And so on.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and I imagined Willa. That the love I had for her would transcend the confines of my body. That one day, she would run wild across a meadow toward a bright future. And I'd be a distant memory. Those days on the compound like a bad dream.

This was the only way to set us both free.