Chapter 10

Chapter 10

T he next few days drift past as if I were sitting in a train watching them through the window. Everything's far away. The morning after Brendan re-did my bandages, he refilled the tank. Grey water, he called it. I don't know where he got the water, and I don't care. Nothing is important anymore. I don't even mention the newspaper reports—I don't want to ask him for anything at all.

We hit the road every morning after breakfast, and usually keep traveling until the sun is low on the horizon. The temperature's been dropping steadily, which makes me think that we really are heading straight north. Maybe we're in British Columbia, maybe Alberta, maybe the Yukon or the Northwest Territories. The fissured landscape looks about how I would picture Northern Canada, anyway: craggy mountain ridges with endless green valleys, wild rivers, lots and lots of trees.

The birches and aspens are fewer and further between here; it's a primeval forest of pines, firs, and spruces, atop a carpet of dead wood, ferns, and willow herb. Here and there, a lake stretches out to one side, glittering and blank like the turquoise eye of a giant.

But wherever this is, it's at the end of the world, a place whose sheer expanse makes me shrink a little more each day. Maybe I really will be just a pale shadow before too long.

Sometimes I find myself thinking about Jay's stories. One of them was about a Native American who was born with grey skin. He turned into a shadow in the forest, too. An outcast, unseen, abandoned, until finally he only talked to the animals. But he got a happy ending, because Jay wrote the story especially for me, and I love happy endings.

Too bad it doesn't look like I'm getting one of my own. Brendan doesn't make mistakes—after that night we both spent chained up, I can see that more clearly than ever. Whoever caused him so much suffering also made sure that Brendan turned out unrelentingly tough. Tough, strong, and calculating. He listens to a lot of Nickelback and Green Day as he drives, which always takes me back to memories of my brothers.

I've never felt so hopeless in my entire life. Even in the evenings, when the iron chain and I are theoretically allowed to join him at the campfire, I stay inside and peek out at him every so often—maybe just so I can see another human being. He mostly sits around staring into the flames, smoking an occasional cigarette, and every other night he spends some time scribbling in that notebook.

When dinner's ready, he brings me grilled meat and vegetables, or occasionally fish. I barely touch any of it.

Once in a while, I try to calculate how much time has passed since I was kidnapped. In movies, the victims carve notches in wooden chairs to mark the days, but I don't even have the energy for that. I was unconscious for five days, and I remember two days after that, and it's probably been another week since I tried to escape. If I were a doctor, maybe I could work it out based on how much my wounds have healed, or the color of my bruises. As it is, I can only guess.

I barely notice my surroundings anymore, because I spend almost all my time sleeping or thinking about the life I used to have.

After a few, I stop eating entirely, and stop leaving the bed. My memories are a magnet drawing me inward; my brothers' voices dance around me like wind chimes. They shout my name, hold me tight. I try to call every little inflection to mind—their words are clearer than their faces.

Today, I find Liam's voice first.

Go on, go catch the rhino! He's eating our raspberries again, that bad little rhino!

He laughs. I swing myself out of bed. The soles of my bare feet hit the warm wooden floor of my room—a familiar, comforting sensation. I hear myself giggling, feel myself running without seeing myself. Quick, pattering little footsteps into the yard. The herby smell of sagebrush wafts in through the open veranda door. Warm wind caresses my skin. Dishes clatter in the kitchen.

Liam, come help me with breakfast , Ethan calls.

I'm playing with Lou-u.

You should be practicing multiplication with her, not putting more silly ideas in her head!

I keep running through the dry grass; a thistle pokes my toe, making me squeal. I grab the invisible lasso out of the air, feel the rough leather against my fingers, hear it whistle in the wind.

I caught it! I caught it!

It takes all of my strength to drag the rhino to Liam. It's pulling against me, and I have to brace my feet against the ground. I'm giggling like crazy.

What should I do with him now, Liam?

Rope it to the post!

You mean like tie it to a stake?

No, just tie the rope around the post so it doesn't run off. You could tame it!

I lead the rhino to the end of the veranda and tie it up. It takes a lot of knots to keep it in place.

Heavy footfalls thudding on the wooden floors behind me. Dishes banging down on the table. I hear Ethan and Liam talking. I'm still hard at work—tying up a wild pink rhino properly is a difficult job—but eventually their conversation reaches my ears.

The kids at school are going to make fun of Lou when they find out that she's still playing with imaginary animals at her age. Is that what you want?

I just want to make her laugh, I hear Liam say. It hasn't been that long since Dad...

Silence. They've remembered that I'm there. I forget the rhino and run back, reach for Liam's warm hand. It's so large, it swallows mine up. I want to tell him that I can still laugh even though I miss Dad. That I have everything I could ever want. And that I wouldn't trade my brothers for anything in the world. But before I hear myself say anything, I startle upright, and I'm back in the present.

The next time, it's Avery's voice floating down to me. It's soft, nearly a whisper.

We'll bring you home as soon as they'll let us.

Quiet murmuring. Hospital smell. Swallowing is painful, and one part of my stomach hurts really bad. I want to cry, but I don't want Avery to think I'm a crybaby. It's bad enough having Jay tease me about it all the time.

The doctor says the operation went well.

Tender fingers stroking my forehead.

Is Ethan here, too?

No, sweetheart. He has to work. He'll be here later. And Liam's coming tomorrow.

I wanna go home. When can we go home?

Soon. Very soon.

The next time, the voices are different. My classmates' voices. Wild chatter.

Hey, Lou, is it true that Ethan and Avery are gay?

No, they aren't.

Elizabeth says they never bring girls home.

So?

So that's weird.

Is not. If every one of my brothers brought a girlfriend home, there'd be five girls there. Which would be hell!

You're sure Ethan's not gay?

Positive.

Does he have a girlfriend?

No. Of course not.

Why of course not?

He doesn't have time for that stuff.

Maybe you could introduce me...

He's twelve years older than you, Liv. He likes women, not girls.

I wonder if I'm the reason my brothers didn't bring girlfriends over. I can't remember Ethan ever having one. Avery had a Claire and then a Marie, but they never came over, or at least not that I saw. Jay's had a bunch of girlfriends, but only ever for a week at a time. And Liam supposedly had some brief, passionate relationship in India, and has been celibate ever since.

Maybe that'll change now that I'm gone. As they start forgetting about me.

My head is silent and empty.

Empty and silent.

It scares me.

The thought of their love for me becoming as pale and invisible as I am grips my heart like an iron fist.

Someday, everything will be gone. The hunger, the memories, their voices... and all that'll be left is me.

And him.

"You have to eat. If you don't do it voluntarily, I'll force you." His tone isn't a friendly reminder. It could cut glass.

I stare at the ceiling and don't see it.

The mattress gives as he sits on the edge of the bed beside me. I lie there as though turned to stone.

"I always loved how full of life you were. It was like nothing could bring you down."

I have the urge to swallow, but don't.

"I know exactly how you feel right now. It's like you're lying in a glass coffin, dead but not buried. You can see and hear everything around you, but everything is muted. The sky could be bright blue, but for you it's grey. When you reach out to touch something, all you feel is cold glass."

I turn my head in his direction, shocked at how well he just summarized it.

"I wish there were a way to make this more bearable for you. I wish I could be the one to shatter that glass for you. But I was the one who put it there." He lowers his head and wipes his face as though drying secret tears. "I should have taken a different girl and spared you."

Normally, hearing that would have made me either furious or deeply sad, but I don't have the energy. Even breathing is exhausting.

"I'm going to bring you some food now, and then you're going to come sit by the fire with me." From one second to the next, he's gotten himself back under control again. He doesn't sound like he's going to tolerate any protest, and I'm too tired to put up a fight anyway.

Eyes fixed on the ceiling, I listen to him work in the kitchen. He switches the TV on and puts on a music station. Nickelback, Satellite. After a few minutes, a tea kettle whistles, and I hear soft, scraping sounds.

Shortly after that, Brendan returns to the back room. I rotate my head in his direction. He's standing in front of the bed, bearing a tray with a bowl and a glass of milk.

"I made you some oatmeal with grated apples—anything else would probably hurt your stomach. And, Louisa, I'm not leaving until you finish it."

Something stops me from sitting up. I just... can't. Finally, Brendan pulls me upright like I'm a vegetable. He stuffs the blanket behind my back and then sets the tray on my lap.

"Eat!" His gaze is even more piercing than his voice. When he looks at me that way, I don't dare do anything but follow orders.

My fingers shake as I reach for the spoon, and I withdraw my hand, not wanting him to see it.

But Brendan doesn't let me out of his sight. He walks around the bed and then sits on the other side. "We'll be staying here for a while," he says, "so you won't have to spend the whole day in the back room anymore."

I try again to put the spoon into the bowl. It hits the edge a few times, but I manage to eat. I swallow mechanically, without chewing. Knowing that Brendan won't leave until I clean my plate is motivation enough. I want to be alone, I don't want to stay anywhere for too long, because that will mean that he doesn't have to drive, so he'll have time for me. I glance over at him from out of the corner of my eye, and he meets my gaze. That same question is in his eyes, the one I saw back at the visitors' center.

Do you want this?

Hastily, I avert my eyes. My hands are still trembling. It just doesn't stop.

Brendan's taken the handcuffs at the other end of the chain, the ones that were holding it to the grip bar, and attached them to his own wrist.

"Now we're connected, you and I," he says with a smile. "I can imagine worse fates."

He threads the key onto a carabiner on his belt. He's started doing that regularly—maybe he thinks it's safer or more practical that way, I dunno. He uses the chain to pull me outside, like a pet keeping him company.

I stop for a second on the steps of the camper and glance around at the spot he's decided to stay put in.

The sun is already down, so at first all I see is the pale red glow of the campfire. We're completely surrounded by trees, of course, but I figured as much, since Brendan never parks for the night without spending hours following a bunch of narrow, bumpy off-roads through the woods. I follow him, cautiously, almost as if I'm afraid one false step and I'd break my leg. It feels like I've had the flu for three weeks.

He sinks contentedly into a camping chair by the fire and gestures to the other one. I scoot the chair slightly away from him and then perch on the edge of the seat, ready to jump to my feet at any moment.

A cold breeze blows underneath my sweater, making me shiver despite the fire. The flames and the smoke twitch back and forth in the wind; sparks leap from it and fly off like red glowworms. A few of them land on my shirt, but go out immediately.

"The night air will do you good," Brendan says. "You look like a ghost."

I stretch my fingers toward the licking flames. Warmth flows over my skin like water.

"Shh, be quiet for a second." Brendan leans slightly toward me as though he's about to tell me a secret.

I was quiet already, so I'm not sure why he would say that. Maybe just as an excuse to talk to me.

I listen, since I don't exactly have a choice. The logs in the fire are cracking like hazelnuts. Behind that, I notice something else. A soft splashing sound, like a murmuring brook.

"Water." Brendan nods, as though reading in my expression that I'm hearing it. "Water is good. We can use it to fill the tanks, so we can stay independent for longer."

Hearing the word "independent" makes my stomach cramp. I don't want to be independent. I don't want to be here at all. I hold my hands closer to the flames and stare past Brendan toward the forest, though I can't make out anything but darkness. The heat of the fire is nearly burning my fingers, but I don't pull them away. I need the pain. Somehow the fresh air makes me feel worse than the camper did. On the bed, I can convince myself that I'll wake up eventually. Out here, the nightmare is way more real.

"You don't want to talk to me, then?" Brendan fumbles a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He fingers one out and lights it with a Zippo.

A couple of wolves are howling in the distance. It sounds a little like wind whistling through an old chimney, multivoiced. We heard coyotes every so often in Ash Springs, but this howling is deeper and wilder, it's nothing like dogs.

Brendan regards me appraisingly. In the darkness, he looks like a wolf himself. Black fur, black eyes. Eyes made for hunting. Hunter's eyes. Probably has a hunter's heart, too. It's only a matter of time until he bags his kill.

"Why me?" I whisper. It sounds deafeningly loud in my ears, even with the howling in the forest.

"Why not you?" He takes a drag with relish, as a provocative gesture. I don't know why he sometimes pretends he wants to make this bearable for me, and then one second later he's back to acting all superior.

Meeting his eyes takes every ounce of my willpower. "You said you should have kidnapped another girl, right? So I wasn't the only girl you were considering? Did you have a list or something?"

Smoke billows out of his mouth. No other muscles in his face move. "I think you misunderstood."

I pull my hand back a little. "What is there to misunderstand?" I ask in a quiet, but cool voice. "You stalked a few different girls, and finally you picked me." God, I hate him so much!

"I checked out a few different girls, but I never planned on kidnapping one. Until I found you."

"Found? Where did you find me?" Now I'm completely confused. His voice echoes in my head: I checked out a few different girls...

"You'll have to figure that out for yourself. It's actually not that hard, though, if you think it through." He takes another drag. I suppress the urge to stuff the cigarette into his mouth, lit end first.

"Anyway..." He leans back, and I feel a slight jerk on the chain connecting us. "There was never another option besides you." He tosses the butt of his cigarette into the fire and gazes into the dancing flames, watching them hop back and forth vivaciously. "I saw you and wanted you. I would have done whatever had to be done. Anything. I know that sounds ridiculous, and heartless, and frightening. And I'm not going to try and convince you that I'm a good person or anything." His gaze shifts from the fire back to me, enveloping me in shadow. "Because I'm not."

An icy shudder runs down my spine.

He runs his hand across his forehead. "I just want you to understand why I had to do it."

"Well, I don't," I grunt.

Brendan slides forward slightly, so that he's sitting on the edge of his chair, too. "When you concentrate on your heartbeat, what do you feel?"

"My heart, what else?"

"Just try it."

"I don't want to."

Brendan slides his hand underneath his leather jacket and lays it flat against his chest. For a moment he looks like he's holding his breath... or like he's afraid. "All I feel are the spaces in between. Emptiness. Darkness."

So dark, so dark... under the ground... why did you leave? Don't stop breathing, don't stop breathing...

"Which is why you kidnapped me," I snap to push the depth of his words as far away from me as possible. I don't want him to touch me. Inside or out.

"Yeah," he says solemnly, and there's a strange look of liberation in his eyes. "It's not as bad with you here."

I can't look at him any longer, so I stare into the fire instead. He seems so different when his mask of confidence falls away. I don't have any idea who he is. That may actually be the thing about him that frightens me the most: I can't figure him out.

"You said earlier that you would have done whatever needed to be done. To kidnap me, I mean." I struggle to keep my voice steady.

He nods, almost eagerly. Maybe he's glad to see me showing an interest in him. All I'm doing is trying to determine how much danger I'm in, though.

I scoot a little further forward, until I'm barely on the seat at all. "Would you have killed one of my brothers to get at me?"

His eyes turn to black stone; color drains from his face. This probably isn't quite how he pictured our little fireside chat, but it's too late to turn back now.

It takes him a moment to reply. "That's not a fair question, Louisa. There's no way to answer it. If I say yes, you'll be scared and you'll hate me more than ever. If I say no, you won't believe me. So what do you want to hear?"

"The truth."

"The truth is that I've never even considered that question. And you shouldn't have, either. I can't answer it after the fact."

"You're making it easy on yourself," I say in a whisper.

"I could have said no and risked you calling me a liar."

I grip the edge of the chair tightly. "Have you ever killed anyone else?"

He was already pale, but now his face is a death mask. Abruptly, he jumps up and turns his back to me.

For a while, the only sounds are the crackling fire and the rustling of the underbrush. Even the wolves are silent. My heart is pounding so hard, it's making me nauseous.

"Is that a yes? So y-you really..." This changes everything. "I... I want to go inside."

He spins around. "No," he says in an icy voice. "You asked me a question, and I'm going to answer it. Sit down. Now ."

I drop back onto the edge of the chair as if on autopilot, without taking my eyes off him. Hundreds of horrible visions explode in my head like splinters of glass. Maybe I'm not even the first girl he's done this to.

"It was almost three years ago..." Brendan starts pacing back and forth behind his chair, dragging the chain across the ground behind him and making the cuff around my own wrist scrape across my freshly healed skin. It burns and itches underneath the metal ring, but I try not to let on. Weirdly, pain I cause myself is somehow liberating, but this I can barely stand.

"It wasn't how you think," he says now.

"What do I think, then?" I wish my hands would stop shaking.

Abruptly, he stops in place. "The worst, of course. That I killed someone out of envy, greed, or rage. You're probably picturing how you think I did it. Something especially barbaric or underhanded, I suppose." He lets out a snort of laughter. "Am I right?"

Not wanting to look at him, I stare into the pale-red flames. "How did you do it, then?"

"It was an accident."

Right. Of course.

"It's kind of a long story."

"I only need the short version. And then I'd like to go back inside." Pretending to be strong is exhausting when my whole body is quaking in terror. I'm sure he sees it. He has to. He probably just doesn't care—or he's feeding off it.

"The short version is: we fought, he didn't survive."

"You beat him to death."

"Don't twist my words. There was a fight. We both knew what we were getting ourselves into. There were no rules and a whole lot of prize money."

"So you did kill for money."

Brendan comes toward me with a cold look on his face. He stops directly in front of me and leans down. "I hit him and he fell down," he hisses at me. "He broke his damn neck! It wasn't supposed to be a fight to the death."

I stare at his face. At his hard, implacable mouth, his straight nose, the infinite abyss of his dark eyes. There's so much arrogance in that expression, a protective shield of self-confidence. But I've seen other things behind it—as fleeting as fog over the desert around Ash Springs. Too briefly to understand them, but long enough that I can't forget them. It's like he has two faces.

"Maybe your punch is what killed him, how can you be sure?" I know I'm asking to provoke him, to draw something out of him that will tell me who he is.

Brendan props his hands on the arms of my chair and leans closer. I turn my head to one side, trying to avoid him. "Yeah, a lot of other people thought the same thing. Especially the guy's dad and brother." His breath is hot on my ear.

I sit perfectly still. "If there were no rules, it was an illegal fight, and nobody looked into it. Lucky you."

Brendan takes a deep breath. "Go ahead and keep needling me to see whether I'll break my promise. You're going to be disappointed, though. I never hit people weaker than me, even if they try to make me do it."

"You kidnap them instead," I mutter through my teeth.

He makes a noise I'm not sure how to interpret and pushes himself up from the chair arms.

"What are you going to do to me?"

Brendan scoffs impatiently. "I've told you a million times. I'm taking you with me. That's all. You just refuse to believe it."

I jump up, fists clenched. "I do," I say, quietly and coldly. "I do refuse to believe you aren't planning to do something terrible to me. And you know what? I wish you would get on with it already, whatever it is. Do it now. Then it'll be over and you won't have to keep up these nice-guy theatrics."

"I'm. Not. Going. To. Hurt. You." Each word is a growl.

" Liar !" I get right up in his face, much closer than I would normally dare. I'm not sure why. Maybe I just want to know whether he's serious or not. "Why are you drawing it out? Because you enjoy watching me suffer? You really are sick. Sick and perverse." I spit in his face.

He stares at me in utter disbelief, pure madness flickering in his eyes. My heart hammers in my throat as I watch the spittle slide down his cheek. Moving even more slowly than the spit, he raises his hand and wipes it off with the sleeve of his jacket.

"Come on!" I scream at him. "Do it already!"

"Yeah." A dangerous whisper, so sharp that I stumble back reflexively. "Yeah, it's time. Something needs to happen." He takes a long step toward me and reaches toward his belt. A moment later, he's clutching a hunting knife.

All at once, I can't move. I'm staring at the blade in a daze, watching the glow of the flames reflect in the surface, golden and red, red like blood.

I was right... I knew it... now he's going to kill me!

Everything's swimming. I barely register that he grabs me by my long hair and drags me toward the camper. Not violently, but emphatically.

"Bren..."

He pushes me against the side wall of the vehicle—almost casually, well aware of his own strength. He'd only need a fraction of it to kill me. He's standing so close that I can't get away. I feel his body. His thighs on my butt. His scent envelops me. Tobacco, firewood, wet earth. I let out a whimper.

"Won't take long," he says with quiet grimness. "And if you hold still, it won't hurt, either." He pushes the back of my head, pressing my forehead against the steel body of the RV. Then he pulls my hair up, twists it in his hand. That one hard jerk is enough to force me to keep still. I can't turn my head. Any moment now, he'll tear my jeans off or slit my throat. I'm dizzy with terror, I can barely breathe. Just get this over with!

All at once, he's pulling my hair even harder. My head jerks back and forth a couple of times; my forehead bumps softly against the steel.

Before I can figure out what's going on, I'm yanked away from the wall by the chain. The ground sways beneath my feet, the dark earth comes toward me, but I manage to catch myself at the last minute. I stumble along behind Brendan. What did he do? I look at him. Then I see it.

His right hand is still gripping the leather handle of the knife. His left is clutching a blonde ponytail.

Automatically, I reach up and touch my own hair. The strands are fringed, and end somewhere between my chin and shoulders.

He cut my hair! My beautiful long hair that I was always so proud of!

"So do you believe me now?" With a decisive, almost triumphant swing, he throws the ponytail into the fire, which immediately stinks of singed keratin and sulfur. "Do you think a guy who was only interested in that would chop off the girl's hair?"

I watch in stunned silence as the flames consume my hair, crackling greedily. It simply melts away, becomes invisible like me. In a matter of seconds, there's nothing left but ash. Still in disbelief, I pat the feathery ends of my hair a second time.

"Do you believe me now?"

A defiantly spoken question that rotates and rotates. Faster and faster. Right now, I have absolutely no idea what to think or feel. This is too much. Too much homesickness, too much fear, too much despair, too much Brendan. Even too much Louisa. I wonder how I can possibly be invisible to the world when I'm feeling so much that I can barely take it. My suffering is so enormous, I don't get how nobody else can see it. My heart is too small for this.

I wrap my arms around myself as though my emotions will all come streaming out of me otherwise.

"Do you believe me?" This time, Brendan's voice is quiet and solemn.

I cast a brief, sidelong glance in his direction. He's staring into the fire again, at the place where my hair has finished burning. When he feels me look at him, he turns his head toward me, and I hurriedly avert my eyes.

"You're crying."

"Am not!" I wipe my eyes, furious at myself.

"Because of your hair? It'll grow back."

He doesn't understand anything. How would he? He wasn't torn away from everything he knew and loved. He can't possibly understand that I'm crying because I feel too much. Because I have no way of changing anything. Because I don't feel like I'm me anymore. Me, Louisa Scriver.

"Things couldn't go on the way they were. I needed to make you less scared somehow... well, I tried to, anyway."

"You made me think you were going to kill me."

"I told you I wasn't going to hurt you. All you had to do was trust me. It's not my fault. I wanted... I wanted to make the situation here clear, once and for all."

"So you did what had to be done. As is your nature." My words are tinged with bitterness. Now I know more about him than I wanted to.

He laughs, but it sounds lost and infinitely lonely in the dense forest. "I told you I'm not a good person. Good people do good things."

"And what do you do?"

He regards the blade, and then slides the knife back into its leather sheath. It dangles on his belt, right next to the keys.

He shrugs. "Today, I cut hair. Tomorrow, I'm building rabbit traps. The day after tomorrow, maybe I'll tell you where I found you—if you haven't figured it out by then. Would that be a start?"

It feels more like the end, but I don't tell him that.