Chapter 11

Chapter 11

T hat night, I dream of Ethan. We're sitting on his bed, and weirdly, my blue star night light is plugged into the wall. Ethan takes my hand and places it on his chest. "Feel my heart," he tells me. "What do you feel?"

I focus on the pulse, but there's nothing beneath my fingers. Just coldness.

"Do you feel the emptiness between the beats?"

"Yeah," I whisper.

"That's the place where you're missing. Come back, please come back. It's so dark without you..."

I cry in my dream because Ethan's heart isn't beating anymore. The silence is like a flatline.

Eventually, he shakes my hand off and stands up; his cheeks and the tip of his nose are pale as a dead man's. "When all that's left there is silence," he says, "I've forgotten you. Hurry!"

I startle awake. My back is so sweaty that my shirt is sticking to my skin. I glance around in confusion. The blinds are up, and the moon is shining straight down onto the white bedding. The light in the hallway is on. Brendan must still be awake. I slide toward the window and see him sitting in the camping chair, head propped on his hands, eyes closed like he's sleeping. The campfire has burned down to a pile of pale grey ashes and hunks of charred wood, with the wood moisture-barrier underneath.

The notebook he's always scribbling in is sitting by his feet. The top few sheets are waving in the breeze like white sails. I'm not sure why, but I climb out of bed and walk down the hall until the chain stops me when I reach the sink. Still acting on some strange impulse, I slide the checkered curtains open and squint at the fluttering pages, trying to get a better view. It doesn't look like writing. It's... pictures. He's drawing.

I stretch up on tiptoe and press my forehead against the window. The white sheets of paper are filled with dark blotches—figures, bodies, heads, but all completely black. One looks like a disembodied hand reaching out with distorted or broken fingers. Before I can make out the rest, the top pages flip back to cover it. A shiver spreads over my skin like an icy mantle. I don't particularly want to see what he's drawn, but instinct tells me I need to know. Like maybe it's important, maybe it'll tell me more about him. I blink to focus my eyes, but then Brendan raises his head.

Anxiously, I pull away from the window and step back. My heart thumps in my chest. Hopefully he didn't notice me. I stand frozen in place for a few seconds, but he's apparently too deep in thought to pay the camper much notice. He rests his head in his hands again and closes his eyes. Sitting there like that, he seems as vulnerable as a child.

My hand reaches automatically to my hair. I pluck at the uneven strands. Do you believe me now? He sounded like he meant it.

With a strange feeling in my stomach, I close the curtains.

Maybe he really isn't going to rape me. And maybe he's not going to hurt me, either. But maybe this is even worse. If his only goal is to keep me around, he'll do whatever it takes to make that happen. Knock me out for five days, for example. Which means I'll never be free again. My brothers will forget me. I'll forget my brothers. Eventually, the silence between us will be too great.

The next morning, Brendan wakes me before the sun is fully up. He unclicks me and goes to the kitchen. The generator is humming, and I hear the coffee machine burbling.

"After breakfast, I'll show you how to build a rabbit trap." He sounds like he's eager to get started.

"I don't eat rabbits," I reply and walk toward the toilet.

"You might have to one day," he retorts. "When our supply of food runs low, for example." He hesitates a moment, and I shut the door behind me. "Oh, right," he calls loudly enough that I can hear him through the door. "I nearly forgot you're on a hunger strike."

As I wash my hands and face, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror almost by chance, and I nearly jump. I really do look like a ghost: ashen and hollow-cheeked, with blackberry-colored rings under my eyes. My thick, blonde hair hangs down perfectly straight; here and there, a couple of longer strands peek out and tickle my shoulders. I still don't know what to think about the fact that he hacked my hair off so brutally, but I decide to risk believing that his intentions were just as he said. I have to. Otherwise this constant fear of being tortured and killed will drive me insane. I look weird. The short hair makes me look younger, but my thin features make me seem older. This isn't me.

I open the overhead cabinet to search for a ponytail holder, so that my face will look how it used to when I put my hair up. To my surprise, the cabinet is nearly full now: aftershave, several bars of blue soap, lotion, disinfectant, cough syrup, aspirin, Band-Aids, tape, and of course the gauze and the washcloths... I pick out some gauze, fiddle the package open, and then rummage around for scissors, but there still aren't any. No razors, either. Nothing sharp, nothing even close to being usable as a weapon. Instead, I tear off a piece of gauze savagely with my bare hands and use it to tie my hair back. A few strands don't make it into the ponytail and hang loose on either side of my face.

Brendan notices immediately. "You got into the cabinet?" he asks the minute I emerge from the bathroom.

"Is that a problem?"

"No." He smiles.

I retreat to the back room and push the folding door closed before peeling off my dirty jeans and sweaty shirt. Then I open the narrow closet. I still haven't mustered the courage to ask Brendan how he knew to get all these clothes. Maybe he'll tell me once he reveals where he saw me for the first time.

As I sift through the blouses, a wave of burning homesickness hits me with such force that I have to suppress the urge to pound my head against the wall. I need to put something familiar on today so that I can be me again, even if I don't feel like me. Instinctively, I reach for my favorite shorts with the crocheted hem, but then I change my mind. Too short. Definitely do not want Brendan seeing too much of me. Instead, I pick out the dark capri jeans and the coral-colored blouse with lace trim. After hurrying to put them on, I stand there for a moment, indecisive. My fingers slide along the smooth material of the blouse and close around my pendant.

When all that's left there is silence, I've forgotten you.

I clench the charms more tightly. Ethan. Avery. Liam. Jayden . I repeat their names in my head like I'm afraid I might forget them.

"Are you coming or what?" I hear Brendan call.

He can't even let me remember in peace! I take a deep breath, slip my flip-flops on, and go back to the kitchen. Without a word, I slide onto the bench and watch emotionlessly as he takes my left wrist and clicks the free end of the handcuff onto an iron chain. I follow the links of the chain with my eyes until I spot the anchoring plate on the wall underneath the table. He probably has these things all over the camper, and who knows how many chains. I ball my fist automatically, but then open it again right away—I refuse to let Brendan see any more reaction from me.

He plunks a coffee in front of me. It's so sweet I can actually smell the sugar in it. "Want some blueberry pancakes?"

"No." I lift the cup and practically dunk my face in it. The chain clinks with every movement I make, no matter how slight.

"Okay."

I hear him opening drawers near the counter. Zing—two waffles pop out of the toaster. From the corner of my eye, I watch Brendan put them on a plate with several more. He cautiously sprinkles them with powdered sugar, then slides in across from me and places the plate in the middle of the table.

"You look cute with your hair up," he says out of nowhere.

I tense up so quickly that the coffee slops over the side of the cup. Dammit !

"Sorry." He sounds exasperated. "Shouldn't have said that."

I peer over at him. After wiping the coffee up with a kitchen towel, he sinks his teeth into a waffle and chews energetically. Our eyes meet, and I look away quickly.

"You need to eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"I believe it. But you still have to eat."

"Or you're going to force me to?"

"I'd find a way to get you to eat, trust me." He says it breezily, and it irritates me that he can afford to be so relaxed.

My stomach knots up. "I really do feel sick."

He sighs deeply. "You're eating tonight, promise?"

"Okay. But no rabbit."

He lets out a short laugh that sounds artificial and out of place, as if he's trained himself to laugh in certain situations so that nobody will notice how deranged he is. Like he did in the parking lot at Sequoia.

I stare out the window as he works his way through at least four of the enormous waffles. It's light outside now, and the air around the trees is shimmering. It's not hot, though, so that must be a swarm of tiny mosquitos.

"Can I open the window?"

"You don't have to ask permission on every single thing."

I slide the window open; a cool morning breeze wafts through the screen and envelops me. The woods are full of birdsong, making them seem livelier than they did last evening. A wasp smacks into the screen and speeds away, buzzing.

Maybe I could pretend to like Brendan, pretend I can imagine a future together with him. Maybe then he'd leave the chains off and I could make a break for it. But the idea of being nice to him, of talking to him any more than absolutely necessary, sits in my stomach like a rock. There must be another way.

I regard the trees thoughtfully. They're all conifers about the same height, no more than a couple feet apart—one big, happy family. "Where are we?"

"Canada."

"Where in Canada?"

"Doesn't matter. The important thing is that it's never as hot here as it is down south, and temperatures can get near freezing at night—last night was comparatively mild. That's all you need to know."

I spot a little bird hopping from branch to branch, making the thin twigs near the ground sway. When my gaze slides to the foot of the tree, I see a small group of chipmunks. I long to be out there with them. They're free, and they aren't alone. "What other animals are around here?"

"Besides those obnoxious chipmunks?" He leans in and casts a contemptuous glance in their direction. "Rabbits, weasels, different kinds of rodents, elk, wood bison, caribou, red foxes, deer, black bears, grizzlies... and wolves, you heard those last night."

"I like chipmunks."

"Well, you're a girl." He straightens up. "I'll give you the grand tour later. You'll like it here."

Yeah, no doubt! As I watch him wolf down another waffle, I marvel that someone so slim can eat so much. I look at his bicep, or at least the part of it that's peeking out from beneath his white T-shirt. It's smooth, sinewy, lightly tanned. I wouldn't have guessed that he was that strong. He did seem athletic to me when I first saw him at Sequoia, but I had no idea.

I find myself wondering what kind of guy it was that he was fighting against. Did he underestimate Brendan, too? Did Brendan know the guy was underestimating him? Why would either of them agree to a fight with no rules, where death was a real option? Brendan is still a complete mystery to me. Part of me wants to figure him out; the other part is afraid of what I'll discover.

I go back to staring out the window while he clears the table and washes up. As usual, he turns the TV on, but the reception is pretty bad today, and Hero of the Week is mostly snow. I zone out.

Later, he chains us together again. Probably so that I'll feel less like a dog he's walking. Solidarity with the hostage appears to be part of the plan.

As we step outside, I'm immediately greeted by the scent of the woods, of clean air and spruce needles. The sky above the treetops is a brilliant blue, without a cloud in sight.

"Gonna be a warm one today." Brendan's boots crunch on the gravel as he walks once around the camper, and then opens a storage hatch that extends almost the entire length of the vehicle.

"Put on some hiking boots so you can walk in the forest more easily." He reaches into the storage space and then holds out a pair of lace-up ankle boots. "I hope you like them, I made sure to get yellow and pink."

Not wanting to provoke him, I silently put on the socks sitting inside the patterned boots, and then slip the boots on. They fit perfectly, of course.

Brendan tosses my starred flip-flops into the hatch. A couple of neatly stacked cans catch my eye.

"What's in there?" I hurriedly ask before he closes the hatch.

He stops in surprise, but then hooks the cover open so that he doesn't have to keep holding it.

"Supplies. Tons of extra food."

I blink into the opening, baffled. The space is gigantic—it's like the camper's digestive tract, packed tight with boxes, cans, and cartons.

Brendan points around to the different boxes. "Peaches, pineapple, potatoes, peas, beans, corn, sausages, tuna, canned ravioli—sorry, I've always loved that stuff..." He turns to look at me and falls silent. I'm not sure what face I'm making, but he furrows his brow for a moment before continuing. "I brought a bunch of dried pasta, too, no worries, I know you like spaghetti. Plus red sauce and white sauce. And a jar of chopped garlic. The fresh basil may be tricky, but I've got pine nuts... there in the back, on the left." He gestures vaguely toward the corner.

The last shreds of optimism still buried deep inside me begin seeping out very, very slowly, like the air in a balloon someone's holding at the end but hasn't knotted. I blink at the cardboard boxes, dazed. They're all labeled in black lettering: Medicine, Winter Clothes, Bathroom, Games, Hunting . I spot two gas canisters secured near a wooden box.

"Propane," Brendan explains, following my gaze with his own. "We cook with it. And the fridge runs on propane. The two canisters should last us through the winter."

I feel the blood drain from my cheeks. "You want to spend the entire winter here?" Apparently he's not planning on heading for a city any time soon. Or a village. Or any other place humans live in.

"Sure." He gives me a steadfast look. "I plan to stay forever."

He's completely insane. "Won't it be way too cold?" I ask weakly.

"I've thought of everything, Lou, don't worry." He smiles, probably mistaking my horror for worry about my own well-being. "Nothing bad's going to happen to you out here. And besides, civilization is far away, but not completely unreachable."

"So why do you want to catch rabbits if you've got this whole thing packed with food?" I do my best not to let on how shocked I am. I'm barely managing to hold back tears. I wish I'd never seen that storage space.

Brendan shrugs. "Fresh meat is important. Plus we can save food this way."

"But I don't want to eat rabbit." It comes out in a choked whisper.

Sighing, he unhooks the hatch door and lets it fall shut. "I could catch squirrels instead. Or chipmunks." He locks the storage hatch. "Oh, don't give me that look, Lou. I might even bag a deer here and there. Anyway, you don't have to eat it. I brought plenty of multivitamins and iron supplements along."

I turn my back to him, wondering whether he enjoys torturing me with his perfect planning.

"C'mon," he says in a cheery voice and tugs the chain almost teasingly. "I'll show you around."

As if he didn't know full well how miserable I am.

Directly beside the camper, behind the row of spruces Brendan built the fire near yesterday, there's a clearing with a small, emerald-green lake. A narrow waterfall feeds into the lake, glittering like diamonds in the sunlight as it tumbles over a rock ledge.

Step by step, I make my way to the water, over mossy stones, past willow herb, around fir-tree roots. The trunk of a fallen spruce lies directly beside the shore in a bed of ferns, its branches and needles long since rotted. I climb over it and stand close enough to the shore that the soles of my hiking boots are underwater.

A cool breeze rises from the surface, and my bare skin immediately breaks out in goose bumps.

"It's a quiet place," Brendan says from behind me. Of course he's behind me—we're chained together, after all. "Can't hear anything here but the bubbling water and a couple of cheeky birds. Spend a little time here, it's like your spirit dissolves into the ether. You become one with the air and the water."

I try to ignore Brendan. The lake is barely bigger than our property back in Ash Springs. The sky and the trees tremble on its green surface as delicate, transparent reflections.

"This lake always felt like my safe place, like I was protected here."

"What could you possibly need protection from?" I ask sarcastically, although the night of the thunderstorm definitely left me with the sense that someone hurt him terribly in the past. My mind automatically shifts to those dark drawings in his notebook.

Even so, I keep walking along the shoreline to show I'm not interested in hearing his response. I know I shouldn't be.

A couple of boulders are scattered along the shore, like game pieces tossed carelessly aside by some long-extinct creature. Some of them extend deep into the lake. I wade past them, muddying the ice-cold water, which swirls around my ankles and seeps into my shoes.

"You can swim here if you want," Brendan suggests now, without acknowledging my question.

"I can't swim," I mumble and eye the waterfall cascading in front of the wall of grey stone.

"You can't swim?" he echoes in disbelief.

"Don't tell me you didn't know that already?" I ask, not bothering to look in his direction. For some reason, we didn't get around to swimming lessons in Ash Springs. Ethan never had time to teach me, and eventually the idea just stopped coming up.

"The water isn't deep. Three feet, maybe." He ignores my snide remark. "You'd be fine, plus I'd be there." He rounds the boulder behind me. "Or I could teach you how."

I have nothing to say to that. It's completely out of the question. I go on staring at the waterfall.

"Look at me, Louisa."

His voice is completely determined again, so much so that I can't bring myself to defy him. It takes me a minute to raise my head.

The longer he looks at me, the more his eyes shimmer. They're mirrors, like the surface of the lake. Bitterness, sadness, impatience—I'm not sure which of them is most prominent. He lifts his hand as if to touch me. Horrified, I stumble back and nearly land in the water. When I've recovered, I see that he's clapped the hand over his own eyes.

"You don't have to fight me all the time," he says and lowers his hand again. "You're only making it harder on yourself. Nothing's going to change about your situation, so you might as well try to get along with me."

I turn back to the waterfall and bite my cheek until I taste blood, pushing his words aside and concentrating on what I see.

The rock wall towers into the heavens, a grey mountain fringed by trees that get smaller toward the top. It's got to be several stories high, but it's angled, and the stone is full of deep ridges—an expert climber could probably climb up there. For a beginner it would be difficult, very difficult, maybe even impossible, but I'd be desperate enough to try.

What's at the top? A forest path, maybe? I glance down at my own shackled wrist, and then over at Brendan, who's regarding me with narrowed eyes.

"Forget it," he says in a frosty tone, seeming to guess what I'm imagining: myself, hanging on that wall. "The water makes the rock smooth and slippery. You'd fall and break your neck."

"I can think of worse fates," I murmur in a flat voice.

"Then I guess I'd better not tempt you!" Demonstratively, he lifts his shackled wrist to eye level. "But if you ever want to come here without me, I can always chain you to a tree." With that, he yanks me away harder than necessary. Maybe I ruined the peacefulness of the place for him.

He leads me alongside the lakeshore, where the water has carved a small creek bed through the forest. There are even a few lush broad-leaved trees here. But Brendan takes another route, pulling me straight through the dense woods. It's demoralizing. It takes us at least fifteen minutes to walk maybe a quarter of a mile. The spruce limbs extend nearly to the ground. blocking my view. I keep having to duck or push heavy tree branches aside; after a minute or two, I'm sticky with resin. We clamber over dead tree trunks poking out from amid the ferns and brush like deer antlers. My calves start burning after brushing against something that looks very much like an oversized stinging nettle.

I get the sense that Brendan isn't doing this to show me how beautiful this area is—he just wants to demonstrate that I'm not getting out of here on my own.

After a while, I simply stop dead in my tracks. He doesn't notice until the chain jerks him back.

"What's wrong?" There's still an icy edge to his voice.

"I want to go back." There's a spruce tree between us, its trunk covered in pale green lichen that looks like fat ocean coral in the patchy sunlight.

"I was going to build the trap first." As he rounds the tree, the chain catches on a branch. He tears it free, cursing.

"Can't you bring me back and then build the trap?"

"No. You're coming with me." With that, he simply drags me onward.

He finally stops after a few minutes. "Here's the animal crossing," he says, gesturing vaguely behind himself. "The creek can't be far from here. Perfect place to set traps." He takes a blue scarf from his pocket and knots it around a tree limb at eye level. "So we'll find the traps later."

After that, he stamps a little further through the underbrush, brutally hauling me along with him, and glances around. Eventually, he pulls a thick, arm-length tree limb from a tangle of dead wood. "Long enough," he murmurs to himself. He reaches for his belt and unclicks something he'd had tucked underneath his shirt. A rope. It's rolled up, but it turns out to be several meters long. More than enough to tie me to a tree. I suppress the mental image and watch him cut the rope in half with his hunting knife After that, he ties the tree limb to two tree trunks, near ground level. The knots he uses are strangely complicated, crossed over and over in ways I can't follow. Finally, he sticks several smaller, forked twigs into the ground underneath the construction, using them as supports.

"Just need the snare now," he muses before plucking a bag out of another pocket, then reaching into it and withdrawing some wire. He creates a loop and twists the ends. He's obviously done this hundreds of times. I'm not sure why, but I picture him building traps like these for me. To keep me from running off.

Brendan uses his fingers to measure the distance between the horizontal tree limb and the ground, and then attaches the wire so that it dangles down. "We'll have to check these several times a day. If the snare is too big, the rabbit's paw will catch in it, and it will take hours for it to die. A painful death."

I glance at the hunting knife, which is hanging on his belt again, beside the key to my handcuffs.

"I want to go back," I say softly. His agility at building deadly traps with knives, rope, and wire snares is chilling. He truly does have the heart of a hunter. "I don't want to watch a rabbit get caught in that," I add.

Brendan taps the wire snare with the tip of his toe, and it swings easily back and forth. "I'm going to set three or four more traps, and then I'll bring you back. You don't have to join me when I check them."

That evening, there's a dead rabbit hanging head-first from a spruce branch not far from our campfire. Brendan puts one snare around each of its hind legs to hold it in place while it bleeds out through the slash in its throat. He catches the blood in a bowl—because of the wolves and the bears, he says, and then suggests using it to make soup. He laughs at the look of disgust on my face before taking the bowl to the lake to pour it out.

He leaves me chained to the camper when he goes. This time, he uses two chains hooked together, so that it's long enough to reach the camping chairs by the fire.

When Brendan returns, he pulls out his hunting knife and skins the rabbit. I look away, grimacing, and go back to staring into the flames.

Later, I watch Brendan attack the cooked legs like a voracious wolf. I can't bring myself to touch the meat. I don't think I can eat anything, even though I promised I would.

He brings me a plate of buttered toast with cheese and lemon cookies, but I'm pretty sure I'll throw up if I take a single bite.

When he finishes eating, he looks over and sees that my toast and cookies are still untouched. He rises to his feet, cursing loudly, and fires a rabbit bone into the flames as he stalks into the RV. A few minutes later, he emerges again, mellow and self-satisfied, almost like a businessman who's just made an especially great deal.

He's holding a folder under one arm, and he brings it over to his camping chair with him, where he sits down in a deliberately casual way.

"These are the newspaper articles I told you about," he says, but without opening the folder. It sits flat across his thighs. "The ones from after you disappeared."

I suppress a noise of astonishment. He never mentioned the articles again, so I've been assuming he was making up what he said about having collected them.

"You didn't believe I really had them."

"No," I say tonelessly. I want to jump to my feet and yank the folder away, but I stay right where I am, frozen in place, incapable of moving.

"There are pictures of your brothers in the paper." His eyes glisten in the dancing flames like dark torches. "One of them looks a lot like you. Avery, I think."

I swallow hard. Avery… Rage wells up inside me. I hate it when he talks about them as if he knows them.

"Eat today and I'll let you read the first article. And then you can have the next one tomorrow... if you eat three meals."

My heart is beating so loud that I'm afraid he can hear it. I have to have those articles! Now that he's offering them, which means they really do exist, I'm not about to let this chance slip away again. I have to see the pictures of my brothers! I know they're going to break my heart and that afterwards I'll wish I hadn't ever laid eyes on them—just like this morning when I discovered the supplies—but I don't care, it doesn't matter, I think I would probably walk across hot coals to get those articles. All I want is a few words about my family, an excerpt from the reality that seems centuries away. I would never have guessed that I'd be so desperate for a few seconds of happiness that I'd take them despite knowing my soul would bleed from my body afterward.

"Blackmailing me with those articles isn't fair," I say, trying to hide how excited I am. And probably failing. Jay and Ethan always said I was bad at hiding my feelings. I have too many of them. A deluge of emotions, Ethan called me. My eyes are glued to the folder. "You know how important they are to me."

"I'm not expecting a whole lot in return," I hear him say in a gruff voice. "Not even a smile."

"It's still blackmail."

"I'm not a good person, I told you. Hell, I kidnapped you—blackmail is nothing by comparison."

I start eating. No, wolfing. I'm gulping down the food so fast that Brendan holds me back.

"If you puke everything up again, it doesn't count." There's concern in his eyes. I guess it's possible that he's genuinely worried about my health, but it's still underhanded of him.

I stuff a lemon cookie into my mouth whole and swallow huge chunks of it one after another, until one piece goes down the wrong way and Brendan jumps up to slap my back.

"Choking doesn't count, either," he says almost gently once I've recovered.

There's a weird pressure in my stomach. Furtively, I cover it with my hand.

Brendan opens the folder. "Do you want the first article I have?"

I nod, and he holds out a folded sheet of paper. I reach for it, but he doesn't let go right away. "I don't have the very first article," he says. "I was too busy with you, with keeping you unconscious. This is the second one."

"Doesn't matter," I whisper. Give it to me already!

He releases the page with an admonishing look in his eyes. "Don't forget, you have to earn the others, too." With that, he saunters back to the camper, folder in hand, and switches on the outside lighting.

I'm glad he's letting me be alone for this. My hands shake as I smooth the newspaper page open.

TEENAGER STILL MISSING

The all-caps headline jumps out at me. A picture of me fills the entire top half of the page. My heart seizes up. It's the picture Avery took of me last summer, standing beside the apple tree that Liam always does yoga under. They've zoomed in on the picture so it's just my face, smiling cheerfully into the camera, and part of the neckline of my coral-colored blouse. My cheeks are glowing nearly as red as the apple hanging from the branch beside me. My long, blonde hair is mussed from the wind; my eyes are as clear and blue as the sky.

I look happy. Happy, young, and vivacious. Anyone who saw this photo would be shocked to read of my disappearance. That's how it always is: when people disappear, they use the best pictures of them, as if the editors are trying to emphasize the life and joy that's been lost. It's the same with milk cartons—they never show kids sulking.

I stare at the picture, incapable of reading the text. There's a flutter inside me, an indistinct feeling of recognition. A suspicion. I can't quite grab hold of it. Sinister shadows emerge from the darkness. There's something there, whispering softly. Part of me wants to reach out for it, feel my way to it...

No, I have to read this article. Brendan could come out any second and take it back. I hastily shoo the feeling off, but I sense that it merely steps away, like an uninvited guest that won't be denied entry for long.

Tensely, I begin reading.

Sequoia National Park, California

The search for sixteen-year-old Louisa Scriver continues. Yesterday, a large contingent of police officers, fire and rescue personnel, and volunteers searched the area around Lodgepole Campground in Sequoia National Park, but failed to uncover any new leads.

The teenager was first reported missing three days ago. Park officials say Louisa was last seen on the evening of June 25th, when she purchased two Solarez camping lanterns at the Lodgepole Campground Visitors' Center. Park rangers have not ruled out the possibility that she lost her way in the dark, and is now alone in the wilderness somewhere.

According to Sequoia Park Ranger Thomas Baker, cases like these are not unheard of, though the missing person is usually found unharmed within forty-eight hours. With every hour that goes by, he says, the likelihood of the teen having suffered some sort of accident increases. Baker worries that the cliffs and rock ledges in the area around Moro Rock would pose a particular safety risk in the darkness.

The article reads like a report about someone else. Factual, distant. Is this really about me? I take a deep breath before reading on.

One of the girl's brothers, however, insists that she could not possibly have gotten lost. Jayden Scriver says he followed his sister to the visitors' center, and that she knew her way back—especially considering that only a single gravel road leads from there to the tent area.

The teen's brother went on to lament the police's handling of the situation, saying it was "scandalous" that the search did not begin immediately. According to Mr. Scriver, the police instead "wasted precious hours" focusing their attention on outsiders who heard the girl arguing loudly with her brothers that evening, saying that she wanted to go home.

Police Spokeswoman Carmina Loper tells the Daily News that "every option is still on the table," including the possibility of Louisa having fallen victim to a crime.

"We're investigating in several directions at once," she says, "but of course we're still hoping that Miss Scriver simply ran off and will show up at her family's doorstep in a day or two, healthy and happy." In fact, police still consider that scenario the most likely of all.

After that, the article describes the clothing I was wearing that day, and gives a phone number for people to call if they have any information regarding my disappearance.

I read the story over and over again. My head is one big swirling mass of chaos. Half-dazed, I study the pictures at the end of the article. There's a travel brochure-style photo of the entrance to the Lodgepole Visitors' Center. Beside that is a huge picture of Moro Rock and the surrounding area. Park rangers wonder if this beautiful rock formation may have spelled disaster for young Louisa , the caption underneath reads.

I read the part about Jayden several times. He doesn't believe I got lost or ran away. And if he's so sure about that, he and the others will do everything in their power to make sure that the police don't quit searching for me. The thought gives me a faint glimmer of hope, but it dies again right away when I remember what Brendan said earlier: The police have better things to do than run around looking for a rebellious little teenage girl.

Unlike me, he's already read every one of these. So they probably really have given up on me. I don't even know today's date. I was kidnapped on June 25th—it must be nearly mid-July by now.

I look at the picture of me again: my radiant eyes, my open smile, the coral blouse I'm also wearing now. That terrible feeling of recognition washes over me again, a wave of darkness that threatens to drown me. I posted this picture on Facebook, visible to the entire world because I thought I looked pretty in it. Especially my eyes and my windswept hair. Ethan kept telling me I should change the privacy settings to "friends only," but I always ignored him. Because I felt trapped in Ash Springs. Because I wanted the world to see me. Because I thought that, if the world saw me, my life would have meaning. I may have even thought that I would only truly start living at that moment—once I meant something to the rest of the world, I mean.

That miserable feeling cuts deeper. I posted so many videos and photos of myself. They all start flashing past in my mind, image upon image of summer, sunshine, color, laughter.

Me and Elizabeth eating ice cream, sitting back-to-back in the dandelion meadow, me wearing the pastel-yellow blouse Ethan gave me, my lips smeared with matching lemon sherbet. Me and Ava arm-in-arm in our new crocheted-hem H another in my pink-flowered sandals. Me and Emma lying on the veranda, heads touching, eyes closed dreamily, a package of lemon cookies between us. A picture of a radiant blue sky with a huge, bright sun. A picture of my favorite food: garlic spaghetti with pine nuts, tomatoes, and fresh basil. Me in front of the bathroom mirror, with the blue hand soap beside the sink, still in its package.

I know you.

I clutch my throat, gasping for air, when I realize what that means.