Chapter 12

Chapter 12

I checked out a lot of girls, but I never planned on kidnapping one. Until I discovered you.

Brendan found me online. He must have been watching me for months, every post, every picture, every video. That's the only way he could have known to get these clothes.

Hot rage bubbles within me, until my entire body is shaking. It's partly at him, partly at myself. I clamber to my feet and circle the camping chair like a stalking predator, clutching the article tightly in my fist. I wish I could choke Brendan out with this chain, wrap it tight around his neck until I hear him wheezing the way that poor bunny in the trap probably did. I made everything so easy for Brendan. I even posted our entire route before Ethan froze my account. At the time, I thought it was cool—if I had to disappear from the Internet and the world, I wanted everyone to know where I was. Plus it was a small victory over Ethan.

All Brendan had to do was wait around at the park. He had plenty of time to sit back and weave his trap. If he hadn't succeeded that day, he probably would have done it some other day.

But now I'm done for. Hardly anyone thinks anything seriously bad has happened to me, and no one will ever suspect I'm in Canada. They can search the campground a hundred times with dogs and sticks and whatever else, and I'll go right on being a missing person. They won't officially close my case, but others will start taking priority, and the police will stash my file away somewhere.

In all these weeks, the reality of my situation has never been so painfully clear as it is now. I'm so miserable it's making me light-headed.

It's exactly the way Brendan described it. I'm lying in a glass coffin, and I know I'll never get out, never. I'll never see any of my brothers ever again. No matter how often I throw myself against the glass, knowing that my life is right there on the other side, I'll never break through. And every time I try, the pain will be worse, the heartbreak will be harder to take. Each time will hurt more. I'm only exhausting myself with this futile hope.

How long can I keep doing this? When will I stop trying to break the glass? When will I finally lie still because my body and soul are failing, my strength is gone?

I stare at the crumpled page in my hand. My cheeks are wet, and my shoulders are shaking. I won't tell Brendan what I found out today. I just don't have it in me. I'd end up bawling and begging and pleading, trying to make him change his mind.

With a strangled noise, I toss the newspaper article into the flames, watch the fire char my face and consume everything that's left of me.

I'm not going to throw myself against the glass any longer.

Days and days and days go by. Each one is ten weeks long. I spend most of my time sitting on the bed in the camper or near the fire, staring into space. In the beginning, whenever I happen to get some time alone, I keep going through the cabinets and drawers over and over. But I don't find anything that might help me defend myself against Brendan, and everything I do find only makes me feel more hopeless. He's got everything organized perfectly.

In the meantime, even he seems to have figured out that he can't cheer me up.

I break each day down into individual actions, because it's the only way to get through them. Get up, shower, get dressed, watch Hero of the Week, wait, eat, wait, eat.

Brendan gives me another article each evening, but I don't read any of them. I fold them into squares and put them in the closet underneath my clothes, because Brendan doesn't want them back. The temptation to look at them is huge, but my willpower is stronger. I can't allow myself to hope anymore.

When Brendan asks me a question, I answer. I've stopped talking to myself, stopped repeating my brothers' names. And I don't look at or touch the charms on my pendant anymore. I pretend I'm someone else, watching my life from outside. This horror is happening to someone else, not to me. I'm not that girl in the forest.

Brendan's making an effort, but he's the whole reason I'm suffering. I can't smile at him, can't waste words on him. I don't want to feel anything, I just want to be. To exist one day at a time. I wish I were like the wind, so that I could simply blow away without taking anything with me. I want to dissolve into nothingness, but I don't want it to be painful.

Sometimes Brendan sits down next to me and doesn't say anything. I get the sense he's trying to share part of my burden. Once in a while, he'll try to start a conversation, but I always shut him down, and after a few minutes he leaves me alone again.

I'm vaguely aware of what he does during the day. He's still building traps, and he often returns with dead rabbits. Sometimes he goes out picking raspberries or cranberries, and not long ago he returned from the woods with a bowl full of blueberries. That alone leads me to believe that his supply of fresh and frozen fruit is starting to run low. He takes our clothes to the creek to wash them every few days, and hangs them up to dry on a clothesline he's strung between two trees. He hangs his heavy cargo pants and jeans over separate tree limbs, because otherwise he wouldn't have enough clothesline for the rest. And he leaves quite often to fetch canisters of water from the lake, which he uses to refill the RV's water tank. Once in a while, he empties the water tanks. Grey water and black water. The black water is the toilet water—he didn't have to explain that, I smelled it for myself.

Recently, he's taken to starting the camper a few times a day and running the motor. He says it keeps the battery from discharging. From what I understand, he needs the battery for the generator, plus he's always putting in different CDs and cranking them loud to scare the bears away.

My days are defined by his activities. Of what he does or doesn't do. He's stopped forcing me to join him anywhere; he just makes sure I keep eating and drinking.

Yesterday, he said, "It would be better if you cried again to get your grief out of your system."

Only then do I realize that the last time I shed a tear was as I was burning the first article. I simply don't allow myself to do it anymore, though my throat is constantly raw from the tears trapped inside it. Even at night, when Brendan is fast asleep and can't hear me, I still swallow the grief over and over again until it's locked away in the pit of my stomach again. Because I know that the next time I cry, I'll never be able to stop.

This morning, I realize that the nature around me has changed, though I couldn't say exactly how.

Maybe the needles on the trees are darker. Or the birds are singing a little more brightly. Or more butterflies and bees are fluttering around the tall willow herb.

It's still early in the morning, the air is cold and clear, and I'm sitting near the faintly glimmering remnants of last night's fire. Besides eating, the only other thing Brendan insists I do is get at least two hours of fresh air.

He disappeared into the woods a while ago to check his traps, so he left me chained to the camper. I've taken to wearing scarves around my wrists so that my skin isn't constantly infected from the metal rings.

I'm scratching at an oozing scab when I hear a loud crack in the underbrush behind me.

"Lou!" It's Brendan. He's coming through the trees from the direction of the lake, returning much sooner than I expected. "You have to see this!" His voice nearly cracks. He breaks through the brambles full of dark berries and stumbles clumsily toward the campfire. Only then do I notice that he's holding something in his arms. It's not a rabbit, though—he always carries those hanging head-first, and not without a certain look of pride on his face.

Mystified, I stand up. It isn't like him to tromp around so loudly and excitedly—normally he moves as silently as the forest itself.

My gaze shifts to the tiny little something in his arms. It's a grey bundle, and now it lets out a high, pitiful whine. I stare as though hypnotized at the tiny ears, the adorable paws that seem oversized.

"Here, take it!" Without waiting for an answer, Brendan holds out the bundle, and I clumsily accept.

"Wolf pup," Brendan explains as he strides back toward the camper. "I found him near a cave."

I feel the short, wooly fur under my fingers and involuntarily hold the pup a bit closer. Something's happening inside me, but I'm not sure what.

"I heard him whining." Brendan opens the rear hatch and disappears halfway into the belly of the camper.

I trot after him, making sure to tread softly so I won't scare the pup. "You didn't steal him away from his mother, did you?"

Brendan glances over his shoulder and makes a face at me like I've just accused him of wanting to roast the pup over an open fire. "Of course not! Who do you think I am?" He turns back to the hatch. I stand to one side, listening to him rummage around. "Come on," he mutters to himself. "I know I brought you..." Clattering sounds. "I figure his mom rejected him. Or she died, and the other pups were eaten. Any number of possibilities..."

"Poor thing," I whisper, cuddling the pup. He's still for a second, but then his wet nose burrows into the crook of my elbow, and his front paws start moving rhythmically against my forearm. The pup has me all mixed up. It's like he's melting a layer of the ice surrounding me. "I think he's hungry," I say, uncertain.

"What do you think I'm doing here?" Brendan growls from inside the storage hatch. "I'm trying to find the powdered milk. I'm positive I brought some, in case we ran out of canned."

"You brought powdered milk?" I don't know why that surprises me.

"Of course." Brendan emerges with a triumphant smile, clutching a blue package. "Got it." He glances at the ball of fur in my arms. "I hope he drinks this. If not, I'll have to drown him."

"What?" My eyes widen in horror.

"So he won't suffer, I mean."

"You're insane," I snap, not even caring whether my tone makes him mad. "That is completely out of the question."

"Lou, be reasonable. If he doesn't drink any milk, he'll starve, he'll die a miserable, painful death. Is that what you want?"

I take a few steps back, stroking the pup softly. "He'll drink it," I say quietly, but with determination. "I know he will."

Brendan disappears into the camper, carrying the package of powdered milk. My chain and I go in after him.

"Can he come in?"

Brendan looks surprised—maybe he didn't realize I was following him. He regards me for a second, holding a tea kettle in one hand. Then he smiles. "Sure, why not?" He fills the kettle from a plastic bottle. "It doesn't matter whether he's outside or inside. The other animals will smell him either way."

Cautiously, I climb the stairs into the camper and ease myself onto the bench, holding the wolf pup under one arm. He's taken his face out of the crook of my elbow now—apparently he's figured out there's no milk in there. Now he's trembling all over, and he starts whining miserably again. Where did everyone go? I imagine him saying. I'm hungry and thirsty, and it's really cold and lonely here without that thick fur to snuggle up to.

Still cradling the little wolf, I stand up and angle Brendan's dark-blue fleece pullover down from the driver's cab loft he sleeps in. Then I sit down again and wrap the pullover around the wolf, sliding my hand inside so he can feel my body heat.

"We have to weigh him so we can monitor whether he's growing." Brendan turns on the stove, and small blue tongues of flame spring to life beneath the kettle. It smells like gas, even though Ethan always says gas doesn't have a smell. Brendan pokes through several drawers before finally holding up a box of plastic sandwich baggies. He takes one out. "This'll be our milk bottle."

"That? How?"

"I'll cut off one corner, and he can suckle milk out of it like a teat." He measures spoonfuls of powdered milk into a measuring cup. "The first domesticated wolves were nursed by human women, did you know?" He smirks at me. "I doubt that would work with you, though." Mockery flashes in his eyes.

I swallow a sharp retort.

Brendan retrieves a flat kitchen scale from one of the bottom cupboards and sets it on the table. "Go on, put him on there before we feed him."

I lift the pup out of the pullover and carefully set him on the scale. Seeing him lying there helplessly on the steel plate, I realize for the first time just how small and scrawny he really is. His short fur is grey with a streak of cognac brown, sticking out from his body on all sides. His ears are tiny, and his little eyes are barely open.

"Hurry, he's getting cold," I say, wishing I could scoop the pup into my arms again.

Brendan pushes a button. "Seventeen and a half ounces," he mutters grimly. "Way too scrawny. Wolf puppies normally weigh that when they're first born, and this one must be three or four weeks old."

"How can you tell?" Without asking permission, I pick the pup up and wrap him in the fleece pullover, so that only his head is sticking out.

"His eyes are open, so he's more than two weeks old. Plus he reacts to sounds. Watch." Brendan makes a throaty noise that sounds a lot like a wolf howl. Immediately, the small animal on my lap starts whining. "See? They don't start doing that for at least three weeks."

"You're scaring him," I protest, twisting to one side protectively.

Brendan laughs. "This guy? Nah." He turns away again, because the kettle's whistling. The whining gets louder. It's like the pup is putting all of his strength into calling for help. Maybe he thinks the kettle is his mother.

Brendan takes the kettle from the stove and prepares the milk in the measuring cup. "Believe it or not, there are people and animals in the world that aren't scared of me."

I scritch the tiny wolf's soft fur, and his whining gets quieter, but doesn't stop entirely. "Don't worry," I murmur, "you'll get your food in a minute." He has to drink, he has to. "Do you think he'll tolerate the milk?" I ask Brendan.

"Hopefully. The first question is whether he'll drink it at all. He's pretty weak." A shadow flickers on his face, so briefly that I wonder if I just imagined it. "Sometimes wolf mothers bury their young. Actually, though, they only do that when they think the pup is dead."

"Maybe she was about to bury him but something startled her."

Brendan shrugged. "Maybe. Or else the mother wanted to move to a new den." He adds cool water to the mixture, pours the milk from the cup into the plastic bag, and knots it at the top. "Hold this for a second." He hands me the bag and removes a key from the carabiner on his belt, which he uses to open the cabinet above the side door, so far overhead that I'd have to climb on the counter to reach it... which would be a real challenge with the chain, so it's one of the few cupboards and cabinets I haven't tried to search.

Curious, I peer over Brendan's shoulder and spot a couple of brown bottles along with an arsenal of tools. Is that where he stashes the knockout drops? Or anything else that would help me keep him in check so I can run? My heart starts beating faster. I haven't thought about escape for so long, or rather I've been assuming it'd be impossible because he never makes mistakes. But maybe I can manage to break that cabinet open. Yeah, right, I'm sure he wouldn't notice a thing like that! I force myself to suppress that faint glimmer of hope, that tiny spark dancing around within me... but the more I try to squelch it, the stronger it gets. Suddenly I remember that one of the cartons in the storage space was marked Hunting . Maybe he has more weapons in there?

I'm so lost in thought that it takes me a moment to realize Brendan's looking at me. His eyes are full of shadows, dark and unfathomable, like the depths of the ocean. He knows I saw those bottles, plus he's holding a pair of scissors now, which I assume he also got from the cupboard.

"Give me the bag," he says, but the look on his face says something else entirely. Don't you dare even think about it .

My fingers tremble as I hand him the milk and watch him bore a tiny hole in one corner. He sets the scissors on the table and pinches the opening closed. "That should do it," he murmurs. He gives me a questioning glance, though his expression is still darker than usual. "Do you want to feed him?"

I look from Brendan to the whimpering ball of fur and then back again. "Can I?"

"Why not?" He smiles briefly, as though trying to drive the shadow out of his soul, but he doesn't quite succeed. "If you're doing that, you can't exactly run away, can you?" The flatness of his tone gives me chills.

"No," I mumble, taking the bag with both hands—and then I'm not sure what to do, because I need one hand to hold the corner closed.

"Want help?" Without waiting for a response, Brendan sits down beside me. It's the first time he's done that, and instinctively, I scoot away. He acts like he doesn't notice. "Put the open corner to his mouth and drip the milk onto his upper lip. A few drops should be enough."

I put the bag to his tiny, still mewling muzzle and release the opening. Milk drips out. Brendan quickly reaches for the pup's head and turns it, so that the milk flows onto his upper lip from the side. Immediately, I feel tiny paws moving against the pullover, and the whining gives way to sucking motions so hectic that the milk ends up dripping all over his face.

"Try this." Brendan flips the pup onto his belly. "Hold the bag at an angle."

I lift the baggie again. The little wolf is frantic with excitement. He suckles and suckles, and when he realizes he's really, actually getting food, he starts to calm down.

"His heart's racing," Brendan says quietly, as though he doesn't want to disturb the pup. "But he's doing well."

"Yeah." I can't take my eyes off the tiny animal.

"You're smiling. For the first time."

The corners of my mouth sink as though he's caught me doing something I shouldn't.

Again, Brendan pretends not to notice. "You should give him a name," he suggests. He's still sitting next to me, holding the pup to help him drink.

"No." I avoid his gaze and squeeze the bag gently to help the milk flow. "I can't name him if I know you might drown him."

"That's exactly why you should name him." He sounds like he genuinely means it.

"Why?"

"You want him to die without having a name?"

"Names just make it harder. Names bind you to things. Names give them meaning."

"If he doesn't have a name, that means he isn't important."

The remark gives me pause. Somehow it doesn't seem like something Brendan the Kidnapper would say. I watch the pup suckle on the baggie, propped upright in Brendan's grip.

"Maybe not necessarily ‘Princess,'" Brendan adds.

"So he's a ‘he' for sure?"

Brendan nods.

The bag is nearly empty now, and the pup's eyes fall shut. In slow motion, Brendan puts him back into the pullover, and I tuck him in.

"How do you know so much about wolves?" I ask, even though I don't actually want to talk to him.

"I spent a few summers out in the wilderness. Some of it I read, but a lot of things you can only learn from experience."

I probably don't want to know what drives a person to start living all alone out in nature. It probably has to do with his past. "Do you think he'll make it?" I ask instead. At that exact moment, the little wolf starts retching.

"Dammit." Brendan picks him up so he won't choke. "Hopefully he doesn't have roundworms."

The pup spits up the milk with a wheezing cough. It spills over Brendan's hands and drips onto the floor. He's a pitiful sight, hanging there in Brendan's grasp, lethargic and limp, closer to death than life.

"I think there's probably no point." Brendan pets the wolf pup's head. "He's already too weak to keep milk down."

"Maybe we gave him too much," I protest. "He just can't drink that much at once."

Brendan shakes his head, pressing his lips. "Sorry. I don't think this little guy's going to live."

"You're not giving him a chance!" Tears suddenly spring to my eyes. "You don't even want to try!"

"I just don't want him to suffer."

"But I'm suffering, and you don't care about that. You haven't drowned me in the lake yet."

Brendan flinches; his eyes darken. "That's different," he snarls at me furiously.

"No, it isn't. Give him a chance! Please!" My lips are trembling. I don't know why I'm so desperate for the little wolf to make it. Maybe because then I won't be so alone. Because I'll have someone to talk to, even if he doesn't understand me.

"Lou..." Brendan regards me attentively for a moment, and then looks down at the tiny, miserable bundle.

"Please, let's just try! I'll feed him every hour if I have to. A few drops each time. He can sleep in my bed, and I'll carry him around and keep him warm."

"Maybe I should get sick one of these days, too..." Brendan puts in dryly and then hoists the pup to eye level. "What do you think, big fella?"

"Bren! Please!"

He sighs deeply. "Okay. We'll try it for one day. But if he's not doing any better after that, I'm going to put him out of his misery."

"Three days!" I counter. "One isn't enough."

Brendan puts the pup into my arms again and washes his hands. "Two. And you give him a name."

I scratch the pup's ears. "Grey," I blurt out.

Brendan turns and raises an eyebrow. "Grey? Why Grey?"

I lean in and bury my nose in the pup's fine, fluffy fur. "It's the name of a story my brother wrote for me." I don't know why I'm revealing that information to Brendan. It seems wrong to tell him even more about me, when he already knows so much about my life. At the same time, though, it feels like I'm filling a need I didn't know I had until now. Maybe I'm building a bridge out of my loneliness. From me to him via Grey. Or maybe I'm telling him as a way of thanking him for giving Grey two days instead of just one.

When I look up, I find my eyes meeting Brendan's again.

"Jayden?" he asks quietly.

Of course he knows which of my brothers writes stories. I must have mentioned it in a Facebook post, or else he found it out for himself by spying on my brothers. If he went that far.

I merely nod.

"Okay, Grey it is," Brendan declares. Then he explains how to prepare the milk. Only water from the plastic bottles, he warns me, because the tap water is chlorinated.

"I'll start keeping the propane on all the time," he says. "I've been turning it off whenever I leave you here by yourself."

"Why?" Grey falls asleep again, nestled against my hand. I hope he kept down a little of the milk.

"In case there was a gas leak, or there was a problem with the stove. If the gas got out, it would be dangerous in here... and for everything around the camper, of course. I didn't want to risk you getting hurt."

"So what are you going to do now?"

Brendan looks at Grey, and his eyes fill with something I can't quite identify. Longing? Sadness? A specific memory? As usual, when he starts talking, the feeling is gone again. He never allows himself to show his other face. "If you really want to feed him every hour, you'll have to use the stove," he says. "Which means I can't turn off the gas." He points to a small, white box at the base of one of the kitchen cupboards. "That's a propane gas detector. Gas is heavier than air, which is why it's not on the ceiling like a smoke detector. If there's a gas leak, it'll go off, and then you have to get out of the camper immediately."

I lift my shackled wrist demonstratively. "I'm not going to get far."

"I suppose I can stop putting out traps for the next couple days. And if we save water, I won't have to keep fetching more."

"Or you could leave the chains off for two days, right?" I force myself to smile. It's like biting into a lemon. Sour and painful, as if my own muscles are trying to go on strike.

"So you can run away again the first chance you get, and put yourself in danger?" He shakes his head firmly. "No, thanks."

"You'll just have to trust me. The way I trust you to not hurt me." Dammit, Lou, smile!

"My trust is earned. I don't just give it out." He leans casually against the counter, but his expression remains hard.

"Then give me a chance to prove myself. No chains for two days." I tilt my head, trying to remember how cute I thought he was back at the visitors' center, and to look at him the way I did then. "How else are you going to find out whether I'm trustworthy?"

Nothing about his expression changes. "You're not fighting fair. And you know it."

"What's fair, anyway?" I hate the way my voice is cracking. This conversation is wearing me out more than I expected, even though it's just words, just a bunch of plain old words strung together.

Brendan turns away and opens a cupboard above the sink, mumbling to himself the way he always does when he's searching for something specific. After a while, he reaches into the back corner, which I hadn't managed to get at, and pulls out a couple of small bells.

"What are you going to do with those?" I arch an eyebrow. "Tie them around my neck like a dog?"

Brendan's face remains stiff. "Something like that." He leans toward the cupboard again and withdraws a pack of cable ties. "The bells will tell me where you are at all times, so you can walk around outside—they'll keep you safe from bears. I was planning on doing it this way from the beginning, but you were more difficult than I expected..." A thin smile plays on his lips.

I briefly picture myself punching him square in the face, but I manage to make myself calm down. "So you're going to put the bells on me and then I don't have to wear the chain?"

He nods. "We'll try it this way for the next two days. Not at night, obviously."

"What if I have to feed Grey at night?"

"While I'm awake, that's no problem. Otherwise I can chain you in the kitchen."

"Good idea," I say a shade too cheerily, and get a cynical smile in response.

Even so, it's still a victory. My first victory. And his first mistake.