They make me laugh, but that makes me sad too. I know I will disappoint them some day because they want me to be sweet, innocent, six-year-old Jaxon who disappeared from that park so many years ago—the little kid who loves french fries, curls up with Connor and reads, sleeps with a dog in his bed, and rides his bicycle.
But I’m not him. I can’t ever be him. I know the stories, but I don’t know how to be Jaxon. The only person I know how to be is Teddy, a kid who grew up in a cold, dark dungeon doing whatever it took to survive until the next day.
I watch the two of them bantering. She pretends to be angry at Connor for bringing Trigger into the room, but she isn’t really mad. She doesn’t slap him across the face or pull his hair or push him down and kick him.
And Connor brushes it off like her scolding doesn’t matter when I can tell he wants to please her. They can be that way because they have each other. And always have had each other.
I don’t belong with them. I don’t fit.
I have—had—Kevin, the only brother I’ve ever known. All those years, we huddled together for warmth, swapping stories and making up adventures. Playing games with sticks and pebbles. Reading the dictionary in the light from the little windows. That’s real.
Sitting in a bed, getting three meals a day, laughing at corny jokes, and scratching a dog’s ears can’t be real.
They want me to remember my life before. So do the doctors and nurses and the psychiatrist who comes by and talks.
But I can’t remember before. My memories—my real memories—start in that dungeon. Whoever and whatever I was before that nightmare began is tucked away so deep that I don’t think I can ever unearth him. I’ve got him carefully compartmentalized and buried like one of those graves I dug.
Before is nothing but stories we told each other to distract ourselves from the hunger, the pain, and the despair. We told and retold them so many times they became nothing more than tales. My before is no more a reality to me than Kevin’s before—or Joey’s or Chad’s or Mike’s or Jimmy’s or Dave’s or that of any other kid who shared our existence. The stories told of each other’s parents and friends and siblings became as powerful and life-sustaining as our own, so our own personal before became meaningless. Before is more dream than memory.
I wish my before was as real to me as it is to these people. I really do. Not just for them, but for me. I’ve never been as happy as I’ve been these last few days. And I don’t want it to end.
I wonder if maybe I was happy before, but I don’t know. They tell me I was, but I don’t know how they would really know. I don’t remember playing with friends, fighting with my older brother, throwing sticks for dogs, or riding bikes. I don’t even think I know how to pedal a bike because I can’t remember riding down a hill with the wind whistling through my hair.
I want what they are offering. A brother. A mother. A father, even if he isn’t perfect. A dog to sleep in my bed. A bed with covers and clean sheets and pillows.
I want to get up every morning and watch the sun rise.
Mostly, I want to forget that place I lived in and the things that happened there. I don’t ever want to think about it again.
But the sheriff and FBI agent won’t let me forget yet. They stop by my room and ask me to verify it’s him. They show me a photograph of his rotting face, and in a glance, I know it is.
I can’t catch my breath. The air in the room is gone. My vision grays. The room swims. My hands shake. Sweat rolls down my face. All I want to do is run. Connor’s arm around my neck anchors me. I can only stammer, “It’s him.”
The sheriff’s face is filled with concern as he takes the photo back from me. “His name was Matthew McGregor.”
“Matt.” I whisper his name for the first time since I escaped. I hadn’t wanted to say it out loud for fear it would somehow summon him. I don’t want him to find me and drag me back.
“Don’t worry, Jaxon. He’s dead. He’ll never hurt you again.”
Yeah, he will. He’ll haunt my dreams forever. “Did you shoot him?”
“Uh, no. He was already dead.”
That makes no sense. How does a monster just die? “How?”
“We don’t know yet. Heart attack, maybe. Could have been a stroke. An autopsy will tell us. But it doesn’t matter how. He’s dead.”
Yeah, it matters how he died. He doesn’t deserve to die that easily. He deserves to suffer as much as Kevin and all the others.
The sheriff looks around, blinking. He’s struggling with what to say. “Your description was perfect. You led us right to him. The burned-out house. The trailer. The road. The van. The house. Even the basement was exactly how you told us.”
Of course it was. Why would I lie about that? What else don’t they believe?
“We also found the graves.” He nodded toward Roxanne. “The FBI is sending a specialized team. It’s called an Evidence Response Team. They’re going to help us exhume the bodies.”
Exhume. I always liked that word in our dictionary games. To disinter. Dig up. To bring back from neglect or obscurity.
Like me. I’ve been exhumed, not that differently than Kevin will be. They will exhume his body too. “Why not leave them there?”
Connor pulled me close. “So they can go home to their families. They deserve that, not to be left out there in the woods.”
“But how will you know who their families are?”
Agent Porter came to the side of the bed. “DNA testing.”
DNA. Nucleic acids that are usually the molecular basis of heredity. That’s one of those words where the definition doesn’t really help you understand what it means. “How does DNA tell you who the family is?”
She sat on the edge of the bed. “Everyone’s DNA is unique, but it’s also based on their parents’ DNA. So we can take DNA from them—their hair, for example—and match it to a database of missing children. That match tells us who they are and who their family is.”
“You have everyone’s DNA?”
“Most missing kids, yes. Really old cases are tougher because the protocols were different then, but now we collect DNA on every missing child.”
“So all those kids, the ones who came through there… You’ll be able to match them and find their families?”
“Yes, we should. As long as they were reported missing.”
“But what good does that do? You’re just telling their parents they’re dead. Don’t they already think that?”
“Think about your friend Kevin.” She ran her hand through Trigger’s fur. “He disappeared like you did, and his family is left wondering what happened. Don’t you want Kevin’s family to know what happened to him? Maybe you could even meet them someday and tell them what a great friend he was to you and what a comfort he was. Wouldn’t that be great?”
I look around at them standing in my room and realize they don’t understand. I don’t think it will comfort Kevin’s family to find out their son is dead. I don’t think his family will like it at all. I survived, and he didn’t. I think they will hate that. And I think they will hate me.