Lucy’s body shuddered.
Alone. In the dark. Waiting for the bad man to come. It was her worst fear. The thing that kept her up at night.
Everything she was had been stripped from her. Her family, her future, her dignity. Zoe was the only thing she had left in the world. Now she was gone.
Lucy cursed herself for her cowardice. She had promised Zoe. She had made a pact. But when the time came to act, she froze. Unable to fight. To move. Even to scream.
She longed for her Mama and her Mommy.
When she first met Christa and Gwyn, she remembered calling them by their first names. It was how they’d introduced themselves. Lucy couldn’t remember exactly when, but at some point, she’d started to call them both Mommy. At home with Christa most of the day, while Gwyn was at work, Mommy morphed into Mama. Organically, it became a way to differentiate between the two. And they had been Mama and Mommy ever since.
Now, she would never call them anything, ever again.
She wished she could take back the past year of her life. That she could do it over again.
The second time around, when she met Owen on that pier, she would see him for what he was. She would tell him she had
no interest in dating a loser.
But that wasn’t what happened in real life.
At the time, she thought she was in love with him. She knew she wasn’t. Deep down, she knew it all along.
Owen was a horrible person, and he treated her badly. Now, with hours of lonely silence to reflect, she couldn’t remember what she had seen in him to begin with.
But she did remember how anxious she had been to lose her virginity. Not because of peer pressure, but because of some stupid idea that she needed to prove it to herself that she was straight. That she wasn’t like her Mama and Mommy. That she was normal.
In a way, it had
been peer pressure. She let other people’s opinions control her. Force her to go against her own sensibilities. But those people were wrong. There was nothing ‘not normal’ about her parents. They loved each other. And they loved her. She wanted nothing more than to be like them in every way that mattered.
The sound of movement snapped Lucy out of her own head.
He’s coming.
She knew the time would come. But she hadn’t thought it would be so soon. She needed time to prepare herself.
The glow of the flashlight came next.
Not yet. Not yet.
Lucy peered at the opening. In a matter of a few seconds, she would know if it was the Captain or the Doctor. At this point, it didn’t matter which.
But, as the figure appeared, Lucy could see that it was neither. This person was much smaller. More feminine.
Zoe!
She wasn’t dead. The Doctor had been telling the truth. It was the last thing Lucy expected.
Behind Zoe, the Doctor appeared. Zoe stood by the gate, waiting for the Doctor to insert the key into the padlock and let
her back in. Neither of them said a word.
The gate swung open. Zoe stepped in and stood facing him. Her hands at her sides and her spine erect.
He closed and locked the gate.
“See, all better.” He turned and walked toward the entryway.
As the Doctor rounded the corner and just before the light faded away, Zoe turned and looked Lucy in the eye. She reached into the back of her waistband and flashed Lucy a shiny metal object.
A knife. She found a knife!
Lucy was typically slow on reading between the lines, but in that moment, she understood. Zoe could have already tried to use the weapon to free herself. But she returned. She came back for her. Or she came back for her help. Either way, there was a chance for survival. For both of them. And she would not let her down again.