| |
“Stop it!” Andy shouted. His body came crashing down beside me.
“I expected better of you. How could you have fallen for her tricks?”
Joe’s boot cracked loudly against Andy’s skull. I crept closer to him, reaching for him with a trembling, weighted hand. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as my skull swelled and brain pulsed behind my eyes.
Then, I could see again. Betty’s apparition stood before me like she had before, when I’d begged for death.
“Betty, is that you? Am I dead?” I asked. “Are you finally going to take me with you?”
“Yes, it’s me, dear. But no, you’re not dead.”
“I’m sick of this, Betty.”
“I know you are.”
“Then why don’t you take me away?”
“I can’t, only you can.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Do I have to kill myself?”
“Of course not.”
“Then what? Tell me, and I’ll do it. I’m dreaming or comatose. Either way, I don’t want to wake up to Joe’s torment anymore. I’ve lasted as long as I can.”
“It’ll end when it’s meant to end.”
“What kind of cryptic crap is that? Just tell me what I need to do.”
“I’ve always been with you and will continue to be with you.”
She faded into nothingness like all the times before when she’d come to me in my dreams.
***
I woke with a groan. I was in the master bedroom, lying on the bed. I turned onto my right side, intending to roll my legs off the bed and walk out of the bedroom, but a sharp, pulsing pain in my head knocked me backward onto my back, a cruel revelation that I’d been left alone but my body was in no condition to run.
Newbie’s hand stroked my cheek and along my jawline, smoothing the hair away from my forehead. I sighed in relief. Despite what he’d done, his touch was comforting.
Reality hit. Newbie was dead.
I sat straight up, ignoring my skull’s angry protest. My arms flailed at my sides. Tears poured down my cheeks.
“It’s me, Andy. I’m not going to hurt you. You can stop hitting me now.”
I leaned forward with my head in my hands. “What is going on? Where’s Joe? How did I end up here, not in the crawl space? And how are you okay? I heard your skull crack.”
“I’m not okay, but I am better than you. Joe left us upstairs, unconscious. When I came to, I brought you down here. I figured you’d be in no position to run when you woke, which would keep him from getting angry when he saw you not locked in the crawl space.”
“How long have we been out?”
“You’ve been asleep for almost a day. I was only out for a few hours.”
“You stayed with me?”
“Yes, I wasn’t leaving you alone, not after his reaction.”
I turned my head to my left. “He’s left you alone for an entire day?” A bewildered frown tugged at my brows.
“The one time he came in, I pretended I was still asleep. He hasn’t checked back since.”
“Where is he? What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know. Do you think you can get up? I could use your help.”
“I can try. Where are we going? How can I help you?”
“Let’s see if you can stand on your own, then I’ll explain.”
He rounded the bed, lowering his hands toward me. I stared for a long while waiting to be tricked, to be slapped or punched. He waited patiently.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” His features were relaxed. “I promise I’m not like him.”
I put my cold, shaking hands into his. “Okay.”
“Alright, on the count of three.”
On three, I was standing upright. On four, my legs wobbled beneath me as if I’d just stepped off from riding a roller coaster. I hobbled into the bathroom, dropping in front of the toilet just in time to throw up. I wiped my mouth with a fist full of toilet paper.
“I’m sorry I pushed you to move too soon,” Andy said with his thick arm cradling my waist, helping me onto my feet. I leaned into him, using him for support.
Andy helped me to the bed. He caught me before I slipped off the edge of the mattress, guiding me onto my back.
“I’m sor—” His face withered away in front of me.
***
I dragged open my groggy eyes. Andy sat, watching me, from a kitchen chair tucked into the corner between the closet and bathroom.
“What happened? Did I fall asleep again?” I sat up with my back to the headboard.
“Yeah, you’ve been out for a couple of days. I thought about waking you but decided against it. I hoped the longer you slept, the easier your head would heal. How do you feel?”
“I hurt.” I cradled the side of my head with my palm. “But I think I’m better. Will you help me into the bathroom?”
Andy rose from his chair. He stood in front of me. “Of course. Hold onto my hands.”
I did as he asked. Unlike last time, I wasn’t running into the bathroom to throw up. He held me while I steadied myself, and the fuzziness swirling around my brain ebbed. I breathed through my nose, exhaling through my mouth until confidence that I could stand on my own filled me.
I stepped back, holding onto his forearms until I was confident my body, stiff from a head injury and three days’ worth of sleep, wouldn’t fall.
Andy was patient with me as we walked with slow, deliberate movements into the bathroom. I released him to lean my back against the vanity.
“You needed my help, didn’t you?” I asked, the haze from our last conversation fading. “Do you still need help?” I gripped the edge of the counter. The confines of the small room were closing in on me.
“No, don’t worry about it. I took care of it. I just want you to feel better. Will you be okay for a minute? You should eat. I found a box of crackers in one of the cupboards. Will that work?”
“Yeah, that’s what your dad fed me when he fed me.”
“Joe.”
“What?”
“Not Dad.”
“You don’t refer to him as your father?”
“Would you?”
I shook my head. “I won’t say it again.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.”
He left me to face my reflection alone. I grimaced at the broken skin surrounding my lips and the blue, purple, and yellow bruises tinting my jawline. I recalled the moment Joe’s boot had kicked my face and drew my eyes closed.
I grabbed a washcloth from below the sink and soaked it in warm water. I began washing away the dried blood around my mouth. The terry cloth against my tender skin was only tolerable because it was erasing evidence of my assault. Next, I wiped away the trails of blood, beginning at the gashes in my hairline and ending at my jawline, and then what looked like tears of blood that had spilled from my crying eyes.
Just as I was beginning to work on the blood matted in my hair, Andy appeared in the doorway. I watched him through the mirror. I averted my eyes when his expression turned somber, pitying.
“Here.” Andy stood beside me, handing me an unopened sleeve of saltines with one hand while taking the washcloth from my hand with the other. “Sit down on the toilet. Eat your crackers, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
I did as he asked while he rinsed the cloth in warm water. I nibbled on a cracker, adept at prolonging the tiny meal.
“You don’t have to ration yourself. Eat all the crackers if you want.”
I bit off a larger piece for his sake but still kept my bites small the way Joe preferred.
He held strands of my hair in his hand, using the cloth like a brush as he removed clumps of dried blood.
I finished eating my five crackers and was twisting closed the end of the plastic sleeve when he announced he was finished. He helped me to my feet, begrudgingly taking the nearly full pack of crackers from my hand.
“Thank you,” I said, staring at my less appalling reflection. I turned toward him as he filled the bathroom doorway. “What are we doing here, Andy? How long am I supposed to stay here? Am I ever going to be freed?”
I followed him into the bedroom. He sat on the bed, and I sat on the chair in the corner.
“As I said before, I’m trying to get you out of here. I can’t say what Joe’s plans were before but seeing us hugging has changed things. Now he’s scrambling to figure out what to do. When he finds out about Mark...”
He drifted off as if imagining all the ways Joe might handle the news that one of his sons was dead. If I didn’t have to face the consequences, I’d have admitted to being the one who killed Newbie, the one who destroyed that part of Joe’s lineage. As important as his family was to him, the news would destroy him.
“Where is Joe right now?” My voice forced Andy to return his attention to me. “How are you alone with me? Does he know you’re in here or that you fed me? Where’s Kris? And where is N–Mark?”
I was growing suspicious, as holes in his story became obvious. Joe never left me alone unless I was in the crawl space, and he would never have allowed me food without his approval or supervision.
“Joe’s with Doris. There’s no need for you to worry about him right now.”
My mouth was hanging open, prepared to ask about Newbie and Kris’s bodies once more when a sharp cry filtered into the room.
I froze to the seat of my chair, my pulse quickened, and my breath died in my throat. “Andy,” I summoned a whisper, “who was that? What should we do?”
His brow furrowed, but he didn’t move.
A hushed silence blanketed the room, causing me to wonder if I ever heard a cry at all. Just as I was about to decide the noise had been in my imagination, a scream shattered the silence. Whether it was Joe’s or Doris’s, I couldn’t say.
Andy rose from the bed, calm and poised even then. “You stay here. I’ll be right back. Don’t worry. I’m sure everything is fine.” His words said one thing, but his demeanor said another. “Don’t move.” His voice was a low growl, an unfamiliar tone for him to use.
Fear and panic gripped me around my throat. I feared for his sake and for mine.
“Please, be careful,” I stuttered.
The door slammed shut as he stormed out.