Hope
I couldn’t focus on my parents. I refused to believe that they had something to do with this, with Daniel, with anything. I was their prop, their ticket to better ratings, but…
Had they known?
My throat was parched, and being in this room had sucked every bit of moisture from my body. I didn’t want to ask Daniel for anything. I didn’t want him to think I depended on him, needed him, but I realized with soul-splitting pain that I did.
I knocked gently first, a soft, dainty set of three little raps.
“Daniel?” Thirst choked my voice, made it raspy and weak. I knocked harder when there was no response. “Daniel?”
I waited, pressing my ear against the door, trying to discern my heartbeat from Daniel’s footsteps. I both desperately wanted him to answer, to unlock the door, and to be gone, far away from me, from this place.
There was no response from the other side of the door.
I slammed my fists against the heavy wood. “Daniel! Someone! Anyone! Help!”
I didn’t know how long I kept up the tirade, but the sky outside the long, high window went from misty black to inky, and the skin on the edges of my hands was purpled and puckered and cracked. I fell to my knees, then my butt, and crumbled against the door frame, waiting, begging, feeling more and more pitiful.
And then I heard it.
An engine roaring. A door slamming. Footsteps clattering down the hall.
I used every last inch of strength I had to push myself up. “Daniel?” I thumbed the door, leaving bloody imprints. “Daniel?” My voice sounded weak and rough.
The locks slid.
One, two, three.
Then, “Get away from the door, Hope.”
I fumbled, took two steps backward.
Daniel appeared in the doorway, shimmied in, and sank a key into the lock behind him. I realized with a painful start that the click was the sound of a lock sliding.
I didn’t know what was worse: Daniel being locked on the outside or here with me on the inside.
He looked disheveled and sweaty, his hair mussed, the collar of his shirt torn. There was a long, red scratch down his left cheek, and he seemed to be breathing hard.
“Are you hungry?”
I wanted to ask him where he’d been. I wanted to know where he went, what happened on the other side of this locked door, but I didn’t dare. All I could do was nod, my eyes glued to the McDonald’s bag he held in one fist, glued to the beads of condensation that stood out on the large cup he was holding.
He held both out to me, and I snatched them hungrily, then crawled back to a corner of my room, sinking down to the floor, keeping one wild eye on him while my lips closed around the straw.
I should have wondered whether he poisoned the drink. I should have been concerned the cheeseburger was drug laced. But I was starving. Everything was cold, but I didn’t care. I shoveled it in, even though my stomach ached.
Daniel smiled. “It’s good to see you eat. Sorry it’s so late tonight. It won’t always be like this.” He looked at his hands, and I could see that they were filthy, dirt-caked, worse than usual. He wiped his palms on his jeans. “I had something I had to take care of.” He turned, then paused and fished an apple pie out of his back pocket. He held it out to me. “I got you this too. Here.”
I chewed, but didn’t move.
“Go on.”
I pulled a single fry out of my bag.
He shrugged and put the apple pie on the edge of the desk. His shirtsleeve rode up as he did, and I could see the scratches all over his forearm, blooming red and green at the jagged edges. I stared until he turned and unlocked the door, took the key, and slid it down the lanyard around his neck.
“Sleep tight, Hope. Everything’s all better now.”