Relief filled me. There was a child here. Her little voice brought feelings of safety and comfort.
Something inside my gut told me she wasn’t talking to the character on the screen or any of the matching merchandise she’d collected, but instead, to a person in the room who was named the same.
Her voice grew distant as the space between us amplified.
The wood of my crate rattled as I was dropped half a foot onto the stone floor.
More vibrations of fear tingled in my blood. The homeowner had sounded nice, but this wasn’t normal. I’d been abducted, emotionally beaten and physically beaten, too, just to be brought here.
“We’ll be on our way, seeing as payment has already been dealt with.” The man with an unfamiliar accent was the first to leave, guiding out his now-silent acquaintances.
I listened to muffled voices and the front door slamming in the distance. A family had gathered around the wood where I sat. The little voice was back, and it caught my attention, making it so I heard nothing else. Nothing but her as she jumped up and down on her small feet.
“Can I open the box, Daddy? Please!”
“No, Darlin’, you know that we can’t do that,” her father told her, his words deflating her bubble of happiness. “Why don’t you go get your brother in here.”
“Can he open the box?”
“He can.”
Vibrations of little feet bouncing on the cold floor greeted my ears again. Her excitement altered the velocity of her speed, taking her swiftly out of the room as she rushed through the house, eager to discover what lay beyond the wood—eager to discover me.
Voices become hushed. Words became whispered. The man of the house started talking with someone, and the adults in the room didn’t want me to hear the private conversation they were having in limited privacy.
Their almost silent words bounced off the walls, dancing around the lack of decoration I was yet to see, but I couldn’t hear them. I heard nothing, not until I heard the footsteps again. More footsteps.
The small girl, overfilled with vim and happiness, pulled along a person who I feared was the complete opposite. His silence made him hard to read.
The height of the volume in the room increased. Excitement and joy spread like a fast-spreading fire, ignited by gasoline. . .
“Open the box.”
I heard the words but paid no attention to who had voiced them.
And I had no idea what would happen when that order was followed through. Would I be part of this family? My abductors said I’d be loved and wanted. I missed love. I missed a family.
But not this one. . . mine.
I missed my dad and all the promises he’d made in these recent weeks, all of which, he never got to see through. He had already broken the first—the promise of being with me forever. . . and he’d broken my heart along with it.
Footsteps moved to me, heavy and harsh on the cold floor. The key was already in my lock; a shaking hand had the metal vibrating against the wood as they turned the key to the right, and something internally clicked, releasing a mechanism to set me free.
I wanted to push myself to my feet, push the lid open. I wanted freedom, light, and the potential safety this family could offer me. But sitting silently and lowly for so long had made me weak; my legs, despite their muscle from years of track and field, wouldn’t hold my weight.
I waited in my position, waited for the lid to lift and for the glow of the dimming sun or the bright moon rising in the sky to peep in from a window and meet my skin with a gentle kiss.
Loud feet moved away as the man of the house allowed his children to catch the first glimpse of me.
The lid lifted, revealing a boy who stepped forward—a teenager with lanky legs. Hedidn’t look happy to see me; he didn’t look excited about my arrival. The voices I heard before my box was opened, had me feeling like he would have been, just like the little girl, who I assumed was his sister.
All he looked was confused.
His silver eyes blinked repeatedly. They were the brightest thing in the room.
“Ah, a sister! Is she mine, too?” chirped a little voice—the same voice I’d heard earlier.
“That isn’t. . .” the man stopped himself, like he was altering what he initially planned on saying. “Sure, a sister.” He smiled at the small face.
