Which is a problem.
I turn my eyes away from the grayed-out sky and look to the road below me, eyes narrowed at the thought, and jerk to a stop at what I see down there.
A row of dark vans file along so slowly they’re holding up the traffic behind them.Blacked-out windows.No doors.Totally anonymous, except for the fact that they look like they’re in some sort of funeral procession.
Trying so hard to blend into the background that they stand out like a man with a gun pointed at your head.
And just like that I’m flying back through time, my world spinning around me like I’m caught in Dorothy’s tornado and events making almost as much sense.A blink and I’m back in New Orleans again, the gray sky of New York changing out for a pitch-black night sky full of stars and moisture, the air thick with the scent of mildew and magnolias around me.
Summertime in Louisiana.
And a house so big I used to get lost in the corridors before I figured out how to run them without losing my way.
I’m only thirteen, and I’m staring out the window of my bedroom with my lip caught between my teeth and the air stuck in my lungs, unable to breathe.Barely able to think.Definitely not able to scream.
Outside, in the driveway of my father’s house, a row of vans is pulling up the drive, their black edges melting into the midnight air around them as they make their way up the cobblestones.They’re as quiet as death, and nearly as creepy.
And I would think that they’re a figment of my imagination.Vans that don’t actually exist, floating up the driveway beneath the moss-hung trees of the yard, their tires making almost no noise and their engines already cut.It would be easy to think I’m just dreaming, or that I’m seeing things.Visions left over from one of the books I’ve been reading, or from a show I watched on TV.
Except I’ve seen these sorts of vans before, and I know what’s in them.
I watch until they park in front of the house, then cringe when men start getting out of them.They’re all in black, and though they’re not the men I see in the house during the day, I recognize them.
Because I’ve seen them before, too.
When one of them suddenly looks up at the house, I duck back behind the curtain, a scream trapped in my throat and a prayer on my lips.I’m not supposed to be up at this time of night, and I’m sure as hell not supposed to be looking out my window at what’s going on downstairs.I don’t have to ask anyone to know that much.Nothing good happens in this house during the day.
Worse things happen at night.
I peek around the curtain with one eye, looking for the man who was staring at the house, but he’s already moved on.He’s pulling the back doors of one of the vans open, now, and gesturing violently to whoever is back there.Other men are doing the same behind the other vans, their gestures just as violent, though none of them is saying anything.
The air outside is still heavy with silence and the deep secrets of the night.
Within moments, the girls start getting out of the vans.They’re just as quiet, though I can see from the shaking of their shoulders that they’re sobbing.Their hands are shaking, their faces turned to the ground as if they don’t want to see what’s going to happen to them.I don’t have to see their expressions to know that they’ve been beaten into submission and told that terrible things will happen if they dare to make a sound.
I recognize the turn of their shoulders.The tension that tells me they’ve already had the questions beat out of them.
I hiss with horror at that, and when the men lead the row of girls toward the door that goes into the basement, I make for my own door on silent feet.I run down the hallway, staying near the edge to avoid the creaky boards and dodging around the old pictures on the walls.Within moments I’ve reached the chute my father likes to use for laundry and jerked the door up, using the latch to secure it.I stare down into the darkness, my breathing heavy and my heart hammering.This chute leads to the laundry room in the basement, and is the quickest way from my room on the third floor to an exit.
I know, because I’ve used it before.
I also know that my body will fit into the chute, while larger men–like the ones my father employs–can’t fit.
What I don’t know is what the hell I’m doing.I’ve seen the vans before, even seen the rows of girls filing into the basement’s exterior door.But that’s the extent of my knowledge.I’ve never asked, never even considered asking, where they might be going or what those girls are here for.
But I’m tired of not knowing.I’m tired of the whispers in this house, and the aura of evil around my father.
Those girls aren’t much older than me.And they’re not here of their own volition.
I want to know what the hell is going on.
I slip into the chute without putting any more thought into it, and reach back for the door.One jerk, another scuffle, and I’m shooting downward, my hands and feet held against the side of the chute to stabilize me.Three floors down, I emerge into one of the large baskets the maids put here for laundry, and freeze, listening closely.
In the distance, the murmur of voices.A door opening.A man threatening someone.
A girl sobbing, and the sound of a fist hitting bone.Sudden silence.
It’s far away, though, and I don’t think there’s anyone in this room.They’re putting them in one of the other rooms, further along the passageway that runs against the wall of the house here in the foundation.
