“Night, sis,” Ashton said.
“Bye, Magdalena,” Ember said, with a Spanish accent.
“Night, honey,” Mom said.
“Night.”
The sleep I struggled to crawl out of was heavy. Its comfort and the extraction of my stress and exhaustion felt too good to end, but something kept telling me I needed to wake up. The slamming of my heart insisted I wake. My coughing helped a little more.
“Magdalena?” It was a call from far away, desperate. What was happening? Mom kept calling me, then my brother.
“Ash?” I heard myself reply, and wrinkled my brow before I could even open my eyes.
“Ahhhhh!” The screeching scream fully woke me finally, butI couldn’t kick the confusion.
Why is my bedroom full of smoke?Nothing registered. Calmly, I stood and walked over to my bedroom door. I hissed at the burning of my palm by the doorknob. The smoke was coming from under.Wait. There’s smoke coming from under the door and the door is hot! Fire!
“Mami! Daddy!” I yelled as hard as I could.
“Magdalena! Help me! Get Mom!” yelled my brother.
“I’m trapped!”What can I do? What can I do? Mom’s room was right next to mine, I could climb over the balcony...
I turned to my right and on the other side of the sliding glass door, there he stood—Mael. My blood rushed from my head. The gasp got stuck in my throat. I’d taken my meds, so why was I hallucinating? The smile that spread on his lips froze me. With my heart drumming hard, I glanced at the wooden door in front of me which the heat was bending toward me. In the background, my family kept screaming my name, calling me.
He rolled the glass door open and slowly walked in. “Magdalena Michaelson…” His smile was the same, too wide, his hair just as bleach blonde, his eyes just as cold. It couldn’t be. I killed him.You’re supposed to be dead, Mael.“Gotcha.” He clicked his tongue and with his hand acting like a gun, and pretending to shoot me. Then, still holding that smile, he winked at me, and pointed with both hands toward the balcony hanging over the backyard garden, the same one I stared at for weeks after he and his friends raped me. “You have nowhere else to go. Trust me.”
This can’t be real. I’m dreaming a very dark nightmare.The thick smoke burned my throat and eyes, but I still stepped away from him, preferring to die in a fire than to go anywhere near whatever he was. I shook my head, grimacing at the sight of him, not wanting to face the situation, as my back hit the closet door. “No.” Not only wasn’t I processing things, I didn’t want to.
“Magdalena!” my brother’s voice full of horror called me from outside the house and pulled my gaze to the door, which seemed about to explode open. Within seconds, a hand grabbed my hair and dragged me across the room to the balcony. I couldn’t help screaming, especially when he pushed me over the veranda and the ground slammed all the air out of my lungs. The last thing I saw about my room was the door exploding and the fire. Every joint in my body was broken, or that’s how it felt. Numerous times, I tried to regain the ability to breathe, but the pain burned through me.
He touched me. He’s real. Mael is alive. Runnnnn!Although I knew I needed to escape, there was no way I could; I was paralyzed, trapped in a broken body and I couldn’t scream.
Unlike me, Mael ran down the stone stairs to the grass. Our gazes were locked as he stalked toward me while my family screamed my name again and again. I heard the terror in their voices. They were at the front of the house.
“Ember!!! Ashton!!!! Magdalena!” Mom was hysterical, but I could tell she was outside.
“I couldn’t find her! I couldn’t get to her,” my brother cried.“Where’s Ember? She was right here, Mom. Where did she go?”
“Ashton!!!!” Mom screamed. “No! Ashton! You can’t go back in there.”
Part of the house exploded. “Astoria!” my dad screamed. “Where are they?”
“Ashton just went back in. He went back in!”
They were on the front lawn, thinking I was burning alive.
Without a care in the world, smiling, Mael gripped my neck and choked me. Through gritted teeth he said, “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this to you. I’ve been so fucking patient. But that’s okay. It’s given me time to come up with ways I can torture you to death.” He chuckled.
Ember? What would happen to them? No! My family!It was the last thing I thought as my gaze slid to the left and the roof faltered from the fire. Sirens went off in the distance. The fire department was coming. The world darkened at the edges. Then the darkness spread until there was only black.
19. Between Hell and a Hard Place
TWENTY-THREE YEARS OLD
“Miss Michaelson…” Whose voice was that? I knew him but didn’t know from where. What happened? I was only wearing my silky nightgown, so the leather beneath me stuck to my arms and calves. I opened my eyes to the old bald fat man walking behind his desk and plopping into his comfortable chair. Sunlight bled from the window behind him, lighting up the room which was filled with brown and orange leather furniture. It reminded me of an office from the 1970s. I knew this place. It was the office where I used to meet that horrible doctor. Dr. Laurent.Oh no!That’s who’d woken me. The awareness and realization crashed into me all at once.
“Don’t let them find you.”Mael’s nameless friend, the one who’d helped me, had warned me.
