“We already did.” Kara walked toward the forest. “It’ll be another ten minutes before the-guy-I-dare-not-name gets here. I need to pee.”
“Now?”
“Wait in the car and lock the doors. I’ll be back in?—”
“You’re not going anywhere without me.”
“Story of my life,” Kara muttered under her breath and waved for Ingrid to follow.
Karawalked about fifty yards into the forest. Ingrid stopped after twenty and began whining about why Kara had to go so far. Because she wanted a clearing, so she didn’t get a sapling up her ass when she squatted. She didn’t tell Ingrid that. It wouldn’t stop her complaining. Nothing did.
As Kara crouched, Ingrid’s mutterings tapered off. Then her friend gasped, the sound sudden and harsh in the silent forest. Kara leaped up, yanking her jeans over her hips.
“Ingrid?”
No answer.
Kara spun. Hands grabbed her from behind. Strong hands. She opened her mouth. A cloth slapped over her mouth and nose, a damp cloth, stinking of chemicals, and she crumpled, unconscious to the ground.
Karawoke to music, playing so softly it sounded like a voice whispering in her ear, and she scrambled to sit up, thinking it was Gavin and?—
She felt something cold and hard under her legs, and her brain stuttered, throwing her back five years, waking on a cold metal slab of a bed, no mattress, no sheets, no pillow. She shivered convulsively, her brain screaming no, that that was over, long over, that she’d paid the price, paid the goddamn price.
Her hands clenched, fingers pressing not into a metal bed frame but against cold cement. She opened her eyes?—
My eyes are already open. But I can’t see anything. Oh my God, I can’t see?—
Then she made out the shadow of her knee. She was lying on a cement floor. She moved one leg. Metal scraped against the concrete. She reached down and touched iron on her ankle, and it all rushed back, and she doubled over, stomach clenching.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic. That’ll only make it worse. You’re okay. It’ll be okay. Just stay calm.
She took a deep breath. The clogging scent of must and mildew filled her nostrils. Stale air, chill and damp. A basement. She was in a basement.
That’s when she heard the music again, the faint strains wafting around her.
I know that song.
She closed her eyes and focused, and the voice and words came clear. Leonard Cohen.Everybody Knows.
Her gut clenched and she tried to leap up, the chain yanking tight, iron band digging into her ankle.
Across the room, a door creaked open. The figure of a man filled it. Kara crawled back as far as the chain would allow, her back brushing a cold wall as the man advanced. He bent in front of her. A balaclava covered his face, only brown eyes and pale lips visible.
“Not everybody knows, Kara,” he said. “But I do.”
She opened her mouth to scream. And that’s when the beating began.
April 30, 2006
Twodays before Kara’s fifteenth birthday, and life was perfect. Her mother was happy, having found a new job and a new boyfriend, the latter working at the former. When Mom was happy, life was good, but it was more than that. For the first time in Kara’s life, her teachers weren’t chiding her with “we know you can do better,” because she was getting straight Bs and even a few As. She’d made the volleyball team, and while it wasn’t as good as the cheerleading squad, Ingrid had promised to keep training her until she made that, too.
To be honest, Kara wasn’t that keen on cheerleading. But it would make Mom and Ingrid happy, so she’d do it. Mom said Eddie might also like it if she was a cheerleader, though whenKara suggested that, he said he’d rather date a volleyball player any day.
Eddie Molloy. Fifteen. Football player. Second-string, but she’d told him she’d rather date a second-stringer any day, and he’d laughed. Laughed and kissed her.
Eddie Molloy. Her first boyfriend. They’d been going together for five months. Five wonderful months. He was nice and cute and funny and everything she’d dreamed of in a boyfriend, and now, two days before her birthday, they were sitting in the abandoned treehouse behind her apartment complex, kissing. That’s all they’d done so far, kissing, and he never pushed her to do more, even though Ingrid insisted he would, warning he was only going slow until Kara lowered her guard.
“They’re all like that,” Ingrid would say with a knowing roll of her eyes. “Boys.”
