Is she looking to see if someone is coming?
I fight Lucas with everything I have, kicking, clawing, screaming even as dizziness overwhelms me again.
But I’m dragged away from the door, inch by inch, and no amount of resisting can stop me from being moved.
“Stop!” Megan finally calls out, when we’re halfway down the hall. “I’ve changed my mind.”
I’m not sure who she’s talking to, me or Lucas.
He stops dragging me, and I instantly crumple inside his grip, panting and too weak to fight anymore.
Megan walks back and continues until she’s standing in front of the door to room 17. “Bring her,” she instructs him.
He doesn’t have to drag me this time because I use all the strength I have to walk on my own. He’s beside me as we come to stand next to Megan. His hand is still on my arm, and I can smell his sweat.
“I didn’t want it to go this way, my friend,” Megan says. “But you leave me no choice.”
She unlocks the door with a key she claimed not to have, and with the flick of a hand, she gestures for Lucas to do something.Before I know it, he releases me and shoves me forward, and into the room.
I stumble into darkness and the door swings shut with a heavy clang.
But before the light from the hallway disappeared, I saw her.
Sadie, bound and sitting on the floor next to a single, narrow bed.
Alive.
THIRTY-TWO
As Megan turns the lock, every other thought dissolves and everything narrows to one single goal. Find Sadie in this blanket of darkness, brought on by the windows being boarded up.
“Baby, where are you?” I crawl blindly, my hands and knees scraping the rough carpet.
Overwhelmed with emotions, Sadie responds with more sobs than words. Her heartbreaking whimpers draw me closer to her. Then the most beautiful word breaks through them again. “Mom…”
When my eyes start to adjust with the help of the sliver of light from underneath the door, I notice her movements, slow and restricted like those of a wounded animal.
The first thing I do when I reach the bed is free her arms and legs that are bound with rope. In the process, my fingers graze against something metallic on her left wrist. The bracelet.
“I’m so, so sorry, my love.” I draw her into my arms and she throws hers around my neck, like she used to as a little girl, her face buried against my shoulder.
Time stops and everything melts away until only the two of us exist. She’s here. She’s alive. And from the looks of it, she did not stay willingly.
“I’m so sorry, Mommy,” she blurts out. “I’m sorry for what I did and said, for wanting to get away from you. I said I hated you…I didn’t mean all those things. She…she kept me here, wouldn’t let me out. Told me I was safer here. She said terrible things about Daddy.”
“She’s a liar,” I sob.
All the months of grieving and hurting, and she was here the entire time, alive and trapped in this camp, in this room? Why would Megan do this? Why would anyone be so cruel? And she was acting all caring and understanding.
She clearly did this alone, with the help of only a few selected people. That’s why she panicked when I started to shout, why she went to check if someone was coming.
I push aside the pain brought on by those thoughts and savor this moment for now, soothed by my daughter’s warmth against me.
Sadie cries into my neck and I let her, smoothing down her hair, which is in two dry, tangled braids, the kind I used to wear as a kid.
“You are okay now, my love. Mommy is here.” I grab her head with both hands and press my lips to her sweaty forehead before pulling her back to me. “Let me switch on the light and?—”
“It won’t work,” she whispers. “It’s disconnected from this room.”
