FORTY-TWO
The walls of crates press in around me, the air growing thinner with each breath. I feel so claustrophobic that I’m desperate to throw open those doors and jump out, to give up.
Closing my eyes and holding my lips together, I try my best to fight the panic as I count the minutes. Each bump at a time.
It feels like forever until we finally stop. I pull out my phone to check the time. We’ve been driving for almost twenty minutes.
I hear the sounds of men talking, and then the truck is moving again, and I’m guessing that it’s through the gates of the camp.
When it rolls to a stop again, in addition to a male voice, I hear a female one I recognize immediately from six months ago.
The voices outside fade to nothing. Metal creaks, then bright light pours into the truck as the doors swing open. I freeze mid-breath, making myself impossibly small behind the wall of crates. All I need is patience, to wait for them to unload enough boxes to clear a path, then slip away while they’re busy carrying supplies inside.
But nothing happens for a while. Nothing is removed from the truck. I’m trying to find a gap in the boxes to see what’s goingon, when I finally hear cardboard scraping against metal. The unloading has begun.
I continue waiting until I hear footsteps moving away from the truck. That’s when I risk stepping from behind a mountain of crates.
In that exact moment, a woman steps into the back of the truck. It’s her. The voice I heard.
Megan Hale.
She’s standing there, calm and controlled. She doesn’t look surprised to see me as our eyes meet. My mouth goes dry as paper and I feel my bladder loosening.
“You shouldn’t have come, Mrs. Grant.” She reaches inside the breast pocket of her suit jacket. Her hand comes out holding a syringe filled with an amber liquid. “Did you really think you could just walk in here?”
And then she’s coming toward me, pushing aside the boxes in her path. As I’m about to run past her, she grabs me with surprising strength and is joined by someone else, the driver. Together they pin me against the truck wall.
The needle pierces my arm before I can draw breath to scream.
“Goodbye, Scarlett,” Megan whispers. As darkness descends, my lifedoesflash before my eyes, especially the shameful secret I’ve kept.
It stands out like a green neon sign. It’s one I have never told a soul. One I’ve buried so deep even I pretended it didn’t exist.
When everyone finds out what I did, it will be a good thing I’ll already be dead.
My last regret is that I could not save Sadie, and my last wish is that someone else will.
FORTY-THREE
JUDY
Present Day
I startle awake in the dark, gasping; my heart is slamming hard against my ribs. My body feels wrong, like everything is not working in unison, my limbs heavy and disconnected, as if they belong to some other person.
I lick my parched lips. I would kill for a glass of water.
My hand goes to my head as pain radiates behind my eyes and spreads through my skull.
How much time has even passed since I’ve been out? Minutes, an hour? With no light coming in, there’s no way of knowing.
I’m just getting back my bearings when I detect a movement in the room. I’m not alone.
I thought it was a dream, but it can’t be. I found Sadie. She’s here with me. She’s alive.
I say her name, but she does not seem to hear me because my voice is just a croak. But I hear her crying softly and pounding against the door.
“Please open the door,” she begs. “My mom, she’s not waking up.”
