Page 45 of Dance Practice, Marooned: Part 2

“I don’t think she speaks English,” Ace says, his voice steady.

“I think she’s just scared,” I whisper.

Zeke steps up closer to me. “She speaks English, but she isn’t here willingly from what I could gather. Her name is Kaylee.”

I nod and keep my eyes on her, keeping my voice soft and steady. “It’s okay, Kaylee. My name is Gracie, and this is Aggie, Rachel, Ace, Kellen, and you already know Zeke. We are stranded here and are just trying to find our way home. We aren’t here to hurt you.”

She swipes her tears away and looks to Zeke, as if he can confirm if what we are saying is true or not.

He nods. “We ain’t here to hurt you,” he tells her, voice low.

I hold my breath, just watching her, waiting for her to run, or scream, or simply faint. Her tears keep falling, but slowly, she stops shaking and backing up. That has to be a good sign, right?

“Is this your family, Kaylee?” I continue after a moment.

She shakes her head.

I nearly scream with relief, but I don’t. I keep my expression the same, my face still and my eyes fixed on her. “Are you here against your will?”

She nods.

Fuck.

“We can help you,” Rachel says, her voice a gentle whisper from behind me. “We can take you home.”

Kaylee looks to Rachel, then back to me. “I don’t have a home.”

Her voice is soft, almost childlike. As if she has forgotten how to use it.

I want to reach for her, but I can tell that would be the worst thing I could do; she’s looking at my hands like they’re holding knives. So I just keep my voice soft. “We can help you figure that out, Kaylee. You don’t have to be alone again.”

She blinks at me, confused, and then shakes her head. “You can’t help me,” she whispers. “Nobody can. They said that, and it’s true. If someone wanted to help me, they would have.”

I want to take her into my arms and tell her that it isn’t always that easy if nobody knows where you are.

Ace wipes blood off his face and takes a careful step toward her. Even bruised and battered and covered in sand, he manages to look like someone who’d never, ever hurt her. “Listen, Kaylee, I know you’re scared and I am not going to tell you that you can’t be. But we can help you. I’m not going to force you, though. I would never do that.”

She stares at him, lips working. “I can’t go with you.”

“Why not?” I ask, gentle as I can manage.

She draws her arms over her chest, like she’s holding in all her secrets so they don’t splatter all over us. “Because there are more of them, and they’ll find me.”

My skin prickles. “Not if we get you out of here. Whatever they did to you, you’re safe now.”

Rachel edges forward, one hand out, palms up, like she’s trying to coax a dog out from under a car. “Kaylee. If you come with us, we’ll protect you. All of us. There’s nothing anyone can do to you anymore, you hear?”

Kaylee’s eyes flick to Zeke, wary. “I’m afraid.”

My heart skips a beat, and absolutely breaks for this girl.

“I’ve seen only a glimpse of what they’re like,” Zeke says, his voice low but firm. “We ain’t those people. We won’t do those things to you.”

It hangs in the air for a while, that promise. Kaylee hugs her waist tighter, staring beyond us, into the trees. “They kept me in a cage,” she says finally. “For years. They used me for whatever they needed at the time, to make money, to work, to...”

We know exactly what the last sentence was going to be.

I feel sick to my stomach.