by Cassia Leo
My gaze bore into him, taking in the cleanliness of his red plaid button-up and jeans. He didn’t look like he wanted to hurt me. In fact, he almost looked more afraid of me than I was of him. He stared at the bottle of aspirin, which sat on top of the clunky oak nightstand, as if he were waiting for me to lash out, to deal out some sort of punishment for not having a telephone.
“I’m thirsty.”
He looked back at me, a glimmer of something, possibly hope, in his blue eyes. “Of—of course. I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared out of the tiny bedroom and into a dark hallway, his footsteps trailing off as my fear grew. Maybe that glimmer of hope was nothing more than hope for my compliance. I should try to escape now that he was gone.
My heart pounded against my aching chest as I used my left arm to throw off the thin crocheted blanket. But when I attempted to sit up, the pain in my clavicle nearly brought me to the brink of unconsciousness again. I squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth against the pain. The tears returned, along with a painful lump in my throat, as I realized I was trapped. I couldn’t travel a hundred miles to the nearest town on foot.
My eyelids snapped open as I suddenly remembered I had a cell phone in the car. I just had to make it to the crash site.
I sat up in bed, pressing my lips together to stifle my screams. My shoes were gone. I slid off the mattress onto the dusty wood floor. I’d have to go barefoot.
I took one step when the sound of the man’s footsteps came to me from the dark hallway. In that split second, I considered bolting out of the bedroom and, hopefully, toward the front door, then out into the woods. But if this man meant me harm, he would surely catch me. And if I did manage to get away, he would have absolutely no obligation to help me if I were to get lost out there in the dark forest.
Sinking back down onto the bed, I remained seated as I waited for him to enter. He seemed surprised — and maybe a bit worried? — when he found me sitting up. He didn’t comment on it, though. He silently handed me the amber glass of water.
I sniffed the liquid, confirming the lack of odor before I gulped down the whole glass. I knew some poisons were odorless and tasteless, but I was in this man’s hands now. What he did with me was beyond my control until he went to sleep.
Tonight, while this man slept, I would creep outside and attempt to find my car. It couldn’t be too far if he was able to stumble upon me or hear the crash from inside the house. Then, I’d find my phone and pray for a cell signal, despite the fact I hadn’t prayed in four years.
“You want one of these?” he said, picking the bottle of aspirin off the nightstand.
I nodded and handed him my empty glass. While he was gone fetching me more water, I lay back on the bed, not bothering to pull the blanket over me again. The pain in my clavicle was too great for me to notice whether I was cold or otherwise uncomfortable.
When he returned with the water and aspirin, I gulped down four tablets and shut my eyes. Exhaustion seeped into every fiber of my muscles as I began to feel woozy. Maybe he did poison me. Or perhaps I had a concussion.
I thought of the myth I’d heard as a child that you shouldn’t go to sleep if you have a head injury, or you might die. It wasn’t true, but it was scary enough for me to wonder if perhaps, by going to sleep now, I would be taking the easy way out…like my father.
CHAPTER TWO
SHADOW & SHINE
I wasn’t the type to scare easily, nor was I prone to night terrors. But I woke in the middle of the night with a start. The room was as dark as my thoughts. It took me a moment to realize I was screaming. Not just a regular scream; a cover-your-ears-and-double-check-the-integrity-of-the-china type of scream. And as suddenly as I woke, my vision was flooded with blinding white light.
“Are you okay?” the same gruff voice asked, though I couldn’t see where he was.
I pulled the cover over my face, trying to block out the light and muffle the screams that seemed to come from somewhere other than inside me. Though he couldn’t see me under here, I nodded my head to let him know I was okay. I didn’t need him fussing over me all night.
By the swiftness with which the ceiling light turned on, I suspected he’d been standing near the wall switch next to the bedroom door when I screamed. I would never escape this shack if I didn’t convince him I was well enough to be left alone.
“You never told me your name,” he remarked with a sigh, and I thought I detected a tinge of disappointment in his voice.
I pulled the covers down, and slowly opened my eyes as the bare bulb hanging above the bed burned into my retinas. “Shine. The—”
“Shine?” he said curiously. “Your name is Shine?”
I was going to complain to him about the light shining in my eyes, but if he wanted to believe my name was Shine, I wouldn’t correct him. The less he knew about me, the better my chances were of maintaining a safe distance.
I knew some people who were abducted began to sympathize with their abductors. This phenomenon was referred to as Stockholm syndrome, named after the six-day bank heist in Stockholm, Sweden, where bank employees became emotionally attached to their captors and actually rejected help from authorities. That would not be me.
Just because this man saved me didn’t mean he wished me no harm. The man was living in the middle of nowhere with no phone and probably no internet. I would not fall victim to his trap no matter how kind he pretended to be.
“Well, Shine. I’m…I’m Shadow…Shadow Ainsley.”
My gaze flitted toward him only to find that he was no longer standing near the door. He was sitting in a rickety wooden chair at my bedside now and staring at the floor. He was also lying.
The probability that his name was Shadow was about as high as the probability that my name was Shine. But I would play along. This was the confirmation I needed to know he did mean to harm me. I would pretend I wasn’t afraid of him just long enough to find a way to escape.
I licked my lips as my mouth began to feel parched again. “I’m thirsty,” I declared—more like demanded.
I sounded ungrateful. I was unable to muster even a shred of faux gratitude to this man who’d saved my life and taken me into his home. I had to change my attitude, or he would never leave my side. He needed to believe I trusted him.
He handed me a glass of tepid water, which had been sitting on the nightstand. I winced as I carefully sat up in bed and accepted the drink. Without expression of gratitude, I guzzled the water down in a few large gulps. I moved to place the empty glass on the nightstand, but the pain in my clavicle stopped me cold.
Shadow took it from my hand gently as I let out an exasperated breath and fell back onto the pillow. “You should get some rest,” he muttered as he took a seat on the wooden chair.
“Are you just going to watch me?”
My question was met with silence. He understood his presence was unwelcome. Maybe this would spurn him enough to leave me alone for a while.
He stood from the chair and opened the top drawer of the nightstand. Pulling out an antique hand mirror, he held it close to his chest for a moment before he handed it over.
I stared at him for a moment, wondering what he was doing. “What’s that? I don’t need that,” I replied defensively.
He squinted his eyes as his gaze remained locked on the blanket covering my legs. He wasn’t going to answer my question and, apparently, he also wasn’t going to look at me. Now that I thought about it, he had been avoiding looking at my face all this time. Was I disfigured?
Panic rattled my bones as I was overcome with a strong urge to knock the mirror out of his hand. But I didn’t. The part of me that slowed down on the highway whenever I passed a car wreck was the same part of me that needed to know.
I used my good arm to snatch the mirror from his large hand, and held it up to my face without hesitation. My eyes widened as my brain processed the image reflected. My nose and eyelids were a shiny, swollen pink. My blonde hair was messy, with what looked like tiny shards
of glass sparkling in my hairline. A screaming red laceration slashed across my forehead. The cut had been closed—by Shadow?—with butterfly tape. I vaguely remembered the blood spilling into my eyes as he dragged me out of the car.
A movement caught my eye, and I turned to find Shadow looking directly at me. He reached up and nodded as he touched the tips of his fingers to his clavicle. He was telling me to look at my collarbone. Tilting the mirror downward, I swallowed hard when I saw the black and blue bruising along the top-right side of my chest.
“I made you a sling,” he said, his tone soft and reassuring despite my brusqueness.
I dropped the mirror onto my belly. “Thank you.”
He returned a few minutes later with a large sheet of beige canvas, which appeared to have some grayish grease stains he’d unsuccessfully attempted to wash out. A red nylon strap—which looked suspiciously like the cargo tie-down straps I carried in the trunk of my SUV—had been crudely sewn onto the canvas.
He held the homemade sling close to his chest. “It’s not too pretty, but it should work. I…I can help you put it on.”
I gritted my teeth as I held back a scathing retort about how I was sure he’d love to help me put it on. “I think I can manage.”
He nodded and handed me the sling. I sat up a bit straighter and took it from his hand, noting the dirt under his fingernails. I was surprised by the weight of the sling. The canvas he’d used to construct the makeshift bandage was thick. I slung the red strap over my head and attempted to raise my arm high enough to slip my elbow inside, but the shooting pain in my clavicle stopped me.
I winced as I slid the strap off my head and lay the sling in my lap. “This is supposed to have velcro on the strap, so it goes on and off without further injury.”
“Sorry, ma’am. I ain’t got no velcro.” He looked disappointed in himself. “You should be able to put it on if you slip your arm in first, then bow your head a little to pull the strap over.”
With a heavy sigh, I picked up the sling again and carefully slid my arm into the canvas part. Bending my head forward as far as I could, I still couldn’t get the strap over and around my neck. After a few more unsuccessful attempts, I let out a frustrated grunt and threw the sling at the window just beyond the foot of the bed. It landed softly on the wooden floor. Not nearly as dramatic as I’d hoped for, but the force of my anger made my head throb and my vision blur.
Shadow stepped toward the window. “I can help you put it on…if you want me to.”
I bit my lip, breathing heavily through my nose as I contemplated allowing this stranger to touch me. Taking a glance around the room, I tried to memorize as many details as I could, just in case he tried anything stupid and I had to try to escape on foot through the forest.
There were no picture frames on the walls, just a plaque engraved with the ten commandments and another with the serenity prayer. The circular table in the corner was covered in a lace tablecloth on which stood a hurricane lamp, the dusty, cream lampshade adorned with a delicate rose design. The drywall was yellowed in the top corner, near a water stain in the popcorn ceiling. Beige lace curtains fluttered in the soft breeze coming through the cracked window.
I nodded, and he nodded back before stooping down to pick up the sling. His gaze was focused on the floor as he approached the bed. Then, he studied my arm as he rounded the foot of the bed to come to my right side. His gaze flitted toward my eyes before he took a seat on the edge of the mattress.
Taking a deep breath, he waited a few seconds before he looked me in the eye. “Let me know if it hurts, and I’ll stop.”
I swallowed hard as I nodded, desperately hoping he was referring to the application of the sling.
His gaze dropped to my right arm, and he moved slowly as he reached forward and slid the canvas under my hand. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his skin flushed pink as he carefully slid my hand through the hole, pulling the sling into place around my elbow and adjusting it around my upper and lower arm. His eyes flitted toward mine again, then he reached for the red strap.
“Lower your head…please.”
I let out a deep breath and closed my eyes as I bowed my head.
“This might hurt a little,” he whispered, and the sensation of his breath on the top of my head sent a chill down my spine.
My heartbeat thudded inside my aching skull as he slowly but firmly pushed my head down a bit more until my chin was pressed against my chest. I bit my lip and squeezed my eyes tighter as he slid the strap over my hair and a flare of white-hot pain shot through my clavicle. I was about to cry out for him to stop when he pulled his hands away, and the mattress creaked as he quickly rose from the bed.
I opened my eyes, and he took a step back. He couldn’t get away fast enough.
“That should work,” he said, rounding the foot of the bed.
My eyes filled with tears as I was overcome with guilt for questioning his intentions. He was near the door when a whimper escaped my lips, stopping him in his tracks.
He gripped the door frame as he turned his head. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I blubbered, wiping away the tears with my good hand. “No, you didn’t hurt me.”
He seemed confused by this response. “Then, why are you crying?”
He would have thought me utterly insane if I told him I was crying because he hadn’t hurt me, as I thought he would. “I’m scared…and tired,” I replied truthfully. “And I want to go home.”
He seemed to consider this for a moment before he turned around and took a seat in the chair at my bedside again. “It’s about three a.m. I reckon you should get some sleep and I’ll show you your car in the morning.”
“Is it totaled?”
His brows scrunched together. “I don’t think you’ll be driving it anytime soon.”
My entire body ached as this news sunk in. “Can you at least bring me my phone? It was on the passenger seat right before I crashed. It might be on the floor or somewhere else.”
He stared at the worn wood floor as he responded, “I’ll look for it.” He was silent for a moment before he looked up. “If you don’t mind me asking, what were you doing out on that road at this time of night?”
I gazed into his blue eyes, and my heart stopped as I realized I couldn’t remember where I was going or why I was headed there.
All I could remember was wishing I was sitting in the backseat of my dad’s Volvo, then the GPS and electrical system in my car failed, and I crashed. I couldn’t remember sliding into the driver’s seat or entering a destination address into the navigation system. I couldn’t remember my own address.
“I have amnesia,” I proclaimed, my voice high-pitched as anxiety thickened my throat. “Oh, God. I can’t remember my name. What if I have a brain injury? What if I die? I can’t die out here!”
“Calm down,” he demanded.
The last thing I saw was his large, dirty hands coming straight for my neck.
CHAPTER 3
NATURAL SELECTION
Four years earlier
I sat on the edge of the mattress, staring down at the chipped pink nail polish on my big toe, which stuck out of my peep-toe heels like a plump sausage. The swelling hadn’t completely gone away yet. Last time, it took almost two weeks. It’s only been five days.
“Are you ready?” Marc’s voice called to me from the bathroom, where he was busy manipulating his short, dark hair with the homemade pomade I’d made for him from a recipe I found on the internet.
“Almost!” I shouted back as I continued to stare at my toes, silently congratulating myself for not avoiding the traumatic view.
It wasn’t my swollen toes I desperately wanted to turn away from. It was the pillowy swell of my deflated abdomen, a sight most women in my position would consider a traumatic reminder of the cruel indifference of natural selection. But I didn’t shy away from the view. Instead, I peered intently past the mound of soft flesh below my breasts. As if, by looking beyond it, I could convin
ce myself that “this too shall pass.”
Marc came out of the bathroom into the bedroom, the smile on his boyish face wavering when he found me sitting on the bed. “I thought you were getting ready.”
“I am ready,” I replied.
His eyes scanned me quickly, taking in my hasty ponytail, a black maxi dress—the one I wore throughout all eight months of my pregnancy—and a faded gray cardigan. I was painfully aware that he wanted me to look my best for the Christmas party. He was trying to make partner this year.
His smile returned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You look beautiful.”
My shoulders slumped as I let out a deep sigh. “Don’t patronize me.”
“What?”
“I know you want me to wear something sleek, like all the other partners’ wives, but I’m not in any—”
“I never said that!” he replied forcefully as he took a seat next to me. “I don’t want you to be like them. You’re not like them. You’ve got more class—”
“Please don’t.”
We sat in silence for a while, both of us probably making incorrect mental guesses at what the other was thinking. I couldn’t be sure how long this went on, but I suddenly found my body going limp as Marc held me. It was one of those moments where the tighter he held me, the more I could feel us growing further apart. We’d had many of those moments over the past two years.
“Baby, you know we can try again,” he murmured into my ear.
“I don’t want to.”
His hold loosened on me as he tilted his head back. “Well, not right away. But maybe in another six months or so. You’ll feel better.”
I felt as if I were looking at a stranger. The crinkle in his brow between his icy-blue eyes, the one I’d admired on our first date eight years ago, seemed foreign to me. Who was this man who suggested I would be ready to try for another baby in six months?
Did he forget how the last stillbirth left me in a deep depression for almost ten months before I finally sought counseling? Or how I didn’t get out of bed for a week after the miscarriage? One miscarriage, two stillbirths, and five days later and he thought I would be fully recovered and ready to mingle with the Philadelphia elite tonight?
