I clench my hands. Charlene is clinging to Bad Boy’s arm, a silly smile on her face, her eyes pleading with me to understand. I stare at her, and she looks away.
I take a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s not a burn or a disease. It’s a port-wine stain.” I am my mother’s daughter, after all.
“Whatever, freak. Why don’t you just get a new face?”
They all laugh, even Charlene. I wish I could gouge the faulty blood vessels out of my flesh and rid myself of this stain.
Charlene giggles again, loud and high pitched, her laughter cutting through the air.
I look at her. “This isn’t you,” I say quietly. “You’re better than this.”
One of the guys snickers.
Bad Boy yanks Charlene closer. “You gonna let her talk to you like that?”
Charlene bows her head. “It’s no big deal.”
“I think it is.”
They move faster than I thought they could, enclosing me in a human fence. Pedestrians edge around us in a wide circle, some looking curious, some scared, but not one of them stops. The pawnshop next to us is dark and deserted.
My breath quickens in my chest. Charlene looks uncertain now, her skin pale where there is no makeup.
I shiver and take a step back, almost bumping into the boy behind me. “Look—I didn’t do anything to you.”
“You showed your ugly face,” the new boy says. “You flaunted it.”
I flaunted it? Did he even see the way I draped my long hair to cover my cheek, bowed my head in class, kept my mouth shut when people laughed at me? I’m the invisible girl, the make-no-waves girl, the pretend-I’m-not-here girl. I hardly take up space. I even breathe more shallowly than other people do.
The sky rumbles ominously, the air around us heavy, growing colder. The new boy reaches into his pocket.
I tighten into myself, getting ready to run.
A horn shrieks in my ears. “Hey!” a man yells. “What do you think you’re doing? Leave her alone!”
I can’t believe it. No one’s ever done that before. I turn to look at my rescuer, at the man who’s standing half out of his red car, frowning at us. My eyes widen. It’s Brian, Dad’s cute assistant. My legs feel weak.
The sky tears open, hail pummeling down like tiny pebbles, bouncing off the cars, the sidewalk, our bodies. Kids squeal and run for cover, women pull their hats down tighter, and men scurry along the sidewalk and rush into doorways. Bad Boy swears and pulls his jacket up over his head. And then he turns and jogs away, the others leaving with him—all except Charlene.
“You okay?” Brian calls, still half out of his car, one hand raised against the hail.
“Yeah—thank you!” I say.
“Want a ride home?” He says it casually, but I feel him waiting for my response. I hesitate. Normally I’d love to spend time with Brian—unsupervised time. But I don’t want him to see me like this. “Nah, that’s okay.”
Brian nods, gets back in his car, and drives off.
I take a deep, quivering breath and let it fill my body. The wind eases up, but now the hail has turned to sleet—cold and wet and biting. Millions of tiny frozen drops sting my skin, coating the cars, the pavement.
Charlene’s face is miserable, her hair plastered against her skull. “Sarah, I’m sorry.” Her mascara runs down her cheeks in long brown lines.
“Sorry,” I say flatly. She stood there laughing at me, not doing anything when they threatened me, and she’s sorry? It’s not enough.
Charlene’s shoulders curve inward. “I don’t know what came over me. I guess I was flattered by Kirk’s attention. I am really, really sorry. Can you forgive me?” Her pain-filled eyes beg me to understand.
I know Charlene feels like an outcast, too. People say mean things about her weight, the way they do about my face. I think of how desperately I wanted my treatments, how nothing else mattered until I saw the pain Dad was in this morning, and I think maybe I understand. “Yeah,” I say slowly.
“Friends?” Charlene says.
“Always.”
Charlene squeezes my hand, and then she, too, runs off, and I am left standing there on the slick, darkened sidewalk.
SARAH
3:15 P.M.
MY CLOTHES ARE STIFF and heavy with water, and still the sleet keeps bombarding me, pelting out of the sky like it’ll never stop. People are huddled in doorways, but I don’t want to endure the embarrassed faces, the awkward silences, the glances that slide away from mine.
I head off down the street, shifting my heavy backpack to my other shoulder. I can’t believe I just had a knight in shining armor come to my aid. And I can’t believe it was Brian.
At the corner I stop for a red sedan that drives up, its windshield wipers thumping back and forth.
“Hey!” a voice shouts from the car. Brian’s voice.
I peer through the sleet at his dark head poking out of the driver’s window. He’s getting wet.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Brian yells.
“I’m fine,” I call. “Thank you.” I turn my bad cheek away from him. My heart beats faster.
He pulls his car over to the side of the road and gets out, then stands there in the sleet looking at me, his tight brown curls flattening. With his broad shoulders and muscled chest, he looks almost like a superhero in disguise, Bruce Wayne in a suit.
He clears his throat. “You sure you don’t want a lift? You’re getting soaked. And I don’t want to leave you stranded if you think those boys will come back.”
My face heats up. I’ve been staring at him like a lovesick girl. Get a grip, Sarah.
I look around. The storm has scattered people, making this corner deserted. “I’m all right,” I say. “Really.”
“Listen, don’t let those idiots get to you, okay? Some people just don’t know how to behave. You know—the caveman syndrome.”
I laugh. “I call it being a jerk.”
“That, too,” he says, nodding sagely. He rubs his neck, watching me intently. His curls are plastered to his skull now, yet he still looks handsome. “Your dad told me about your canceled treatments. I’m sorry. That must be rough, on top of everything else.”
I shrug, trying to pretend like it’s nothing, but I can feel the misery pulling at my face. And I know he can see it, too, because something changes in his eyes. I curse myself. Because, really, losing my treatments is nothing compared to what Dad is going through. “How did it go with the police?” I ask quickly.
“They’re looking into it,” Brian says. He takes a step closer and rests his hands on his belt buckle. “But they don’t have any leads yet. I can fill you in on the drive back to your place.”
He stands there, waiting.
“That’s okay,” I say. “Dad will tell me about it when he gets home.”
“He was pretty upset when we left. I’m not sure he heard anything the cops said. But I did. Let me take you home.”
Something isn’t right. He’s pushing too hard to get me to ride with him. I hesitate.
“You know you can trust me.” Brian smiles, but there’s something almost animal-like in the way his lips curl back, and in the way his eyes watch me, like they’re tracking my movements, my reactions.
The hair rises on the back of my neck. I take a step back, then another. “I have to get home.” I shouldn’t have stood here so long. I turn to run, sleet slicing into my eyes.
Brian’s hand closes around my wrist, fingers digging into my skin. Something stings my arm, and then he jerks me back toward him.
“Let me go!” I turn and kick him, but he grips me harder, yanking me forward. My backpack falls into a puddle.
Oh, god. My mind stutters, wanting to shut down. The sky spins around me, and suddenly I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. But I have to. I must. I can’t let him do this to me. I try to pull my arm out of his grasp, the way they showed us in that self-defense class Mom made me take, but my arms feel like rubber and they won’t do what I
tell them to.
I’ve got to get help. I reach into my coat for my cell phone, but my hand doesn’t seem connected to my body. I try again, and this time I pull my phone out.
Brian knocks it from my hand. It clatters against the sidewalk, and he kicks it into the gutter.
“Help!” I shout, my voice sounding garbled, but there’s no one around to hear.
Brian shoves his cold, wet cheek against mine, his after-shave burning my nostrils. And then something sharp pokes between my shoulder blades. “Don’t struggle. I wouldn’t want to accidentally cut you open.”
The sidewalk moves beneath me. I feel sick. He did something to me. Drugged me. “Let me go!” I kick at him, miss, then kick again. My shoe connects hard. But he is like a machine; nothing seems to hurt him. “Why are you doing this?” I scream. I think I scream; I’m not sure if my voice makes it out of my head. Everything is spinning.
He drags me toward his car. I feel like I’m being pulled through Jell-O, and I just want to sleep. But no, I can’t. I wrench my eyes open. The car tilts toward me, the side door like a gaping mouth. I claw at Brian’s skin, his clothes, anything I can get my nails into, trying to scream, but my voice won’t work.
The world tilts again, my vision blurring, and then darkness sucks me down.
SARAH
I AM COLD AND SHIVERY, my head aching, an oily taste in my mouth. I feel sick, like I might vomit, and I’m more tired than I can ever remember feeling. I don’t want to be awake, but there’s a reason I have to be. Only I can’t remember why.
My skin feels clammy, and my clothes are damp and heavy, weighing me down. Something soft and thick presses against my tongue, my teeth. I can’t breathe properly! I try to spit it out, but it won’t leave.
The smell of leather and vinyl, wet cloth and pine cologne, makes me feel even more nauseous, like when I used to get carsick on our trips up to the cottage. I just want to lie here and go back to sleep, but something keeps jostling me, making my head vibrate.
Dad, I try to croak. I had the strangest dream. Nightmare, really. But I can’t make my voice work.
Someone’s whistling shrilly, the sound cutting into my eardrums. I groan and try to push myself upright, but my hands are fastened behind my back, my shoulders sore and aching. My ankles are stuck together, too, my legs cramped in an uncomfortable, bent position. I can’t seem to straighten them. I wrench my eyes open.
I’m in the back of a car, stuffed on the floor behind the front seats. I lift my legs. Silver duct tape is wrapped tight around my ankles.
My stomach heaves. It’s true. It’s all true.
I roll on my side and yank at the tape, trying to pull my wrists apart. “Help!” I cry. “Somebody help me!” but the words make only a bleating sound through the cloth.
The whistling stops. “Quiet!”
Why? Can someone hear me? I slam my feet against the door. “Help! Let me out!” I try to shout.
The car swerves. “I said shut up!”
I hammer at the door, every thrust exploding inside my aching head. Let me out, let me out, let me out! The car swerves again, pebbles spitting against the windows, and then it lurches to a stop, my face slapping against the front passenger seat.
Tires screech, horns blare, and I pray for an accident, pray for another car to hit us, for anything that will make someone find me.
Brian unfastens his seat belt and whirls around, hoisting himself over the space between the seats. His handsome face is distorted with rage: his eyes are slits, his nostrils flaring, his lips curling back to show his teeth. He looks like a different person than the one I saw this morning, or even than the one who chased the boys away. He looks merciless. Cruel. How could I not have seen it?
It seems crazy that his expensive suit is still neatly pressed, his tie perfect, after everything he’s done. I push back as far away from him as I can in the cramped space.
“Stop kicking the door,” Brian snaps. “This car is still new.”
Maybe if I make enough trouble for him, he’ll let me go. I slam my feet harder.
There’s a click, and then Brian pokes a knife into my side, right through my coat. “I don’t have time for this shit. When I tell you to do something, you do it.”
I hardly dare to move, to breathe, afraid even the movement of my rib cage will nudge the knife into my flesh.
“Understand?” he says.
Cars are honking like angry geese. Please, please let someone come up to the car.
Brian presses the blade harder against me, and my skin burns with pain. His eyes are cold and filled with hate.
A sour taste forms in my mouth beneath the rag. Brian looks like he wants to kill me. Rape and murder—that’s what happens to stupid girls like me, isn’t it? I bite down on the cloth. No. If he’d wanted to, he would have already. Wouldn’t he?
“Hey—you listening to me? I asked you a question. You going to behave?”
“Yes!” I bleat through the gag, nodding my head exaggeratedly, trying to show how good I’ll be.
He grunts and pulls the knife back, tiny feathers floating up into the air, white innards from my down coat. “Good choice.” He disappears from my view. The car lurches forward again, my head slamming into the seat behind me, and I gulp-breathe past the gag.
Brian punches the radio on. Jann Arden’s haunting voice sings, “Will you remember me when I’m gone?” The words cut into me deeper than Brian’s knife, and I stuff back a sob. Brian changes the station to another, and then another, before jabbing it off again. The silence is a relief.
I fight to draw air in through my nose. Brian is so full of vibrating rage that I am sure he would have hurt me, right there on the road, if I pushed him enough. He knows I know who he is. There’s no way to pretend I don’t. So how can he ever let me go?
I look up through the window at the gray sky and dark, knobby branches we pass. I have to find a way to escape. I can’t let him take me wherever he’s taking me.
I desperately yank at the tape. The edges dig into my skin.
“What are you doing back there?” Brian asks harshly.
I yank harder. Disjointed images pop into my mind—sad, shadowy faces of girls who’ve been raped and murdered. Girls who never made it home. Girls who were on the news.
I twist and contort myself, trying to get free, but the tape won’t loosen.
Brian thrusts his arm back, his fingers groping until he finds my arm and squeezes hard. “Lie still or you’ll regret it. I swear to god.”
Hot tears stream down my face, snot running from my nose, and I have to struggle to breathe. I am all alone with this nice-guy-turned-crazy, and not even my cell to call for help.
I long to feel Dad’s strong arms around me, to feel Mom’s lips against my forehead, to breathe in Dad’s comforting after-shave, but all I can smell is the damp carpet, the sickening smell of Brian’s piney cologne, and the overpowering new-car smell.
I want to be home drinking chocolate milk at the kitchen table with Mom, then rushing upstairs to write a new comic. I want to be talking about movies and books with Charlene, listening to music, and laughing about our crazy day. I can’t believe I’m here instead, stuffed like a sack of dirt in the back of Brian’s car.
I keep seeing Dad’s face, knowing his world is collapsing around him. How much worse will this make him feel? And Mom—all that anger and hurt between us, and now I can’t even say I’m sorry. I keep hearing myself scream those awful words. It’s not her fault that she’s beautiful and I’m . . . the way I am. The tears keep coming, making it harder to breathe. I’ll never be able to tell her that I love her.
I wish now I’d gone to every self-defense class Mom wanted to drag me to. Wish I’d never wimped out just because some of the other girls whispered and stared. Maybe if I’d gone to all the classes, I’d have been able to fight Brian off. But it’s no use thinking that. I have to find a way to escape now.
I want to beg Brian to let me go, want to tell him that I’m
a good person, that I don’t deserve any of this, but I know that none of that matters to him. What he’s done there’s no undoing, no way to make right. If I could spit the gag out, I would beg him anyway. But the gag is dry and uncomfortable in my mouth, and the car keeps speeding forward.
I don’t know how long it’s been since Brian dragged me into his car, but I know it’s been too long. My clothes are already half dry.
I shudder. Where is he taking me?
The car turns and slows, and then we’re going up and down over bumps, my head smashing into the floor, teeth squeaking against the rag. Brian starts whistling again. I am so cold, I can’t stop shivering.
The tires crunch over gravel.
Please let me out of here alive. I swear I’ll be a better person!
The car lurches to a stop, and the engine shuts off. Brian stops whistling and just sits there like he’s trying to decide whether to hurt me or not.
Don’t do it! I scream at him inside my head, scream with all my energy. Just let me go! My breathing is harsh against the rag. I’m afraid I’m going to choke.
Fabric creaks against leather. “I’m sorry I scared you, but it was necessary,” Brian says gently, as if he’s telling me he loves me.
He’s not going to let me go.
The car door opens, setting off a mechanical chime and bringing in a gust of cold, bitter air. I hear the wind howling, smell snow, feel the goose bumps rise on my skin, hear a woodpecker drilling away at a tree, then a chickadee cry out. We’re not in the city anymore.
Brian’s shoes crunch against the gravel and ice. I tighten, waiting, raising my head to watch. He opens the back door, and I slam my feet into his knees.
Brian grunts and grabs my legs. “Shit! Hold still; I’m not going to hurt you.”
Yes, you are! I know you are.
He flips me onto my stomach and yanks my head back, and I retch against the stink of his cologne. I buck and heave against him as hard as I can, but I am like a fish flopping in his hands.
Brian straddles me, and I can hardly move. He covers my eyes with a leather blindfold, pulling it tight and jerking my head as he buckles the straps, plunging me into darkness. Then he fastens a strap beneath my chin, the leather nipping into my skin. I can taste fear now in my mouth, in the leather, in my sweat; I can smell the fear pouring off me.
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