Let Me Go
Page 1
Let Me Go
said the girl in the box
L.L. AKERS
Copyright © 2013 by L.L. Akers
Excerpt from Captured Again Copyright © 2013 by L.L. Akers
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission, or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2013
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLLAkers
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, dead or living, business establishments, events or locales is coincidental.
Cover Art and Design 2013 by Liliana Sanches,
http://princess-of-shadows.deviantart.com
Copy edit by http://www.gatheringleavesediting.com/
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
The Girl in the Box
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
The Girl in the Box
CHAPTER 7
The Girl in the Box
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
The Girl in the Box
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
The Girl in the Box
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
Part II | Don’t hesitate, dragonfly—fly...
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
The Girl in the Box
CHAPTER 28
Part III | TWO YEARS LATER
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
The Girl in the Box
EPILOGUE
JOIN MY LIST!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thank you!
A NEW SERIES!
Acknowledgments
More Acknowledgements
DEDICATION
To my mom: You may not have always been June Cleaver,
but to me, you’ve always seemed ten foot tall and bulletproof.
To my son:
I love you more—to the moon and back.
And a special note to “Emma”:
I’d give anything to really go back, and release the dragonflies for you.
“There is no greater agony
than bearing an untold story.”
~Maya Angelo
PROLOGUE
SHE startles awake with a gasp, her heart beating so hard she can hear it pounding against her chest.
It’s so dark. Too dark. There must have been a power outage. Even in the middle of the night, she can usually see the dim light from her alarm clock, but this dark is deeper than any she’s ever known. She can’t see a thing.
She touches her eyes, just to be sure they’re open; they are. She tries to get up to look for a flashlight and cannot; she is met with resistance. She lies there for a second, feeling the panic build.
What is that smell? A mixture of bleach, plastic, and... and rubber? Now she remembers... It isn’t a nightmare. She’s not at home in her bed. She’s freezing and her body aches.
She takes several deep breaths and tries to stay calm. She reaches up and gently runs the knuckle of her index finger around her prison. She must have fallen into something. Maybe through a floor into a crawlspace? But what crawlspace... what house? She can’t remember getting here. She can’t remember her last memory before “here.”
Her head feels heavy, like she’s foggy and half-asleep. But she feels like she’s awake and this really is happening. Her throat is parched and sore, along with her throbbing, bleeding fingertips and at least a few broken nails that she can feel, but not see, to give her enough discomfort to realize she is definitely not dreaming. She’s in a confined space—trapped—that much she can tell just by trying to raise her arm straight up, because she cannot. When she tries, it’s as if she hits a roof or a lid—something—before she can extend her arm all the way. She can feel her own hot breath blowing back against her face, as if there’s nowhere for it to go but bounce back at her. Is she in a crawlspace? Or... could it be a coffin—or a box?! She wonders, feeling the panic build again.
Screaming, she feels along the hard surface, then resorts to clawing before she stops, gasping at a painful stab under her fingernail. She tries to ignore the throbbing of her finger to concentrate on more exploring. There has to be a way out.
To the right is a wall. She rolls to her back and reaches out, feeling equal space to the left. Her mind is fuzzy, but she’s starting to remember awakening once before to discover herself trapped in this darkness and wildly trying to find her way out, not succeeding. She’d been met with dead-ends every which way she turned, moving in circles like a sand crab trying to find its way back into its dark hole—or out of it.
For now, she will stay right here and try to stay quiet. She doesn’t know where she is, but she at least knows she’s alone in this space, she thinks. She reaches up behind her and finds a corner of something. Carefully, she follows the shape with her knuckle, running her fingers around it. It’s rectangular in shape and feels like plastic over something soft. She can compress it with her hand, making a crinkle sound. She reaches back down and feels to the left; the wall feels cold. To the right... cold again. She keeps feeling around, her fingers not giving up. She has to find something to drink.
Her mouth is so dry she can barely make enough spit to swallow; her tongue feels like a slug sprinkled with salt, slowly shriveling away. She laughs at this and is startled by her own voice. She feels she must be on the edge of hysteria to be laughing while completely filled with terror. “Search, little slug!” she encourages, happy to finally hear her thoughts out loud, as her tongue wiggles from side to side, searching for any hidden moisture from around her teeth, but not succeeding.
Her arms are tired from their exploring. She rests a moment, turning to roll onto her side again. She tilts her head back as far as it will go, looking for any sliver of light. Shit! She is so thirsty she wants to cry, but she has to stay calm.
I HAVE to stay calm, get some water, and make sense of this bullshit, she thinks.
She feels herself sliding toward hysteria again. “I need some water!” she yells. “Hey! Anybody out there? I need some water, please!” But it comes out as a hoarse whisper—she used up her tiny bit of voice encouraging her slug. No one can hear her now; she can barely hear herself.
“Help!” She tries again to work past the whisper. All she hears is the silence springing back off the darkness. The stillness calms her again. She’ll just have to wait. Surely someone will come for her. She won’t let her mind go to the other option.
She wonders how long she can hold her bladder—or the other. Will someone find her before then or will she have to lie in her own filth? Her fingers reach down to see if she’s already wet herself. She doesn’t find her pants, instead landing on something smooth and slick.
Smells like a baby in here too, she thinks. What the—
The realization slaps her in the face like an open fist. It is a diaper.
In a rare moment
of thinking straight, she puts it together before she can forget the pieces again: she’s stuck in a small, dark space, seemingly with no way out.
She thinks it’s a box.
She’s wearing a diaper, for God’s sake.
Whatever she’s lying on feels like it is covered in a plastic mat, like a kinder-mat that the kids use for napping but longer. She has no memory of getting here. She feels disoriented and drugged and can barely stay awake.
So. This is no accident. She hasn’t fallen into something. She feels fear climbing again as she realizes the truth.
Someone planned this.
Someone put her here.
Unless this is just a random act—unlikely—there’s only one person in her life who would do something like this to her.
She should have known he’d never let her go.
CHAPTER 1
GABBY faced her twin, trying to hold her temper. Like looking in a mirror, they were exactly the same... on the outside. She wished Olivia would be more like her on the inside though—daring, adventurous, willing to take some chances.
“Olivia... come with me!”
“No, Gabby. You don’t even know where you’re going yet. If Dad finds out, you’re gonna be in big trouble. I’m not going.”
“Olivia, please! I don’t want to go alone. We never get a chance to have an overnight with someone. This is our chance!”
“Gabby, just listen to yourself. There is no overnight. Tara hasn’t asked her mom, she doesn’t even know you’re coming. What if you just show up and she says no? She probably will say no... We just met Tara. And you already told Dad that’s where you were going to be. You can’t come back home without getting in trouble, so where you going to go? It’s a big mistake. We barely know our way around this town and it’ll be dark in a few hours,” Olivia said, trying to talk sense into Gabby.
“I know, but how are we ever going to get to know it, or make more friends if we don’t go out and try?” Gabby argued.
“Not this way, Gabby. Besides, someone has to stay with Emma in case they start fighting; she’d be scared with both of us gone. I’m not going,” Olivia said again firmly. “And you shouldn’t either. This is the craziest idea you’ve ever had. You can’t just show up at Tara’s. I’m telling you her mom will to say no to an overnight this soon. Then what are you going to do? Just talk to any random freak on the street and say, ‘Hi! Wanna be my friend and let me stay the night?’ Get real, Gabby!”
“I’ll find somewhere to stay, Olivia. I’m not worried about it. I guess I’ll just go without you then, chicken...” Gabby said stubbornly, hitching up her backpack onto her thin shoulders. She’d already stuffed it with two bottles of water, some chips, and candy—some beef jerky swiped from Dad’s room—and a change of clothes. She was ready.
She trudged off alone, head lowered and shoulders slumped, hoping the sight of her pitiful aloneness would change Olivia’s mind.
“Gabby! Get back here...” Olivia whispered, not wanting their mom or dad to hear her and wonder what was going on; she didn’t want to be a part of Gabby’s lie, but she didn’t want to get her in trouble either. “Gabby!”
Gabby heard but ignored her, waiting for Olivia to say, “Wait up”—that she was coming.
“Seriously, Gabby... I’m not going... You’re being stupid!”
Gabby kept walking, her stubborn streak shining...
Gabby still couldn’t believe Olivia had let her go on without her. She could be hurt, kidnapped, or killed! They were almost always—99.9% of the time—together, looking out for one another. Being without her, especially right then, felt odd, like she was missing something of herself and without it she couldn’t quite think straight.
Olivia was right. Tara’s mom had said no and assumed she was just going back home—but she wasn’t. She’d walked for hours looking for something to do, and hadn’t seen any girls her age. The thing she did love about this small town was the addresses were like a grid, just like they worked with at school, only bigger: A Street through Z Street ran one way, and 1st through 1000+ ran the other way. Anyone could find their way around just by knowing their alphabet and numbers. She lived at 142 M Street, but she didn’t want to go home; she wanted to get away from there. Away from the constant fussing. Just one night of peace... and as a bonus try to find a friend that she and Olivia could spend some time with over the summer. They had met Tara at the school across from their house when she’d brought her little brother to play. She lived only a few blocks away, but her mother didn’t let her have much time to herself; usually she was with her little brother, and obviously her mom wasn’t too keen on overnights either.
She came upon another elementary school much the same as the one across from their house, except this one had an old airplane on the playground, a real one—part of it anyway. She crawled up into the cockpit through the open fuselage. There were hundreds of names, messages, and profanity written everywhere. She spent a good chunk of time reading the graffiti. As she ran her finger over the random messages and names, she wished she could just tap any one of them that looked interesting and have that person zapped right into the airplane with her. If she ended up not liking them, or if they looked dangerous, she could just swipe it again and have them erased, then start again with a new one. But she knew finding friends wasn’t going to be that easy.
It was getting late and the sun was dropping quickly now. For the first time, panic started to seep in. Olivia was right. This was stupid. She had no place to go, nowhere to sleep, and didn’t yet have any other friends in this town. If she went home, Dad would probably figure out she’d lied, and he’d ground her for the whole summer.
Gabby thought about just curling up there in the plane and going to sleep. It was warm outside, even warmer in the plane with the sun beating down on the hot steel all day—too warm. The openings would welcome the night breeze, but they also made her feel exposed. She needed to find someplace safer.
Dusk turned to night, and she was surprised how different everything looked—bigger, spookier—as she continued to walk, this time toward home rather than away from it... but a different route, still holding out hope she might find some girl hanging out in a yard or someone that would see her and ask what she was doing. When she’d explain she’d just moved here and didn’t know anybody, they would invite her to stay.
Wasn’t happening...
An uneasy feeling crept up all over Gabby as she walked; she was definitely scared now. The houses were spreading out, farther and farther in between with big yards separating them. Dogs were barking as they heard her pass by. She tried to be as quiet as she could, but that made her feel sneaky and fed her fear—the dogs probably smelled it; she could feel it herself, like a sweaty static clinging to her skin.
She didn’t have a watch, but she knew it had to be late. The darkness had really settled in around her now and the streets lights were too far apart to chase it away. The empty road was a hopscotch of light and darkness. When the light from the pole she’d just passed faded into spots of darkness, she ran until the next spot of light began, then would slow down and walk again through the lighted part until it ran into dimness, only to sprint out of the shadows to where the next light began again—over and over. She was glad this sleepy town didn’t have much traffic at this hour. She felt like an idiot—a scared little kid at almost fourteen years old.
She was tired. The next home she saw sat back off the road. As she passed it, she glanced back and saw a light pole behind the house, showing her a small shed in the backyard. The door was open. Gabby slowed to a stop as she wondered if she could sneak in there and shut the door. It might be hot, but it looked safer than the airplane.
She crept down the side of the yard a ways, then crouched and waited, holding her breath and ready to run... but no dogs so far. She slowly stood and quietly made her way through the grass, looking over her shoulder until she reached the shed.
Gabby stepped into the dark shack and shut the door behin
d her. The other end of the building had a tiny window. It was a strange thing; the window looked just big enough for a dog or something to crawl through and was placed at the bottom of the wall, almost at the floor. It let in a tiny bit—just a square really—of dim light, illuminating the scattered straw on the floor just in front of it. With the door shut, that was all she could see of the shed, but she couldn’t hear anything and it felt empty. A new wave of fear swept over Gabby as the thought hit her that maybe this is where their dog slept. She tensed, listening again for any sounds: a growl, breathing... anything. But there was nothing. She breathed a sigh of relief.
The smell was terrible. Gabby coughed and gagged until she caught her breath. She thought about leaving and trying to find somewhere else, but she was so tired and scared. She knew she might not find anything any safer. The house had looked neatly kept, like the owners must take care of it—maybe that meant they were good people. If they found her sleeping in their shed, maybe they’d be nice enough to let her stay in the house.
Or they could be crazy and shoot first and ask questions later. She should go. But she was beat from the heat and fighting the waves of panic she had tried to keep under control since night had fallen. She wanted to stop walking for a few minutes of rest, and then she’d go.
She dropped down and curled up in the spot she’d been standing, using her backpack as a pillow on the hard wooden floor. The stink was even worse down there. But she didn’t want to move around in the shed with no light; she might knock something over and wake up the owners. She shut her eyes, telling herself she’d just rest a while and then figure out what to do next.
Tap, tap, tap. The sound at the window startled Olivia awake. She jumped out of the bed, heart beating wildly to squat on the floor.
“Who is it?” Olivia whispered fiercely, trying to sound brave and tough.
“It’s me, dummy. Who do you think would be tapping at your window this early?”
Gabby was irritated and tired, and sore from sleeping on the floor of the shed.
“Shhh... keep your voice down. They’re still sleeping,” Olivia whispered as she opened the window. “You’re the dummy, you scared the crap outta me!”