The only thing I ever destroyed him at.
As dated as all this stuff is, my room isn’t much better. Redecorating isn’t exactly a priority when your parents can’t even afford health insurance.
I push open the door to my room and find Holt facing away from me, hunched over something.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
Holt jerks with surprise and whips around. He’s holding something in his hands. He’s holding my notebook in his hands.
He holds it up. “What is this, Cobain?”
I cross the room and tear it away from him. “That’s mine, is what it is.”
The look that crosses Holt’s face breaks my spirit, makes me question if I have a heart at all. Or if, like that tin man from The Wizard of Oz, I’m made of only steel and bolts, a hatchet in my unfeeling hands.
“You knew I wasn’t convinced that Molly ran away,” I say.
He nods. “And I was okay with helping you work through that.”
Work through that sounds a lot like humoring you.
“But Cobain.” He gestures to the notebook. “The names in that thing. You have a list of, what, suspects? How are you crossing them off? What are you doing? If the police found out you’re messing with—”
“They won’t find out.” I shake my head. “What am I supposed to do? Sit around? Hope the police know what they’re doing? If you cared about me, you’d want me to find her.”
“I want the police to find her, and they will. I want you to stop…”
I look down my nose at my older brother. “Stop what?”
He sighs. “Stop obsessing.”
I’m not sure why that cuts me the wrong way, but it does. “I’m not obsessed. I’m in love. Maybe you’re just jealous because you’ve never experienced that.”
Holt frowns. “Cobain.”
I know I’m taking my frustration out on him, but I can’t stop myself. “You were always better at everything. You were smarter. More popular. More athletic, even though I was always bigger than you.”
Holt scoffs at the last part.
“Mom and Dad always liked you best,” I continue. “And you had all these friends because where you went to school, the kids weren’t sadists.”
Holt holds his hands up. “I only went to that school—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know why Mom and Dad got you in there. Because you were gifted. Because you showed so much promise. They would never have even sent in an application for me.”
My gaze locks on him. “You were the best at everything. But I was the best at loving Molly.”
I struggle to control my emotions at the end, and Holt must hear it because he crosses the room in an instant and hugs me tight. Slaps me on the back and squeezes me again before releasing me. He takes my face in his hands. Gives my head a rattle.
“I am your brother, Cobain. I love you. All right? I’ll always be here.”
“Sometimes when I don’t want you to be,” I mutter.
Holt throws his head back and roars with laughter, and I find myself smiling, too.
“Seriously? Are you going to get kicked out of school?” I ask. “You barely even come home for holidays anymore, and now I see you almost every day.”
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much as I should’ve been. College girls are pretty hot.”
I try to laugh but can’t manage it.
“Hey,” he says, and grabs the back of my neck. Taps our foreheads together quickly. “I’m here now, fucker.”
He releases me, smiles, and turns to walk out of the room. I’m still gripping the notebook between my hands as he goes.
MOLLY
He came back for her, just as he said he would.
But first, he left the dress.
It was lying on her bed when Molly woke in the morning, the sun from the window casting an ethereal glow against the folds of white. It was vintage, yellowing along the lace sleeves and neckline. Along the lace-hemmed bottom and lace back.
After seeing the dress, she realized two new things:
The door to the restroom was closed.
The restraints on her wrists had been removed.
She knew she was being idiotic, but she still rushed toward the bathroom door. Ripped at the handle until her hands ached. It was locked, the keyhole mocking her with its gaping golden mouth. She tried to jam her finger in the hole, then ripped the shoelace from her shoe and attempted to stick the plastic end inside. Nothing worked to move the lock out of place. In a final, desperate act, she kicked the door—once, twice, twelve times—but she couldn’t form even the smallest dent in the heavy wood.
She leaned against the door and caught her breath, closed her eyes, and pictured the window on the other side. So close. It gave her hope that, soon, she’d find a way through it.
Is that why he left it uncovered?
To give her a sense that escape was possible?
Molly thought again of the letter he forced her to write. He wanted everyone to think she’d run away, and she had been doing just that before he took her, hadn’t she?
She’d included a line that he jabbed his thumb at. He didn’t understand it, didn’t like it, but she hoped the boy she left behind would. And so she pacified her abductor by saying it was something between her mother and herself. A language only the two of them spoke. When he’d shaken his head, adamant that she write another letter without it, she turned her face away and allowed her bottom lip to tremble just so. “I only wanted her to know it was me. So she wouldn’t worry.”
She’d squeezed her eyes closed as if fighting back tears. Or maybe she wasn’t pretending. Either way, he relented. He marched up the stairs with that letter in his hand, slamming the door behind him.
Her eyes fell on the dress, and she walked toward it. She held it up to her small frame. It would be too big, but she would wear it. Of course she would. He was treating her as if she were sacred, and that was something she didn’t dare challenge. What was the alternative? Submitting in this way was a form of fighting. And Molly was a born fighter. Came from a long line of warriors dressed in human flesh.
So she pulled her dirtied sweater over her head and slipped her jeans off, slowly, one leg at a time, pointing her toes, arching her back…just in case he was watching. Yes, she would be beautiful. And sacred. But she would find out what he really wanted.
That, he would try to hide.
But she would figure it out.
Of course she would.
She thought of Cobain as she dressed. Remembered the day he’d taken her on a proper date. How nervous he’d been. And how proud. He’d spent nearly every cent of his first paycheck buying her a strawberry salad with a strip of flaky pink salmon on top. She’d ordered the cheapest meal she could find on the menu because she didn’t want him doing this for her. She’d have rather he spent his money on himself, or at least saved it. Yes, that’s what she really wanted—for that money to be secreted away for use at a later time. For it to be…available.
But she saw how happy it made him to do something for her, and so she’d eaten her salad, and she’d groaned with pleasure after every bite, though she despised fish. She’d watched him that night, the way he held his shoulders back. The way he fidgeted in his father’s charcoal-colored suit jacket, much too small for him. The way he’d flicked his eyes to those around him, picking up subtle clues on how to eat correctly in a place like that.
Molly could have recited every last etiquette rule even if she were fast asleep. But she was too busy feeling guilty. Guilty for what she would do to this boy she was quickly falling for. Try as she might to hold on to that ledge, fingernails digging into the brick-and-mortar, she would lose her grip eventually to Cobain. And she’d tumble headfirst into his arms and forget all about what she had to accomplish.
Survival.
Or love.
Did he realize that’s what he was forcing her to choose between?
That was never part of the plan.
After dinner, but before dessert, he’d complimented her on her dress. As if he was just now remembering this was important. His face scrunched, and he said, “You look amazing in that dress. Sorry, I should have… White looks good on you.” He swallowed. “I like the lace.”
Molly slipped her arms into the dress she held now. Different, but similar. She pulled the body down over her torso and wiggled her hips until it fell to her ankles. In a moment of clarity, or perhaps empowerment, she slipped off her tennis shoes and socks. Stood in bare feet on the cold concrete floor.
She tucked her shoes, socks, and the clothing she’d removed under her bed and stood facing the door. She knew he’d come. He said he would. She was thankful the dress was long enough to hide how her legs shook. She was thankful for the length of the sleeves so he wouldn’t see how goose bumps rose along her arms. She must remember, above all else, that if she appeared to be prey, he would become a hunter.
It was simple biology.
When he came for her, her goal would be to get answers to as many questions as possible. But she’d start with these:
What did he want from her?
Did she know him?
It was too soon to question why he’d taken her, of all people. Besides, humans always thought things were about them. So they looked internally. Even when involved with another person, they still looked inward, but dismissed the fact that the other person was doing the same.
This kidnapping. It wasn’t about her.
It was about him.
She had to remember that. Daddy would tell her she had to remember that.
Molly paced the floor for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before she heard the sound of him. Footsteps on stairs. It confirmed what she already knew from the position of the window. She was being held below ground.
The slot in the door opened.
“You will come with me now,” he said, still using that strange voice changer.
A chill rushed down her back. She thought of Cobain again. Wished with every fiber of her being that she hadn’t betrayed him. Wished, wished, because then he would be with her, and this wouldn’t be happening.
The door opened, and even as she raised her head and bit down to keep her chin from quivering, a single tear raced down her cheek.
The guy—Blue, he said to call him—stopped in the doorway and studied her.
She said to herself, I am not afraid of you. And she forced a smile onto her face. A small one, so as not to overdo it.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” she said.
He’d started to move toward her but stopped when she said this. He tilted his head in a question, and those painted eyes with the mesh covering peered beneath her skin and muscle and bones to the heart that jackhammered in her chest.
She caught the unbelievable nature of what she’d said, and added, “I thought you might leave me down here forever.”
He seemed to accept this as reasonable and grabbed her arm.
His gloved hand was large, his fingers digging into her body. She tried to get a glimpse of what lay behind the mask, but he forced her to walk ahead of him.
Molly climbed the stairs slowly, feeling the size of him behind her. He wasn’t small, but since he wore a heavy black winter coat, she couldn’t tell just how big. Instead, she focused her gaze on what lay ahead—a second door, closed, with a sliver of light beneath it. An uncovered bulb shone over their heads, thick with dust. The steps creaked beneath their feet, and she found herself thinking that what lay behind that second door could be far worse than being trapped below ground.
She wanted to go back. She wanted to run. She wanted to turn and shove this guy down the stairs because she was not an item to be possessed. She was a human being. She didn’t deserve this.
Or did she?
“Keep walking,” he said, shoving her just hard enough in the spine that she had to move or risk falling forward.
She reached the top, and Blue pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. The twosome came into a short hallway, and he motioned to the right. Molly walked ahead of him, her pulse racing, nails cutting into her palms.
She entered a small dining nook that flickered with light from a stone fireplace. There was a single window in the kitchen beyond the table, but it was boarded over. Were the other windows in the place boarded up, too?
He doesn’t live here, she realized. This is just a place he found.
She wanted to search every inch of the house, but her stomach growled when her eyes landed on the food. Oh God, food. A bowl of something thick and creamy wafted heat as if freshly poured. A tin mug of milk sat beside it, along with a wedge of crusty bread. Molly locked her eyes on the silver spoon sitting forlorn next to the bowl, and her mouth watered.
He waved his hand toward the food, and she rushed toward the table. Threw herself into the chair. She had the soup into her mouth before he could change his mind. And it was good. Wonderfully, body-shakingly good. It could be poisoned, she realized, but she didn’t think he would bring her all the way here just to end things in that way.
Before she could stop herself, a sigh of contentment escaped her. She covered her mouth and looked at him. Then she ate another bite, licked her lips, and decided to take a chance.
“It’s good,” she said.
He didn’t move, only leaned against the wall, watching her. She studied him swiftly, ran her eyes from his head to his toes. He was big, wasn’t he? Or was it just the light that—
He moved quickly, snatched something off the counter, and swept toward her as if he knew what she was doing.
His hand came down on her wrist, stopping her from taking another bite. She dropped the spoon and cried out. Clenched her eyes shut and waited for the blow to come.
She could feel him coming closer. Lowering his head until it was…where? Next to her? Behind her?
She had to look.
She opened her eyes and saw the side of his head next to hers, as if they were hand-in-hand at an art gallery, admiring the same painting. He tilted his head until his mouth was next to her ear. Though she fought the reaction, her entire body shook.
Slowly, he lifted that black contraption until it brushed her ear.
“Say my name,” he said into the device, his voice a robotic current that sent shivers down her back.
He gripped her wrist firmer. It didn’t hurt, but it seemed a promise that things could worsen if she didn’t listen.
“Say my name,” he repeated in a growl.
“B-blue,” she said, her voice quivering.
He lowered the device and cocked his head a little more as if she were the art he was most interested in seeing—Molly Beneath a Microscope.
She swallowed her fear, heard her father speaking in her opposite ear, reminding her to regain control of the situation. She turned to meet his gaze so that their eyes and nose and lips were a fraction apart, then lifted her chin as if accepting a challenge.
He startled but didn’t move.
He stared at her.
And she stared right back.
“Blue,” she said again, and her voice held not a single note of fear.
He bolted upright and stumbled away from her. Turned to face the way they’d come in, and didn’t utter another word.
Molly watched him for a moment, and then picked her utensil back up. Dipped it into the bowl. Lifted the soup to her mouth. And then she smiled—just a bit, just to herself—behind the spoon.
THEN
You looked like a beautiful nightmare that stepped, long-legged, from the recesses of my brain.
That’s what I thought when I saw you that night, dressed in a short white dress, your hair han
ging over your breasts, your nails and lips painted ruby red. You looked like a girl who should never be trusted, and yet that’s what people did. They trusted you.
I had a pocket full of cash and good intentions. But those intentions vanished the moment I saw you in that dress. Then I thought—bare flesh, my hands on your body, your mouth on my neck.
“Are you sure you want to go here?” you asked.
And I responded, “You said it was your favorite.”
“I didn’t mean for you to—”
I stopped you with a kiss. Call me weird, but I wanted your lipstick on my skin. Wanted people to see us together, spot the red smears on my mouth, and envy me. No one had ever envied me.
A guy in a suit took us to a table. I wasn’t sure if he was a waiter or something else. I’d never been to a restaurant this nice. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I was nervous as hell. The guy started to pull out your chair for you, but I cut him off, pulled the chair from his hands, and gave him a look like I got it.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, and then I felt like an asshole.
They put down two menus in front of us with black leather covers. I was terrified of what waited inside. Dishes I couldn’t pronounce. Prices too high for three weeks of part-time work at Steel.
You must have noticed how nervous I was, because you leaned across the table once the guy had left and said, “This place is really nice. I only came here once with my mom and felt like a poser the whole time.”
I laughed, feeling relieved. Remembering the state of your house. Knowing you were no more accustomed to this than I was. But also knowing you’d somehow have the waiter forgetting his other tables by the time the meal was over.
You reached under the table and grabbed my hand, leaned that red mouth toward my ear, and said, “We should pretend to be different people tonight. My name is Roxanne, and I am new money. My father is considering buying this place, and I’m here to see if it’s worthy.”
We Told Six Lies Page 9
