by J. L. Drake
Just like this little girl would be one day if we didn’t find a way escape. We needed to think of a new plan. Was there even a way to get us all out at once?
I’m not sure, but can I risk a young girl’s life just to attempt to save Garrett’s and my own? Questions continually poured into my mind as I gave up on sleeping and walked out into the living room. The situation had changed drastically, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it. This girl had barely lived, it wasn’t fair to risk her life, but if I left her here alone it would be worse. She would have to come with me, she couldn’t stay with Garrett while he was beaten. The sight would kill me, and it would do irreversible damage to her. We had to go together, we had to get her out safely back to her family.
“Where are you from?” I heard Garrett ask the young girl as he came out of my room with her.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“What’s your name?”
Garrett and I took turns asking questions to the young girl, but she never answered. She simply shook her head and clutched onto the teddy bear that Garrett had given to her last night before she went to sleep in my room. It was the only form of comfort we could give her, but she was still fearful of us. She avoided our gaze, the terror gleamed in her eyes every second of the day, and turned to pure fear at night.
I had watched her shake and cry during the night, afraid of Steve coming to see her. She thought I would hurt her too. She would flinch and move away from me whenever I moved, she didn’t even want to be near me.
“Do you know how to read a map?” An idea started forming in my head. It was a long shot and I knew it, but if she could read a map then maybe we could find a way to make the escape a little bit easier.
“Why does that matter?” Garrett questioned me with a curious glimmer in his eye.
“If she can read a map she can tell us where she’s from.”
“Oh, and then I could tell you the town closest to us and we can find out where we are!” Garrett said, finally catching up with my train of thought.
“Can you read a map?” I asked the girl again.
She shook her head, then stopped and nodded her head yes. It was as if she wasn’t sure about her answer.
“Do you have any maps in your room?” I asked Garrett, who had a growing interest now that the girl was responding to us. Ever since she came he had an overprotective sense over her and me; it was sweet and made me feel safe whenever Steve was around.
“I might, I’ll be right back.” Garrett got up and ran to his room, leaving me with the newest member of our ‘family’.
“Where’s he going?” the girl asked in a quiet voice.
I stared shocked for a moment, “he went to his room to find a map.”
“Why?” she asked.
“So we can see if you can read one,” I answered with a soft smile, thrilled that I now had her talking.
“Why?”
“So we can try to get you out of here.”
“Why?”
I could feel the joy of having her speak slowly diminishing with the repeated question. I always hated the ‘why’ phase of children, it just got annoying after a while, but at least it was something.
“Because we don’t belong here. Don’t you want to go home and see your real mommy and daddy?” I asked.
She nodded her head in answer as she gripped the teddy bear a little bit tighter. There was fear in her eyes as she looked around, waiting for Steve to show up and scare her again. He had done everything in his power to control her, but she was too young to understand what was happening. All she knew is that she didn’t like it and I couldn’t blame her.
“What’s your name?” I asked. She needed to keep talking, the faster she got used to this place maybe the faster she’d be able to understand what happened to her.
“Jessi.” Her voice was so soft and angelic, it brought me to tears that she was now trapped in this place with us.
“Hi Jessi, I’m Anna.”
“But the big man calls you Kelly.”
I offered her a smile. She didn’t understand, but if she called me Kelly it was probably for the best. We had to play the rules perfectly now and pray that soon we could figure a way out of here.
“Yes, he does call me Kelly, but my name is Anna,” I said, unsure of how to explain.
“Why does he call you Kelly?”
“Because I look like someone he once knew. Her name was Kelly and he loved her very much. I remind him of her so he calls me Kelly,” I said, hoping that was simple enough for her to comprehend.
She made her mouth into a big ‘O’ in understanding. “What’s my name?” She asked after a few moments in silence. Steve said I could rename her, but I didn’t want to lose her identity like I had. The name Kelly would haunt me forever if I escaped and managed to return to life.
“Jessi.”
She screeched loudly and bounced with excitement. “That’s my name too!”
Garrett ran back into the room with maps grasped in his hand and worry in his eyes, “What’s wrong? What happened? Is she okay?” he asked as he quickly approached Jessi looking her over to make sure she was unharmed.
“She’s happy that Jessi is the name she has here,” I explained.
“Why?” Garrett asked with confusion. I wondered if his name was Garrett. Had his identity been stolen as well? Maybe he would never know, he had accepted it once, why not again?
“Because it’s her actual name.”
“Oh, I understand,” Garrett said with a nod as he laid the maps on the table behind me.
Without a thought he shoved aside the only newspaper that Steve had ever brought home. The front page flashed a picture of Jessi and another one of me, asking if anyone had seen us. Steve had brought it home by accident; he was angry and yelling at himself for taking a girl so close to home. It was sure to attract attention, but he said that when he saw Jessi he knew she would be perfect for us. “Do you know how to read this?”
Jessi stared at the maps for a while, tracing her fingers along the lines. She started to say she was ‘sorry’, but her tears covered up her words. She had figured that this was pretty important, and that she wasn’t able to do it meant she felt horrible.
“What now?” Garrett asked while he was consoling Jessi.
“There’s only one idea I have, but it’s almost the same plan as before. It will be even harder with three people now, so I’m not even sure how effective it will be.” I stated as I slouched into the back of the couch.
“Yeah? Well, let’s hear it. I can’t let Jessi go through what I did growing up, and I have no more ideas. I barely liked the first plan, but it was the only one I had.” Garrett shivered at the memory of whatever happened to him when he was younger.
I didn’t ask him to elaborate. I didn’t want to know, but if he ever wanted to tell me he could and he knew that. I trusted him with my life and he trusted me with his. That was the only way our original plan would have worked. Now we needed a new plan, and the one I had wasn’t that great
“It’s the same plan, but we beg him to let her out without seeing it. If we appeal to the human in him, then he lets her go. Then you get her out of the house while he’s busy with me, I will find her when I get out.”
If it worked, Jessi could wait for me outside, Steve would toss me out of the house, and then we would run from there. We would run to whatever town we could find and hopefully find a way to get Garrett out safely, then get Steve thrown in Jail.
“Appeal to the human in him,” Garrett spat with disgust. “He has no human in him. He’ll torture this poor little girl without a second thought. He’ll beat her until she has scars. It will only get worse as she gets older and losses her childlike appearance, then she’ll be his for the taking.” Garrett stated while petting Jessi’s hair down attempting to sooth her.
“I can’t let that happen to her.”
“I can’t either,” I stated with an unwavering voice.
“Then that’s the
plan, but I do have one change to make,” Garrett said with a mischievous smile curling onto the edge of his lips. “And with any luck, she will make it out alive at the very least.”
Chapter 13
I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. Steve was coming home, and if he found out something was up, then none of us would make it out alive. Our top priority was to get Jessi out of the house, but what if I didn’t make it out of the house to help her?
What would happen to Jessi? I was worried about her, but it was worth the risk. All she had to do was hide, and then I would take her home.
We spent time looking for places she could hide. There weren’t many options due to the lack of furniture. We were just about to give up, we were running out of ideas, and I was starting to feel like an animal in a cage. “We could hide her in the basement,” Garrett offered reminding me of his little hidey-hole.
“What if she can’t open the door? She could get stuck down there,” I stated, holding Jessi tightly in my arms. In the last few weeks we had grown attached to Jessi, we loved her like she was our own child, and she in return had found solace in us.
“We could make sure she can open it,” Garrett suggested. I could tell he was running out of ideas and needed to find a safe, but effective answer.
“What if Steve notices it’s open? He could find her and then her life would be over,” I asked, realizing that I was scrutinizing everything. I needed to get her out; she didn’t belong here. None of us did, but this would scar her for life and the longer we were here—the more she saw, would make it worse.
“Then the only real option is the hole in the wall then,” Garrett said with a shrug as he led us downstairs. He took Jessi’s hand and placed his hand in mine. Over the last few weeks while we were caring for Jessi, showing affection had become natural, we needed it to have a reason to survive.
“The hole in the wall?” I asked skeptically as the stairs creaked beneath our combined weight. That didn’t sound like a safe or reliable hiding spot, but he would know better than I would.
“Yeah, when I was little and my parents fought, I would hide in a hole in the wall. They never found me, so Steve could never touch me no matter how mad he was and I would come out when I thought it was safe,” Garrett explained as he led me to the main room. He sneered the word parents; he would have to come to terms with what happened to him at his own pace.
“Where is it?” I asked as I watched him start hitting the walls lightly. He was tapping his knuckles on each board in the wall as he walked along the borders of the room.
“I’m looking for it. It should be somewhere around here, but I’m not sure exactly where,” he said as he knocked on a hollow portion of the wall. He looked back at me and smiled as he started to slowly pry at the edge of the wooden slant to reveal the hiding spot.
“What you doing Daddy?” Jessi asked, causing Garrett to suddenly stop pulling at the piece of wood at her words.
“What did you call me?” he asked as he slowly turned around to look into Jessi’s beautiful light blue eyes. I could see the soft smile curling onto the edges of his lips as he thought over her words. He was so pleased to have her call him that, it brought a light to his eyes that I hadn’t seen before.
“Daddy,” she stated again with a smile as she ran up to Garrett and hugged him around the legs.
“Jessi, you know I’m not your daddy, right?” he asked, petting her blonde hair.
“I know, but you look like daddy.”
Garrett smiled at me for a moment and then knelt down to wrap his arms around Jessi. “Well, this daddy is going to take care of you so you can get out of here safely.”
“Okay, Daddy!” Jessi said with a smile.
Garrett let her leave his hold as he went back to trying to open the hiding spot. It took a while of him prying and cursing when the opening slammed shut and pinched his skin. After prying open that piece of wood, it finally sprang open fully and revealed a giant hole in the wall. It was more than enough room for her to fit in.
“Do you think you could fit in here, Jessi?” Garrett asked, lifting her up from the ground to show her the hiding spot.
“Yeah! That way when Mommy comes I can pop out!” she giggled as she hid behind her eyes and played peek-a-boo with me.
“Right, that’s a good girl,” Garrett said, placing a kiss on her forehead as he put her back on her feet. “You ready to go see your real mommy and daddy, Jessi?”
“Yes, Daddy. Will you come see me too?”
“I’ll try my best,” Garrett promised, as a door slammed shut outside sending all three of us into a panic. Garrett and I reacted at the same time, I grabbed Jessi and ran upstairs while I heard Garrett close the hatch of his old hiding spot. His footsteps soon followed me up the stairs as Steve started banging his way into the house.
“By this time tomorrow, we’ll all be fighting for our lives,” I said to Garrett as he passed by. Jessi left my hold to hide in our room. She feared Steve greatly, and with good reason too. He had pulled her out of her life and threatened her.
“If it works out, only one more day of being in this house,” Garrett said as he leaned down and kissed me, then placed a kiss on Jessi’s forehead when she ran back out to give him a hug. She had grown so attached to Garrett, which was great since Steve wanted them to be close. The perfect family in his eyes—that was all he wanted.
Of course, that’s not how it worked out.
We had been sitting down to dinner that Jessi had helped me make. Truth be told, I just couldn’t let the little girl leave my side because I was afraid of what Steve would do to her. Garrett was worried about both of us, and if he wasn’t careful he would put us all in a dangerous situation. Steve was bound to notice the glances.
Jessi was bouncing up and down with excitement that we were having macaroni and cheese for dinner. It was her favorite meal so I had asked Steve to pick up the ingredients for it. She had spent the last hour with me in the kitchen while Garrett was watching the television, but really he was watching us from the other room. I had her sit in between Garrett and me for dinner, which she didn’t mind since Steve gave her a ‘sicky’ feeling as she called it.
“Thank you, Mommy. I like this,” Jessi said, shoving her dinner down her mouth as fast as she could. It was if she hadn’t eaten in days.
“You’re welcome, Jessi. I’m glad you like it, and thank you for helping me,” I said with a soft smile.
“But why didn’t Daddy help?”
I froze, my hand gripped on to my fork so hard that I could feel the impression digging into my hand. I couldn’t think straight, and it got worse when I felt Steve and Garrett both look at me for an answer. How was I going to get out of this?
“Because Daddy does other things for us, so we do this for him.” My voice shook with fear as I offered a forced smile in Steve’s direction so he would think we were talking about him. If I just told him what he wanted to hear we could all get out of this alive.
“That’s right. Mommy does all the house work while Daddy does work to pay for the house,” Steve said in a smug tone.
I rolled my eyes slightly at his words. Did I become a 1950’s housewife? The real reason ‘mommy’ does housework is so she can live without torture, while ‘daddy’ leaves everyone trapped here.
“But Daddy doesn’t leave the house,” Jessi said in a confused tone as she looked up at me. She couldn’t see the danger that was looming in the room, and her statement sent it over a cliff.
Steve put down his fork, letting it clink on the plate below him. “What do you mean daddy doesn’t leave the house?” he asked with anger lacing his words.
I heard Garrett gulp loudly as he took a drink of water, as if it was his last. I started to eat my food as calmly as I could while Jessi just glanced between us. I pleaded with her silently to keep quiet, and maybe we could get out of this.
“Daddy doesn’t leave. He’s with Mommy and me all day!” Jessi said with a smile.
“Yeah, she
doesn’t stop talking about you when you leave here, Dad!” Garrett said with a forced tone of glee. “She’s really grown attached to you.”
Steve glanced between the three of us suspiciously. I placed my hand on Jessi’s and saw Garrett do the same thing as we continued to eat. Maybe if we kept contact with her we could squeeze her hands and she would know not to answer. It worked for a little while and I thought we were in the clear as dinner came to a finish. Then Steve asked the question I had feared most once Jessi said ‘daddy’.
“Jessi, who is Daddy?”
“Daddy!” Jessi said with adoration in her voice, as she broke from my hold and pointed to Garrett.
“Jessi, it’s bad to lie. I thought we talked about this!” I stated urgently, still trying to save the situation as best as I could.
“But Mommy-” she cried.
“Jessi, do Daddy and Mommy do anything gross?” Steve asked, interrupting Jessi and me, glaring at me with intense hatred.
“Mommy and Daddy kiss. Then Daddy kisses me and says he loves us!” Jessi smiled as she gave Garrett and me a kiss on our upper arms.
I saw Steve’s eyes flash from hatred to fury as he forced himself away from the table and charged at me. I didn’t move so that I could place myself between Jessi and him. He lifted his hand to slap me, but a chair scraped across the hardwood floor. I shut my eyes to prepare for the impact, but it never came.
“So I guess what Jessi said is true,” Steve spat.
“Yes.” I heard Garrett say with defiance strong in his voice. I peeked through my eyelids to see Garrett with arms outstretched to prevent Steve from getting to us.
“You ungrateful bitch!” Steve yelled at me, knocking Garrett aside with a quick punch to the groin. I heard Garrett cry out as he crashed to the floor, causing the chairs and table to move.
“Daddy!” Jessi yelled. She tried getting up from her seat, but I held her down for her own safety.
“Shut up you little ingrate! How dare you call him your father! I took you, I’m your father,” Steve yelled as he reached for Jessi; his eyes were furious and deadly. I stood up abruptly to protect her.
