More screams from Fallon answered my question.
Spiders, oh shit! Fallon had always been terrified of spiders. It had always been one of her greatest fears… and no doubt the Elders knew it.
Sick assholes that they were.
“It is up to you to save your belle,” another Elder announced. “You have all the power. You have the keys. How long she suffers is in your control. Torture her or save her. Your choice.”
Not being able to take the time to process the words of the sadistic men behind me, I tried to unlock the first padlock one key at a time. “I’m coming, Fallon!” I screamed at the door as I tried to steady my shaky hand. “Hold on. I’m going to get you out of there.”
“They’re crawling all over me! I can’t get them off! There are so many! Rafe. Rafe!”
More screams. More cries. Just like the night my brother died. Haunting sounds of distress and horror. Over and over I heard her cry and scream at the door. She pounded her fists against the wood, but I knew her actions were pointless. Only I could get her out. Only me. All on me.
I got one padlock undone, but I couldn’t take joy in that since there were so many still to go. Spiders began to crawl up my leg, blackening the white fabric, but I had to focus on my hands and the keys. I stomped on them but soon realized that there were too many to defeat.
“Just keep brushing them off you. You can do this, Fallon. You can do this,” I tried to soothe as I worked the locks repeatedly, trying to find the matching key.
“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”
“Yes, you can. Deep breaths. You’re strong. You can handle this.”
“Get me out of here! Now! Now!”
I needed to stop the screaming. I needed to make it stop.
Just like my mother’s scream.
Just like my father’s howl at both the devil and God.
But Fallon’s cries were worse. So much worse.
“Try to calm down, Fallon. I’m working as fast as I can to free you.” Part of me wanted to ask the Elders for help, demand they assist me in getting her out, but at this point only I could do this. There wasn’t enough room to have more than my hands trying to work the locks anyway.
“Please, Rafe. Please get me out of here.” Her screams were becoming full-on sobs. “They’re in my hair! My hair!”
I was failing her. Just like I failed my brother in saving him. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do what was required.
“Hurry!” she howled, snapping me out of my self-pity. I needed to get her out of there. “I can’t be in here. I can’t.”
I glanced down at my legs and saw they were now nearly completely covered in spiders. The white fabric marred with little specs of crawling black. I could only imagine what Fallon’s white wedding dress looked like on the other side of this door.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!”
But the screams continued.
14
Fallon
I was back there. Playing in the old barn.
I wasn’t supposed to be playing there. But Rafe was playing with his other friends. Montgomery and Beau and the other boys.
I didn’t have any friends other than Rafe. He was popular, and I was the weird girl at school who wore old, scuffed shoes and hand-me-down uniforms. The kids made fun of me for being dirty. They said I didn’t take showers, but I did. Some mornings I didn’t have time, but I always made sure I didn’t smell. It wasn’t fair they said I smelled because I didn’t. I made sure. I made sure. I even put baby powder under my arms to make sure.
It didn’t stop them from teasing. From saying I had cooties. From saying their parents kept trying to get me kicked out of school because they didn’t think their children should have to go to school with “charity cases”. They’d paid good money to go here and it wasn’t fair that some unwashed idiot girl got to be in the same classes as they did. The maid’s daughter.
They’d worked hard to give their children the advantages they did, and what had my mother done? Spread her legs for some loser and never made it to college. Not fair, they said. It was teaching their children that hard work wasn’t rewarded, that you could just skip to the front of the line with no effort. Think of the children.
But the board didn’t budge, and I was allowed to keep going to school there. That didn’t stop people from having opinions about it, and so, naturally, did their children, because they were not quiet about their opinions.
Everyone at school hated me. Except Rafe. His friends were nice enough to me, when they weren’t ignoring me.
But Rafe couldn’t protect me every second of the day, and girls were cruel. Especially Julia, who had a crush on Rafe.