“I don’t care what you do to me, but I won’t do this,” I say as I sit back as if the air has been punched out of me. I wish I sounded stronger. I should be standing. I should be acting as if the man should fear me. But I can barely breathe.
“But you will,” he states. He walks to the frightened woman and pats her on the head. “I’m going to leave you alone for now. You watch over him like a good girl, you hear?”
She hesitates, her eyes locked on me, but then she nods.
“Welcome, Christopher. My name is Richard, this here is Ember. We’ll be your new family. Your only family.”
He leaves. The door closes.
I lower my voice for only her ears. “You need to help me get out of here.” I lift my leg to show her the metal cuff. “Do you know where he keeps the key?”
Her forehead pinches and her lips part. “Don’t anger him.”
“Okay, listen to me. I know you’re scared. But we need to act fast while he’s gone.” Hysteria, anxious need, and downright fear have me pleading with the girl to listen.
She remains in place.
“Ember is it? You need to help me. To help yourself.”
Deep breath. Deep breath. Reason with her. Don’t scare her.
“I don’t want to get into trouble,” she says.
“You won’t get into any trouble. You didn’t do this, and I will tell the police that. But you need to help me escape.”
“Papa Rich will get mad if he knew you were talking like this.” She takes a few steps away from me, her eyes locked on the door.
I want to strangle her yet rescue her at the same time.
Deep breath. Deep breath. She’s a wild animal. Afraid.
“We both can leave here together. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.” I stroke her with my words. Hoping. Praying.
“Why would I want to leave?” she asks. “This is my home.”
“He’s crazy! This is pure insanity. He kidnapped me. Don’t you see that?”
She tenses and changes her breathing. “He didn’t kill you like I thought he would. So, that means he must like you. It shows he really means what he says and wants you to be part of our family.”
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
She is as crazy as he is.
I stand again, hoping my height and dominant presence might intimidate her enough for her to at least fear me a little. “You need to get me out of here.” The words are harsh, forceful, unforgiving. They are delivered like a rapid firing of a gun.
“Please stop asking me to,” she says. “Even if I could…” Whatever drifts through her mind distracts her to silence.
But then… it appears that she considers.
Her footsteps approach. Not close enough for me to reach out to her, but close enough that I could see the tremble in her lip, the tears blurring the blue in her eyes, and the wisps of blonde curls framing her face. She’s so much shorter than me, her head only reaching the height of my shoulder, and her bare feet don’t give her any added height from the addition of shoes.
“Papa Rich is a fair man,” she says. “As long as you don’t fight him, and you follow his rules, everything will be all right. He won’t harm you.”
“He can’t keep me here. He wants to force me to marry you. He’s crazy and dangerous. You have to see that.”
“He’s my father…”
“I understand how hard this must be,” I say softly, hoping I can reason with her rather than forcing her to run away from me. “But he needs help. If you let me go, we can do whatever it takes to get him the kind of help he needs. We can all be happy.”
“He just wants me to be married. Isn’t it part of growing up?”
“Ember!” Her name is shouted from outside the room. It’s muffled but loud. “Come join me upstairs. We have company!”
Her eyes dart to the door, and then back at me. “I have to go. But I promise when I return, I’ll make you comfortable. I’ll do good by you. I promise.”
“Wait! Don’t leave,” I say as I desperately reach out to her but come nowhere close to actually touching skin on skin.
She runs to the door leaving me standing there in my own despair.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can, Christopher. I know you don’t like this, but I’ll make it all better. Somehow I will.” She leaves the room and softly closes the door behind her.
5
Ember
The stench of cheap whiskey, spoiled onion, and body odor roots me in place.
Scarecrow.
He’s here.
He never announces his arrival, and we never know how long between visits, but it does seem as if he was here not that long ago. Why Papa Rich likes him, when he hates all other people, baffles me.