Tears stream down my cheeks as I feel the world closing in on me with its ghostly hands and meaty fingers.
It’s like that time all over again.
A body slams into me and I pause. My lips part when I meet her eyes. Those bright green ones. Sarah. I’ve never forgotten her name. The way she looks is different now. She’s not confused, crying, or begging me to bring back her mother.
She’s just like them.
She wants me to pay.
“I knew it was you. Give me my mother back! Give me my life back!” She slaps me across the face so hard, I reel from the shock of it. I don’t move, though. I don’t even protect myself. If I stay still, if I let them beat me, they’ll eventually get it out of their system and leave me alone.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
“Your apology can’t give me back what I lost.” Slap. Scratch. Claw. “Murderer! Murderer!”
“I’m so sorry. I’m s-so sorry.” A sob tears out of my throat as I chant the words over and over again. Not that it will make them stop, but it’s the only thing I know to say to them.
My lips burn. I taste the metallic tinge of blood. But I stay in place as she takes out her anger and bitterness on me.
My physical pain is nothing compared to what she and the others have been through.
When Sarah seems spent, she slumps to the ground, bawling, sobbing, and falling apart. I try to clutch her shoulder, pull her up — something to offer a small amount of comfort — but she shoves me away. I fall backwards, my hands and hip taking the sting.
My palms burn and blood seeps from the skin, but it doesn’t matter. This type of pain doesn’t matter.
I stumble to my feet, ignoring the dirt on my clothes. All I care about is the small box between my fingers.
She glares up at me, her gaze full of tears and her expression haunted, distraught.
Just like back then.
That’s what it looks like to steal a little girl’s innocence when she’s just ten. To steal her only support and the only person she had by no fault of her own.
“I hope you die like Mum did.”
I step backwards, my lips trembling. I keep walking like that, not wanting to give her my back. Being hit on the head in the past has taught me to never give them my back.
Being stabbed in the ribs has taught me that, too.
I keep watching my surroundings in case someone else has figured out where I live.
Now, they’ll come for me.
Now, they won’t leave me alone.
Run.
Run.
By the time I reach my car, I’m a mess. My cheeks and palms and even my neck sting. My lips won’t quit bleeding. My heart aches and I feel like breaking apart.
I rummage through my bag and snatch my phone. Jonathan. I have to call Jonathan.
I hate that my first thought is of him, but a sense of safety envelops me like a warm blanket in winter when I think of him.
His phone is off. My fingers tremble as I let it fall to my lap. He’s probably in a meeting.
My gaze shifts to the box in my palm and I retrieve the flash drive, jamming it into the car stereo.