Daddy bowed his head, scrubbing both hands over his face like Mama sometimes did when she was tired or worried. When he looked at her again, he was just Daddy. “It’s okay, Marley. You hid just like your mom told you to. But you can come out now.”
“The bad man hurt Mama.” It was the thing that had been circling around her brain.
Daddy’s face spasmed. “Yeah. Yeah, he did. But I won’t let him hurt you. He won’t get to you. C’mon now, Marley.” He flexed his hands in invitation.
Daddy would fix it.
Marley crawled out of the air duct. His arms came around her, tight, tight, and this time she didn’t squirm. She burrowed into him, pressing her face into his shoulder and absorbing the familiar scent of sawdust and evergreens.
“He took Natalie,” she said in a small voice. “I can’t sleep without Natalie.”
A low growl rumbled in his chest and he squeezed so tight, she whimpered.
He eased his grip. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Hang on to Spud. We’ve gotta go, love,” he said, rising. Daddy held her tight as he crossed to the front door.
Just before he shut the door, Marley twisted her head to peek into the living room and saw a lump under a blanket on the floor. The tip of a hand showed at one edge. The nails were painted a soft shell pink. Just like Mama’s.
~*~
The scream clawed its way out of Marley’s throat after twenty-five years of enforced silence. She jackknifed up, scrambled to escape the terror and found herself restrained. Blind with panic, she struck out with fists and feet, nails and teeth. Her efforts had no effect. The arms wrapped around her like steel didn’t loosen.
“Easy, easy. It’s all right. You’re safe.” A voice trickled through the hysteria, familiar and trusted, and she fought for calm.
The man who restrained her was fully dressed. The buckle of his belt dug into her hip. For a moment, her own mind blanked under the onslaught of a new fear. But no, she was also dressed except for her shoes.
“You’re okay,” he said. “You’re safe.”
Ian.
Marley took in the room in snatches. Walls of golden pine. A window set high on one wall, blinds drawn so she couldn’t tell if it was day or night. Utilitarian furniture and a big soft bed beneath her. Her eyes lit on her backpack, tossed into the rocking chair in the corner. The corner of her sketchpad stuck out from a gap between the zippers. The sight of it galvanized her to fresh action.
“Let me go. Let me go!”
As soon as he did, Marley shot off the bed, scrambling for the bag.
“It’s all there,” he said, but she ignored him, focused only on grabbing the sketchpad and her charcoals.
The image was still in her mind. Fresh and crisp as a photograph. She had to get it down before it faded, before she lost their faces forever. Fevered, she poured herself into the drawing. The woman’s face was round, softer than Marley had imagined. Young, unspeakably so when the— No, her mind veered away from that, back to the business of the face. Slight up-tilt to the nose, pert and small. Lips, top-heavy and lush, just curved to a smile. Long, dark hair, like hers, and eyes that laughed from the page.
She moved to the other side, began another sketch. He had a sharp face, with high cheekbones. The eyes were deep-set, with a Slavic tilt, and though she drew them with an expression of grief, she knew they could as easily turn predatory. Marley hesitated as she reached his mouth, charcoal hovering over the page. There was something in her memory about that mouth, she couldn’t quite grasp. Then she could see it clearly again and finished with quick, bold strokes. A serious mouth with just a hint of a smile. Fair hair tumbled across his brow, saving the face from being too stern. He was never stern with her. Except for once. She balked at that thought too, focusing on the details. As long as she looked at details, she didn’t have to think, didn’t have to process what she’d seen. She refined, shaded, blurred, until the likeness of them both was almost clear enough to step off the page.
Finished.
The charcoal fell from her fingers. Marley just drank in their faces, barely aware of the ache in her legs from the almost feral crouch she’d adopted so she could balance the pad on her knees. It was both glorious and agonizing to finally, finally see them. Because she knew now why she’d always been alone.
“Who are they?” The question was quiet.
“My parents,” she whispered.
“What did you see?”
Marley looked up at the question to find Ian crouched beside her, gaze steady and worried on her face. She shook her head. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to talk about it. Wasn’t even sure if she would talk about it with him. Because before she’d passed out, he betrayed her. The memory of that had her rising to her feet. She staggered as blood began to rush back into cramped muscles. He didn’t quite make it to his own feet in time to catch her.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“My personal safe house in eastern Tennessee.”
She jolted. “How long have I been out?”