Chapter 8
Ucle David’s voice was low and grim. “Yes. I can’t think of any other way.”
My heart leapt into my throat. I froze in the dim doorway, my body stiff as stone. The voices blurrd.
Dr. Hayes said, steady but firm. “That’s nearly impossible.”
“To lose custody, a parent would need to be diagnosed with an extremely severe mental illness–one involving violent tendencies or a history of child abuse.”
“No hospital or doctor would dare issue such a false diagnosis.”
From the living room came the heavy crash of something shattering against the floor.
My clenched hands trembled violently. I instinctively took a step back, retreating into the darkness behind the door.
Then I heard Uncle David’s voice, a low, furious whisper choked with unbearable grief.
“She said that four years ago, she tried to escape once.”
“She almost made it, but someone held her back.”
“Now her hand is ruined. She can’t play the piano. he can’t paint.”
“And her face–her face…She used to cry over a single blemish, and now it’s rough, scarred-”
His voice uivered harder, breaking into fragments. “Dr. Hayes, why? Tell me why!”
“The man who broke the lawdestroyed almost everything my sister had. My parents died in grief.”
“And the lawstill forces her, still forces the Millers, to raise the child of her abuser?”
I stumbled back step by step. Dizzy and reeling, I shut the door without a sound.
Darkness swallowed me whole. And then I understood.
I finally where I had gone wrong. I was the child of a human kidnaper.
A kidnapper deserved to die. And so did I.
I remembered what the villagers use to say–Ray couldn’t find a wife. So Grandma bought one for him from a kidnapper.
In my eyes, Grandma and Ray no different from the monster.
My throat and skull burned like fire. I slumped into the corner, too afraid to go out in search of water again.
Large drops fell–maybe it was sweat, or maybe something else. I licked my lips. The taste was saty, bitter.
I lowered my eyes to my own toes, but all I could see was endless darkness.
My mind grew hazy, slipping fast. And I remembered Uncle David’s words
Mom had tried to escape once, four years ago. She almost made it, until someone tripped her.
Uncle David didn’t know. The one who tripped her–was me.
When I was three years old, Mom had finaly found a chance. She took me into Brooksville, shaking off Ray and Granda who trailed
behind.
She left me inside a shop, and was just about toboard a bus leaving town,
But I chased after her. Ad in the middle of the road, I was struck by a car. Blood poured from my head.
I had only wanted, instinctively, to o with her. Because in the three years of my life, she was the only person who had ever loved me.
Chapter 8
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Mom had one foot on the bus already. She turned back and sw me bleeding, wailing.
She froze–just for a second. Then she pulled her foot back.
She ran to me, scooped me up, and tried to make it onto the bus again. But it had already driven away.
A villager recognized her, rushed forward, and grbbed her. Ray and Grandma came soon after, dragging us both home.
Mom was locked up in a dark shed for many, many days.
Through the door I heard her screaming, crying. I pounded on the boards, sobbing, until Ray kicked me hard in the stomach.
When the door finally opened again, Mom had changed.
She didn’t cry anymore. Her eyes were like blac, hollow pits.
She became like the other village
wome
-docile, silent, working in the fields.
She never held me again. Never comfortd me again.
Late at night, when I tried to crawl onto he bed, she would look at me with those icy eyes and said, “Why don’t you just die?”
And now I was back there again, curling in the corner, burning up, hotter nd hotter.
I didn’t know how many days I’d been feverish. No one came to check on me.
Mom asked me why I didn’t die. Uncle David and Ethan said people like me should rot in hell.
The fireinside me raged higher. And then–suddenly–I felt nothing. No thirst. No pain.
My body fell, deeper and deeper. And then it was as if I floated.
I thought, mybe this time, I really had died–just as everyone wished.
Chapter 8
