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CHAPTER 44
IAM SILENT. I AM SLOW.I am weak.
What I need to be is smart.
As I hear the Bad Man’s roar behind me, I think, I will turn, I will take a stand. I’ll summon my mother’s love and my slaughtered sisters’ anguish, and we’ll incinerate him with our rage.
I recognize now, as I lurch down the hall, that these fantasies are only that—the vivid dreams of a girl too weak to fight back.
He’s coming. He’ll grab me by the shoulder, twist me about. And in one second of searing pain, it’ll be done. I’ll be with my mamita. Surely that won’t be so bad. Our pack of two, together again.
Footsteps, pounding closer.
The hallway is too long. I won’t make it.
I could veer off into one of the many rooms, but then what? They’re small and barren. I’ll be nothing but a mouse, trapped in a corner. I need to get upstairs. The kitchen. It has knives and rolling pins and all sorts of weapons for a little thing like me.
The footsteps grow louder. Yet the hall goes on and on.
I send out my best plea to the house. I know it’s sad and unhappy. I know it never wanted to be used this way. “Help me now,” I beg of it. “I see you, I hear you. Please, please, help me.”
And just like that, the hall lights flicker, then wink off, casting the entire hall into gloom.
A fresh roar of frustration. The Bad Man lurches to a stop somewhere in the dark, disoriented by the sudden pall.
Whereas me... I’ve been roaming these halls under the cover of night for years. I’m the mouse, scurrying along, keeping out of sight. I don’t need light to see. I know every inch of the hall by the feel of the stones against my feet.
Faster now. As much as a gimpy girl can do.
The Bad Man surges forward again. Slower, with an occasional thump and curse as he hits a wall, a doorjamb. His legs are longer than mine. Even slowed, he’ll eat up the distance between us in no time.
The stairs. I sense them before I make out the first riser. In my mind, I’m whimpering with relief. In real life, I’m just as silent as always.
Creeping now. Up, up, up. The door, just there, I can nearly reach.
“Stop, police!” I hear a new voice boom behind me. D.D. is alive!
I twist just in time to see a beam of light slice across the hall. D.D. has a flashlight tucked between her ribs and her injured right arm.
Meaning D.D. is holding her gun in her left hand. None too steadily.
The Bad Man turns. The beam of light catches the side of his face. He is grinning as he beholds an injured cop, swaying on her feet, daring to defy him.
The Bad Man charges the detective.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
D.D.’s gun. But the Bad Man doesn’t seem to care. He smashes D.D. to the ground as if she were nothing more than a paper doll.
I see the knife flash up.
Then, I can’t look anymore.
—
THE HOUSE GROANSWITH AGITATION as I finally burst through the cellar door. I stumble into the carpeted hall, falling to my knees, then scramble up again. I’m crying. Snot drips from my nose, tears coat my cheeks.
I’m terrified and pissed off and emptied out. So many years, so many ambitions, and here I am again, watching the Bad Man take it all away. I hate him beyond all rationality. I hurt beyond all possibility.
