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LILY
Everything in my entire body aches from all the shouting and kicking and punching at the wooden walls and door. But nothing hurts worse than my heart.
What I feel isn’t even pain anymore, it’s a deep wound deep in my chest that will never heal, never scar over, never get better, that will kill me soon.
My throat is raw, my nails are all broken, some bleeding from me clawing at the door, which might as well be made of cast iron and all in one piece for all the give it has. Everything else on this farm looked like it was about to collapse, but this cabin is built like the goddamn Fort Knox.
“He might’ve gotten away,” Tina says hoarsely. “He might still be alive.”
But doubt is thick in her voice and I have no strength or voice to reply. I know I must live, I know Eagle would want me to free myself and live, but I can’t find the will to start fighting for it. If he’s not waiting for me out in the world, what’s the point?
“Hey, you came after me and you found me,” Tina croaks bracingly. “And now there’s two of us here and we can take one fat old man.”
Never mind that she hasn’t eaten in days. Never mind that I have no idea where my strength went or how to call it back. It just disappeared leaving no trace behind.
If that door opens, I will see Eagle lying in the dirt dead. I can’t see that. I’ll never survive it.
Don’t be an idiot, Lily!
I don’t know if that’s my dad’s voice, or my grandma’s, Eagle’s, or my own. But it’s loud and piercing. And telling me exactly what I need to hear.
I come from strong people, both those I was born to and the ones who raised me. People who would never give up, no matter the odds, no matter what they were facing.
Of course I can’t let that creep win. Or get away with any of this.
I was abducted and locked up in a dark room once before. And I’ve come up with a thousand ways of how I’ll save myself if that ever happens again. I was a child then and they were childish ways. But I must tap into that determination, into that fire. What lies out there is out there. I will deal with it when I’m free.
I look up at Tina and she actually flinches and recoils. It must be the dark look in my eyes, the one I get from Cross. The one that allows no argument and nothing to go any way other that how I want it to go. What is out there is out there. I will stop fighting when I am dead too. When all my enemies are dead. Twelve year old Lily knew this in her bones, and I now know it too.
“We have to get him to come in here,” I tell her. “And then we have to kill him. Or he’ll kill us.”
“He hasn’t come by once, since I’ve been here, not until he brought you,” Tina says.
“But now he has me and I’m the one he wanted,” I say. “He won’t let me starve.”
I start stomping on the floorboards, which are the flimsiest part of this entire cabin, hoping, praying that one will break.
Tina is looking at me with concern for my mental well-being clear in her eyes. “What are you doing?”
One of the boards cracks and breaks under my boot as though in answer to her question.
I break it all the way using my hands and show her the sharp end. “We need weapons. This will have to do.”
She nods enthusiastically and comes to her feet, eyes wide, and starts stomping on the next board over to the one I broke. “And maybe we can even pry some nails from the walls,” she suggest.
I get right on that, breaking my nails even worse, but getting three nails out almost straight. Tina gets two as well, and we run them through our pointy broken floorboards.
I feel a lot more like myself as we sit by the door, each to one side, leaning against the wall and cradling our weapons, waiting and listening.
The dogs stop barking first, and then birds stop singing and then it grows so dark in the cabin that Tina’s outline is just a black shadow, which soon disappears in the full night.
My entire being is focused on listening for approaching footsteps. I think of nothing else but attacking and killing the man who locked me in here. The man who murdered Eagle and probably means to murder me and Tina too.
But all I can hear it the song of the night enveloping the cabin. It’s almost identical as the song that lulled me to sleep in Eagle’s arms by the fire at camp. And as I focus on the memory more, I can also hear the fire crackling as it warms my face, and even the river flowing by. I can hear and feel Eagle’s heartbeat against mine, his strong breath entering and leaving his chest, and most of all his deep and lasting kiss. And I know he will never be dead. Not as long as I live. So I must live. For both of us.
21
