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And now it was ruined.
Frantically, she gouged at the tape with the screw in desperation to break through it, to get free, even though she knew it was pointless—the door handle was already jiggling. There was no way she could get the duct tape off her wrist and both ankles before the door opened.
“Go, hide,” she hissed to the children.
“They're coming back,” fresh tears brewed in Katie’s eyes.
“Yes, go, now,” she commanded.
“You didn’t get free.” Jimmy had bounded to his feet.
“No, I didn’t. Take Katie and the screw and hide, maybe you can use it as a weapon.” She tried to give it to him, but he shook his head.
“You should keep it, you have one hand free, maybe you can use it.” Then he took Katie’s arm, pulled her to her feet and ran to the other side of the room, hiding them both behind the wooden kitchen sink.
Giving up on trying to get free, instead Clara put her arm back in place, the screw clutched in her fist and hoped that they wouldn’t notice the tape had been disturbed until she had a chance to use it to her advantage. The screw wasn't big enough to cause any serious damage, but perhaps there was something she could do with it.
“Clara, have you gotten acquainted with the children?”
Almost against her will, Clara’s head turned in the direction of the voice. An old woman stood there. She didn’t recognize her at all. If she had walked into her in the street, Clara would not have suspected that this was the woman who had abducted her and held her captive in an attic for six weeks. She would have sworn she had never met the woman before in her life.
Until she looked in her eyes.
Those blue eyes were hauntingly familiar.
As she stared at them, the face slowly morphed. Became younger. The wrinkles smoothed into the clear white skin, the red mark on the woman’s face was obviously a birthmark, the hair was gray now but back then it had been a dirty blonde.
“Long time, no see.” The woman smiled.
All she could do was stare at the woman in shock, feeling every bit as terrified and helpless as she had twenty-three years ago. Biting on her lip, she fought the fear. The painful sting as her teeth broke through the skin snapped her out of her scared daze. She wasn't a frightened little girl anymore. She was an adult. And her every instinct screamed at her that attempting to talk her way out of this was her only option. Even if she couldn’t convince them to let her go, and she suspected she could not, she could at least keep herself alive until Jonathon found her.
Forcing herself to sound calm and in control, Clara asked, “What’s your name?”
The old lady raised a surprised eyebrow.
“You know my name, but you never told me yours, not once in all those weeks I spent with you,” she explained.
“Ruth. Ruth Lincoln. And this is my husband, Job,” she stepped sideways, and Clara saw a man in a wheelchair. Maybe it was because she saw him second after the woman had already triggered her memories, but she recognized him immediately. He was bald, just like he had been back then, and thin—too thin. In her memories he was sick, and it seemed he still was.
“We’re so glad to have you here with us again, my dear,” Job rolled his wheelchair closer.
Her bravado waned a little; they had planned and executed her abduction so perfectly. They obviously had something specific in mind for her. “Why am I here?”
“To join us,” Ruth replied. “Us and the children. Jimmy, Katie, come here. Now,” she added sternly when the children didn’t comply.
“No,” Clara called to the children. “Stay where you are. Why do you need me here with you?”
“So you can witness their transformation,” Ruth answered as though it were obvious.
“Their transformation into dolls?” Is that why Ruth and Job had done all of this? Because they thought they were literally transforming the children into dolls?
“They are lucky,” Ruth strode towards Jimmy and Katie’s hiding place.
“Please, leave them alone,” she begged as the old woman grasped both children’s arms and began to drag them out.
“You are lucky, too, my dear.” Job caught her by surprise. She’d been distracted by Ruth and hadn’t noticed him rolling over to her. She went to swing her free arm at him, but he already had the duct tape ready to go and promptly re-secured her wrist to the chair’s arm. “You don’t understand yet, but you will. You're going to help us. You're going to enter immortality just as we did. You are our chosen one.” He reached out a withered old hand and stroked her hair, and Clara shrank away from him, repulsed.
“You must be initiated.” Ruth’s eyes were not like her husband’s; they were cold and calculating. “You will kill the children.”
