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Then a soft knock on a door I didn’t even know was there.
“Hello?” A gruff male voice. Muffled somehow.
I can’t bring myself to answer. For all my screaming, I’ve gone mute.
“I don’t want to hurt you, okay? So, you have to stop screaming now.”
“Please,” I say. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
“Just be nice. Okay? Are you hungry?”
I start to cry. Are they looking for me? Has my family realized yet that I’m missing? Yes, yes, they’ve noticed. They must be looking. My mom. My poor mom.
Finally, a door swings open, revealing a staircase I didn’t know was there. A large form moves down into the darkness, a buttery light from above washing in, falling on the cot, the bookshelf, a table with two chairs all just feet from me.
I keep pressing myself into my corner as if I could sink into the concrete walls. He reaches the bottom of the stairs and I strain in the darkness to see him. He moves closer, tentatively, as if I’m a bird he might scare away.
“Shhh,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you. Nice girls don’t get hurt, okay?”
Finally, I see his face—the full pink cheeks, and long white beard, round glasses, a red elf’s hat with white fur trim. I almost laugh, hysteria pushing up my throat.
Santa.
He’s wearing a Santa mask.
In his hand he wields a box cutter. I hear a strange whimpering and I realize it’s me.
“If you promise to be good,” he says, voice muffled inside the mask. “I’ll take off your bindings, make you more comfortable.”
I nod, keep my eyes on him. He wears an oversized mustard barn jacket, baggy overalls, thick dark boots. His plastic face tilts as he moves toward me. I hold out my wrists and he cuts the bindings, bending down for my ankles. Blood rushes back into my hands, a flood of pins and needles. I measure my breath and the world goes quiet and still.
A strange, focused calm settles.Breathe. Fight.
That light from the open door calls to me.
As soon as my ankles are free and he’s still bent over, I push up and rush him as hard as I can—clumsy, my limbs stiff and numb. Everything tingling. Heart wild with fear, determination. Eyes locked on that yellow glow of the doorway. The blade of the box cutter slices my arm, but I barely feel it as I bring my knee as hard as I can into his groin.
He howls, then goes rigid with pain, finally curling into groaning ball. Blood sluices down my arm but I still feel nothing as I climb over his writhing form and head straight for that staircase, using every ounce of strength to run, run, run.
The light. It’s a beacon and I know if I can reach it, I’m free. I stumble, hit the staircase hard with my knee but get up and keep climbing. Times seem to slow; the stairway grows longer.
I’m doing it. I can feel the warmth from the open door.
I’m free.
I’m going to run to that car I heard, see if he left the keys inside. If not, I’ll keep running for the road. I will not stop moving until I’m on my way home.
Then.
His hand, cold and calloused, clamps like a vice around my ankle. He yanks hard and I hit the stairs with both knees, both elbows. He’s impossibly strong, yanking my leg out from under me and pulling me down, down, down, my jaw knocking, my shoulder, my elbow.
My scream is a siren now. I kick at him, but my foot only connects with the space between us.
I will fight, scratch and claw, bite, use anything I have to get away just the way my teacher showed us.
On the cold ground, he punches me hard across the face. Once. Twice. The world goes wobbly. I see stars, hear my mom calling me the way she used to on summer nights when I was playing in the yard with my friends.
“Lolly! Time to come home, honey.”
