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My face is damp from the constant crying that’s dehydrated me. There are no tears left to cry. I have nothing left. Not even hope. I close my eyes, thinking maybe it’s time to just succumb to my exhaustion. It’s not like being awake is doing me any good. Apart from the video, I’ve been completely neglected. No one will mess with me while I’m sleeping. They’re trying to break me psychologically since they can’t physically harm me.
I’m just finally drifting off when a loud sound jerks me awake. The tears fall from my eyes again, a sob forming in my chest. Did they know I was falling asleep? Are they literally trying to drive me to insanity? I hear another bang, and I immediately recognize the sound of gunshots. Lots of them.
I scream out in terror, the sound rattling my body. My throat burns from the effort, but my body is working on instinct. I can’t think, can’t feel, I can only fill my captivity with the sound of my fear. Either they’re doing this on purpose to frighten me, or someone’s come to rescue me. If that’s the case, they’ll kill me. If it’s Bones, they’ll kill him, if they haven’t already.
As the gunfire continues to go off, I try to force myself to think about happier things. If these are my last moments, I’m not going to waste them begging for my life. That ship has already sailed. I just hope that when the moment comes, when they come to kill me, I remain brave. I close my eyes again and think of the happiest moments I can imagine.
I’m five again and my mom is walking me down the stairs to the living room. The presents under the Christmas tree are wrapped to perfection, the metallic paper shining under the lights. My heart leaps in excitement, knowing all of this is for me. When we step into the room, I see there’s another pile of gifts, this one not wrapped. I immediately run to it, grabbing the first thing I can get my hands on.
It’s a giant, fluffy teddy bear. I pull it into my arms, though it’s almost as big as I am. I squeeze it tight, feeling like I’ve made a new friend. He becomes my Bear-Bear, and for the next fifteen years, I don’t sleep for a single night without him. He becomes ratty and tattered, and eventually I put him away in a box and take him up to the attic. If I make it out of here, I’m going to find Bear-Bear at my parents’ house and start sleeping with him again.
Then, I’m six, and my mom is handing me my first pair of ballet shoes. I’m a late starter, the only one in my class who doesn’t know what she’s doing. The other girls snicker when I don’t immediately master a move, but I go home after class and obsessively practice everything I’ve learned. At first, it’s a need to prove to the other girls that I’m just as good as they are, but soon, I’m in love with it. When I’m not in class, it’s all I think about. I even beg my mom to buy Bear-Bear a pair of ballet shoes so we can practice together in my room.
My mom. She always smells like lavender and honey, and her hair is never out of place. She’s the perfect politician’s wife, but that’s new. The mom I grew up with was a baker and a craft maker. She was always finding a way to keep herself busy, not content to just be the pretty wife of a government official. Before my dad ran for city council, she was always seen in a pair of jeans with dried paint or stray cake batter. She was messy and lovely and warm.
She’s still all of those things, but now it’s hidden under a thick layer of makeup and a gallon of hairspray. She wears designer clothes and high heels, and she wears actual aprons when she does anything messy. I try not to think about how she’s going to react when she gets the news that I’m dead. This isn’t the time for that. This is the time to only think about the things that make life worth living. The things I’ll miss the most.
The gunfire is getting closer. It sounds like it’s just feet away, which could be true. They could be just outside of my little prison, ready to put me out of my misery for good. Whoever’s here has gone through a lot of trouble for nothing.
I’m at the youth center for my first day and my kids file in for class. Some of them seem so excited, but others look as nervous as I feel. We’re all a little apprehensive of each other, but soon we become like a family. Within the week, my students are running into class to hug me, enthusiastically showing me the moves they’ve been practicing.
I look up and a man catches my eye through the glass walls. He’s tall and handsome, with a jaw that could cut glass. He’s got a brooding look on his face, and I come to realize that’s just the way he always looks. Even when he’s happy, he’s brooding. He goes from being a stranger to being the most important person in my life. He rescues me, and he keeps showing up for me, even when he finds out I’ve been lying to him.
How could I have been mad at him for trying to protect me? It’s so stupid now, such a waste of precious time. He wasn’t being overbearing, I was just angry with him. I was angry at myself. If I could do it over again, I’d never hide the truth from him. I’d tell him everything up front so we could just enjoy the budding relationship between us. I’d tell him that I like him a lot and I want to jump his bones every time he walks through the door. I’d stop being shy and coy and just say what’s on my mind.
I don’t have a lot of regrets in my life, but he’s definitely the biggest. How stupid is it that it took me getting attacked for me to finally have the courage to ask him out? And now I’m going to die, without ever telling him that he’s become one of the most important people in my life. My only prayer is that somehow, he’ll know. He shouldn’t have to carry around any guilt for not rescuing me in time. I know he tried his best.
My heart jumps as I hear a door banging open, and I know this is it. I take another deep, steadying breath, unwilling to show these assholes that they’ve gotten to me. They can kill me, but they won’t get the satisfaction of knowing how thoroughly they’ve broken me.
The footsteps approach, only one pair this time. I can still hear the gunfire outside the door, so they must have decided this is a one-man job. Maybe only one man can be spared from the fight. He’s right in front of me now, so close I can feel his body heat. The bag slowly starts to come off of my head, and I think I’m ready. As ready as anyone can ever be to die, I suppose.
“Open your eyes,” he says, but I’ve always been stubborn. I won’t do what he says. “Melissa, you have to open your eyes.”
My eyes pop open, because I recognize that voice now. It can’t be. He can’t be here. I blink a few times, just to make sure, but the image doesn’t change. It’s Bones. In the too-bright light of the room, he’s standing there in front of me, in the flesh. He isn’t a mirage or a memory or a figment of my imagination. He’s flesh and bone and he’s come to rescue me. Even better, he’s found me before my captors could get to me.
There’s shouting outside, chaos happening on the other side of the door, but he’s knelt in front of me, his attention focused on unlocking my handcuffs. There’s a pair locking each wrist to the chair, but he’s quick. He’s clearly experienced in this. Even with his large fingers, he deftly manipulates a pin in the barrel of the lock and gets the first undone, then the second. He uses a pocket knife to cut the rope tying my feet to the chair, and I can’t help but to throw myself against him.
His chest is strong and solid, his heartbeat audible from this distance. His arms move around my waist and he’s pulling me up into his arms. He tries to stand me up, but my legs are asleep and I can’t support my weight. He scoops me up like I’m a doll, like I’m Bear-Bear, and walks me out of my prison.
I press my face against his chest, the tears coming anew. He’s moving quickly, getting us away from the noise and to safety, and all I can do is cry. I’m so useless in this situation. I’ve never been able to protect myself, but he’s consistently been there to keep me safe. I literally owe him my life several times over.
“I’m sorry,” is the only thing I can manage to say, over and over like a mantra. I whisper it into his chest in between the sobs that wrack my body. In a few moments, I realize that the gunfire sounds distant, and we’re somewhere far away, somewhere safe.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he whispers, gently putting me down. My legs are more awake now, but I still need his support to remain upright. I cling to him, and he clings to me, and I never want to let him go. “Do you think you can hold onto me if I put you on my bike?”
I nod mutely, and he hands me a helmet.
I’m seven and my dad is telling me a fairytale before bed. He tells me about a girl held prisoner in a tower, and how a prince on a white horse comes to set her free. I make him tell me that story several times a week for the next year, because I want to be a princess so badly. I imagine my prince and even pick out a name for the horse that he’ll ride.
So, it’s a motorcycle and not a horse. And I’m definitely no princess. Being locked away as a prisoner is much more terrifying than I could have imagined, and I’m probably going to need a lot of therapy to process this. Even so, I’m grateful Bones is the prince who came to my rescue.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
The warehouse is quiet when we arrive. There’s ten of us in total, Bones and I leading the charge, Hex and Pocus taking the rear, and our friends from Houston in the middle. Snake gave me a heat signature reader he obtained so we aren’t totally blind going in. I’m able to see as we get close that most of the body heat is congregated in one part of the warehouse. They’re all hunched together, like they’re watching TV or something.
On the other side of the warehouse, completely alone and unguarded, is one single heat signature. It can’t be that easy, can it? They can’t be that stupid. Then again, from the information Snake was able to pull together, this isn’t exactly a highly skilled team. They’re low-level criminals, all contracted individually in the last month. They’ve probably viewed this as an easy payday. Little did they know they’d have to face us.
The best thing to do is to draw all their attention away from Melissa so that Bones can safely get her out. I can barely keep him contained as it is, he’s about to go rogue and run the whole show. I pull our group up short so we can confer before we go in, literal guns blazing.
