“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m okay.”
Julian hugged me and I felt his arms wrap around me in a tight hug. I knew it was him without him even having to say anything. I grew up resting my shoulder on his head all of the time and had committed the scent of his shampoo to memory. It was funny, even after all these years he still used the same damn shampoo.
“It’s okay,” I whispered to him. “I’m okay.”
I felt him let out a breath that he had been holding in.
“What happened?” Michael asked.
He tried to make his voice sound calm and matter-of-fact, but I could hear the shaking in his vocal cords, and I knew that he had probably actually been the most worried of all.
“David asked me if I would join him,” I said.
Even saying the sentiment out loud sounded ridiculous. And the silence that met me from my boys told me they thought it was just as asinine.
“Join him with what?” Adam asked incredulously.
“He’s planning to build on our father’s drug operation. He’s not just going to use the school to traffic the drugs, he’s going to manufacture them too.”
“Shit,” Julian said. “That’s a whole lot of evil ambition right there.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I agreed.
“Why did he want you?” Michael asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t really know. He made some strange comments about how he’s always been jealous of me and thinks that making me join him will somehow be better than killing me. Bottom line is that the guy is just batshit crazy.”
“Yeah he definitely is,” Michael said. “But there might be a weakness there to exploit.”
“Any idea when we’re getting let out of this room?” Adam asked me.
“No.” I felt my heart sink when I said the word. Feeling helplessly trapped was the worst feeling in the world, worse than pain in my opinion.
“It’ll be okay,” Adam said as he reached for me and pulled me into his lap.
We all sat together, me in Adam’s lap, and Michael and Julian on either side of us. I always felt like I was okay when a part of me was touching a part of each of them. As uncomfortable as the stone room was, we were all still exhausted and it didn’t take long before we all fell asleep again; me against Adam’s shoulder with Michael and Julian spread out on the floor at our feet.
With their hands planted on my feet and ankles to keep in contact with me.
After a little while, though, I woke up. It was hard to tell if my eyes were open since the change in light was negligible either way. It sounded like the guys were still asleep, at least Julian and Adam were from what I could tell. Julian had a soft heavy-breathing noise that he made while he slept which I had heard since we were kids, and I could hear them while he slept. Adam’s chest rose and fell in long, hard breaths that coincided with a deep state of sleep. But, I didn’t hear Michael, and something told me that he was awake as well.
“Did they hurt you guys after I left?” I whispered to him quietly.
“Nah,” he whispered back. “Not any more than usual.”
I reached my hand over to his lap and felt his fingers curl around mine. “All I could think about after they had taken you, was what they were going to do to you; what he could have done to you.”
His fingers squeezed around mine more tightly. “Lisette, if we make it out of here, we need to get as far away from David as we can. No matter what it takes.”
“Agreed,” I said.
Michael’s voice still sounded more nervous than it usually did. And I wondered why. I mean, apart from the absolute obvious.
“He has the worst part of both of our parents, you know,” he said. “He has your father’s cruelty and my mother’s blatant lack of a moral compass. He’s certainly the product of monsters.”
I drew in a deep, quiet breath as I listened to Adam and Julian sleeping soundly around me. “I think he might be even worse than a monster,” I whispered. “Monsters can sometimes be tamed, but I don’t think David can be anything other than deranged. I wish I knew what my mother had seen in him, what one redeeming quality she thought she could use to save him. Because all I see is a rabid animal that needs to be put down.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said. “We’ll put him down. We just need to find a way to get out of this box first.”
After a few long moments of silence, I started to fall back asleep. I don’t think Michael did though. I think he stayed awake and thought about all the ways that we would end the bastard son of our one worst parents, and in doing so, finally put those other monsters from our past to rest as well.
And to be honest, I dreamt about the ways I could have killed David with my own two hands had I thought I could take him.
2
When we all woke up again, in what I guess we assumed to be morning since there was no way to really tell in here, being inside the stone room started to bother me almost immediately. I woke up with a start, in the dark, and felt like I was suffocating.
“You’re okay Lisette,” Adam said as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his chest.
My heart was beating wildly out of control. I needed to get out of here, I couldn’t cope with it anymore. As much as the three of them tried to calm me and hold me and tell me I was okay, I didn’t feel okay at all. I couldn’t breathe or swallow, and I felt like I was going to choke up my heart.
Julian started pounding on the door to get the attention of the guards.
“Open the door, she’s not well!” he shouted over and over again, until finally the door opened, and someone stepped inside.
All four of us cowered in the shadows of the dark corners to avoid the glaring sun, and I imagined we looked like cockroaches scurrying away from the light after the rock they were hiding beneath is lifted.
