Page 4 of Caged

My legs are cumbersome as I try to run. I plead with my body, begging it to move faster. Days of confinement have robbed me of my agility. Days without food have stolen my strength. The pitch-black night impairs my vision, and I don’t know where the woods end and the drop begins.

Male voices descend around me, shouting, barking orders to search the perimeter of Sigma fraternity. Flashlight beamsroam in my periphery. I’m moving slower than I think if they’re already upon me.

Distracted by the growing roar of water in the gorge below, the tip of my sneaker connects with a raised tree root, hurling me forward. Twigs and small stones spear the flesh of my palms. A piercing pain in my kneecap rips through my resolve to keep running. They’ll find me now; it’s only a matter of minutes.

I push myself onto all fours and manage a haggard, defeated crawl to what I believe is the edge. Two are already missing, and I’m next.

May twelfth.

My death day.

But I’ll be damned if I let him spill my blood.

I’ve survived this hellscape of a life for twenty-one fucking years, and the only one who gets to spill my blood is me.

Shouting male voices must be no more than fifty feet away. I swing my legs over the cliff ledge, thick with fallen leaves from past seasons. Slender tree stems jut out from the craggy rock. If it were daylight, I suspect I would see an inkling of baby leaves sprouting to life in the mist.

If it were daylight, I would lose my courage.

A memory of my childhood self jumping from a high diving board chooses this moment to resurface. Another scene redacted by my brain to protect me from my painful past is set free, and at the most curious of times. I take this as a sign of encouragement.

You’re right, I think. I’m out of time and out of options. Drawing in a breath I know will be my last, I decide it’s time, for once, to make myself proud.

And I jump.

2

GABI

Present Day,

Beginning of Senior Year,

Dornell University

This is wrong.

Everything about this is horribly fucking wrong.

I can still smell the remnants of her favorite perfume – Queens and Monsters from the brand Henry Rose – like she spritzed it mere hours ago before heading to campus. The half-used bottle sits on her cluttered dresser, and I swear my poor heart is convinced she might come back at any moment. My lower lip quivers as I slowly scan her bedroom, untouched from the last time she was here, as if it were frozen in time and converted into a mausoleum the day she disappeared. Textbooks are stacked haphazardly on the floor, school papers litter her desk, and worn clothes are tossed in a heap atop the chair in the corner.

We would have called the police if she hadn’t texted us from an unknown number at the beginning of June, telling us that shewas fine but not coming back and told us not to come looking. We all immediately called the number after receiving the text, but received the standard operator message stating the number we dialed was no longer in service.

Monroe.

What the fuck did he do to you, Monroe?

I slump onto her unmade bed, unable to stop the torrent of tears. This was supposed to be our year. After Viv, Ele, and I returned from studying abroad, the four of us were going to take our senior year by storm, partying like the most feral and unhinged motherfuckers this campus has ever seen. We were supposed to go out with a bang.

Instead, my best friend in the entire fucking world is gone and I’m supposed to go about my day-to-day like she didn’t vanish into thin air. Not gone,missing, I correct myself. I’m not supposed to say‘gone’because that word makes it seem like she’s never coming back, and that’s simply not a reality I can accept.

Iwillget to the bottom of this, and Iwillfind her because I know deep in my soul that she’s not fine.

Nothing about this is fine.

“Gabi?”

Vivienne stands in the doorway of Monroe’s room, her straight black hair freshly cropped into a blunt, shoulder-length bob for the new school year. She looks at me with sorrow-filled eyes because none of us know what to do.