Page 46

FORTY-FIVE

My eyelids flutter.

Flashes of light make me want to keep my eyes closed, and yet an aching pain in my head urges me to move, do something.

I try to sit up, and when I do, I open my eyes fully. Evie is sitting in front of me, her legs pulled in front of her. She stares at me as though she’s not quite sure what she’s seeing, and once again, I wonder if all of this isn’t some kind of fever dream.

“Evie?” I say, my voice gravelly. “Is it really you?”

She nods, pulling her legs even closer to herself. “I’m so sorry, Coach Cass.”

Hearing her voice sends a jolt of adrenaline through me. She’s real and safe, right here in front of me.

“Why are you sorry? You have nothing to be sorry about,” I say, reaching my hands forward to try and grab her. Something yanks on my arm, holding me in place. That’s when I realize my left wrist is tied to one of the exposed metal poles in the basement by a piece of rope.

Evie raises her leg, showing me she’s also tied to another pole. “I’m sorry that you’re down here, too,” she says. “I could hear your voice in the kitchen. I was making a noise, hoping you’d hear me. I should have known Ms. Terry was dangerous.”

“Don’t apologize,” I say. “I’m happy you did. You have no idea how wonderful it is to see you. We’ve all been so worried.”

“How long has it been since the lock-in?” she asks.

I look around the room. There are several structural beams throughout the empty space and a small closet just behind Evie. Another door leading to a bathroom beside it. No windows or outside doors. She must not have any way of keeping track of time.

“Today is Thursday,” I say. “The lock-in was almost a week ago.”

Evie looks down at herself. “It feels like I’ve been here even longer.”

“How did you get down here? Is Melinda the only one who knows you’re here?”

“She’s the only one who’s been coming to check on me,” she says. “And she’s the one who put me here.”

“Evie, what on earth happened?”

She takes a deep breath. “The night of the lock-in, after you went to sleep, some of the girls decided to sneak out.”

“Which girls?”

“Beatrice, Tara and Amber,” she says, even though I could have guessed. “Earlier that night, they’d told me what they’d been doing. Chatting with boys online and using my name. I guess they thought it was funny, but it just gave me the creeps. They kept showing me messages, making jokes that my boyfriend was coming to school for a visit.”

“You weren’t talking to any of the boys?” I ask, recalling how the girls were taunting her with their phones at the Waffle Shack and in the hallways at school. They’d been targeting her with these online messages before the lock-in was even planned.

“Never. The only internet we have at my house is through a hotspot on my mom’s phone plan. If I’m on social media, it’s when I’m at school, and half of those websites are blocked.”

“The boy they were talking to wasn’t a boy at all. It was a grown man,” I say, not yet wanting to tell her the man is her teacher.

“I tried telling them what they were doing was dangerous,” she says. “You never know who you’re talking to on the internet. And it was even worse because they were using my name. Anyway, they’d told the guy to meet us at the school. They were going to go out there and videotape him or something, try to embarrass him. Or maybe they were just trying to get under my skin.

“After I heard them sneak out, I followed them. I needed to know if they were really meeting someone and what they’d told him about me. They left the school through one of the doors at the back of the building. The one near the computer lab.”

I swallow hard, that damned door having been singed into my memory.

“I followed them outside, and when they saw me, it must have scared them. They ran back in the building, closing the door behind them. I tried to open it and get back inside, but the door was locked. I could hear them running and laughing down the hallway. They were just going to leave me there.”

“I’m so sorry, Evie.”

“All I could think about was how much trouble I’d be in for breaking the rules. There was no way inside the building without waking you or Coach Joanna. I didn’t even have my phone with me to call for help. Then, I started to get scared. I thought the guy they’d been talking to might show up. He would see me and think I was really there to meet him.”

I imagine how scary that must have been, all the thoughts that must have been whirling through her mind.

“A car pulled up to the back of the building, and I really started to freak out. I thought, this is it. Some creep has come to the school and there’s no telling what he might do to me,” she says. “But when they got out of the car, it wasn’t the guy from the internet. It was Ms. Terry.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “What was she doing at the school?”

“I have no idea. I still don’t know,” she says. “In the moment, I was just so relieved to see a familiar face. Before she even had the chance to ask me what I was doing, I started crying and telling her everything. About how Amber and the others had been chatting with a stranger online and locked me outside. I thought she might help me.”

Evie pauses, looking down at her outstretched fingers. Her shoulders hunch forward, as though she wishes she could forget what happens next.

“Ms. Terry got so angry. I guess maybe it’s because her own daughter was involved, sure. But I thought she might care, at least a little. Instead, she just started shouting orders at me. Telling me I better not tell anyone what happened or say anything about Amber and her friends. Next thing I know, she pushed me. I ended up hitting my head on the ground, and I don’t remember much after that.”

“She pushed you?” Try as I might, I can’t imagine Melinda doing that. No matter how angry she was, surely she could control her temper. She could look through the disappointment and shame she felt over her own daughter to see Evie was just a child.

My father’s face flashes through my mind. He was once kind and loving. I can still remember his smile when we’d play one-on-one at the outdoor basketball courts. But something changed. He changed. Soon, he didn’t care about pushing or hitting. As much as I don’t want to think that type of behavior is possible, I know that it is. I lived it. Anger can do horrible things to a person.

“What happened next?” I ask her.

“I ended up in the basement,” she says, looking around the room. “Ms. Terry was down here when I woke up, just watching me. I asked her when I could go home, but she said that wasn’t possible right away. She explained I’d hurt my head, and she was making sure I was okay. Her story never made sense. If she thought I was hurt, why wouldn’t she take me to a hospital? And why would she do this?”

Evie lifts her leg, exposing the rope again. She’s tethered to that metal beam like some animal in a backyard.

“I think she’s just scared,” Evie continues. “She’s afraid that she lost her temper, and I might tell someone, even though I promised I wouldn’t.”

Finally, the mystery surrounding Evie’s disappearance is explained. She followed the girls outside and was left stranded. When she encountered Melinda, a fight ensued, and Melinda lost her temper. For almost an entire week, Melinda has been struggling over what to do. She can’t very well turn Evie over to the police without incriminating herself, and with all the time that’s passed, she could face some heavy charges.

That puts Evie in a more dangerous position than she realizes.

“No one else has been down here?” I ask her again.

Evie shakes her head. “Ms. Terry said that the house is for sale. She’s the only one still checking on it. I didn’t hear another person the whole time, until you came by this afternoon. That’s why I started banging on the pole.”

“I’m happy you did,” I reassure her. “At least now I know where you are.”

But I’m not confident I’m in a better position to help her. I’m tied up alongside her, another prisoner of Melinda Terry and her guilty conscience. There’s even more at risk now that a second person has figured out the truth.

And yet, parts of the story still don’t make sense. What was Melinda doing outside the school in the first place? Why did she have so much pent-up anger toward Evie? Even after she pushed her, if she’d alerted me and brought Evie back inside, so much heartache could have been avoided. There must be something else I’m missing.

“I can’t believe I’ve been down here a whole week,” Evie says. “Ms. Terry has been feeding me, and I’m able to use the bathroom. She keeps saying she’s going to let me go home. I don’t know if I believe her. Before you showed up, I was trying to think of a way to escape.”

“What were you planning on doing?”

Evie stands and walks over to the closet, bringing back a small cardboard box. Inside are various personal mementoes. Photographs and banquet pamphlets and hand-drawn pictures that look like something Amber would have made in kindergarten.

“I was so bored down here. I started going through these boxes trying to find something to do. It’s just boring pictures and keepsakes, but it keeps me from feeling so lonely. And then I found this.” She pulls out a rock. It’s painted purple and speckled with small colorful fingerprints. It looks like a paperweight a child would make for a birthday or Mother’s Day gift. “I don’t think Ms. Terry knows it’s in here.”

Evie’s plan begins to form in my mind. If she could get close enough to Melinda, she could hit her on the head with the rock, but then what? No one knows Melinda or Evie are here, and until I showed up, she was all alone.

“Maybe we could work together,” I say. “When she comes back, I can try distracting her.”

“But then what?” Evie asks hopelessly. “We’re both tied up. The rock could hurt her, but it won’t help us escape.”

“She might have her phone on her. We could call for help,” I say. “Maybe it would just give us some more time to try and break free. It’d be two versus one.”

Evie looks at the rock in her hand; it represents something much heavier in her mind. “I’m scared.”

I reach out and squeeze her hand. “I know.”

And I do. It’s overwhelming to be that young and think about confronting an adult. It’s the same paralyzing fear that allowed me to put up with my father’s abuse for so long. I enabled his behavior out of love for him, out of worry that stepping out of line would only make things worse.

I think of the day Nadia hid behind my bedroom door, my basketball trophy gripped between her fingers. She was ready and willing to attack. That’s the spirit we’ll both have to channel if we want to overcome Melinda Terry.

“Whatever happens, it’s going to be okay,” I say, trying my best to comfort an anxious Evie, even if what I say isn’t true.”

She holds the rock at her side, using her other hand to thumb through the pictures in the box.

“You know, I used to always think Amber had this perfect life. Looking at these photos, I still think that. You’d never guess her mom is capable of doing what she’s done to me.”

I sift through the pictures, too, trying to make Evie feel a little less alone. I don’t know how to explain to her that looks can be deceiving. That even though Melinda seems like a perfectly loving mother, there’s all sorts of danger simmering beneath the surface. Part of me realizes I don’t have to tell her that, because she already knows. She’s been exposed to ugliness in her own home; the Terrys are just better at hiding it.

“What’s this?” I say, picking up one of the photographs. It’s much older. One from when Melinda herself was still a girl.

“What’s wrong, Coach?”

I’m too stunned to speak. All I can do is stare at the picture.

That missing piece has just fallen into place.