Page 145 of Fractured Future

“We contacted Gracie Livingstone’s parents. They want to speak to you when you’re ready.”

A miasma of shock, terror and alarm nearly bowls me over. I quickly refold the note so I don’t have to see the ink smears screeching their accusations at me.

“Why? I don’t know where she is.”

“Em, breathe.” He lightly squeezes my knee. “They just want to hear about her. That’s all. They miss their daughter.”

“I c-can’t… I can’t do that!”

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. There’s no rush.”

Gracie’s swollen, purple face flashes across my vision, an endless scream trapped on her tongue. She could barely walk when she returned from her examination, her legs were so shaky and weak.

Do they really want to hear about that? Or how she was repeatedly battered with fists and humiliation? How sick men drooled over her, imprisoned and prone, negotiating their best offer?

Soon they’ll think about their precious little girl the same way Tom now looks at me. Like she’s a broken doll. A shattered memory. Eternally lost to a trauma too extreme to ever recover from.

“Do they hate me?”

Tom passionately shakes his head. “Of course not. Why would they?”

“Because I left her there!”

“You escaped, Em. It’s different.”

“But I didn’t just escape, did I?”

I was freed.

Eyes straying over to the backpack I stole from Hyland to use on training days, the urge to reach for my phone is stifling. I blocked Blaine the moment it was revealed he attended that meeting.

It’s hard to comprehend that he was playing me all along. Though he owes me nothing, part of me still believed there was more to him and his actions. That on some level, perhaps he even cared.

Knowing that I was just a pawn in some unknown game stings. I don’t have to understand his scheming to feel used. Despite all his flirting and weirdly gentle touches, he never really gave a shit.

“You don’t have to speak to them,” Tom adds, his emerald eyes full of understanding. “Not if it’s going to be too hard. But I promised I’d pass the message along.”

“I’ll think about it.” I nod robotically.

“No matter what you decide to do… What’s happened to Gracie will never, ever be your fault. No one else thinks that, so you don’t need to either.”

When his phone begins to ring, Tom reluctantly releases my knee to answer it. When the voice on the other line rattles on about some urgent client matter, he mouths an apology to me.

“Take it. I need to freshen up.”

Nodding, Tom rises to his feet. “I’ll be back.”

Once he’s left the changing room, I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my hot, pounding forehead there. It took all of my strength to hold my mask together in front of Tom. Like I do every other day for the whole world.

With him gone, the building blocks that fortify my mental wall come tumbling down. No matter how many times I rebuild that fortress, it never lasts long. I just don’t let anyone see the inevitable destruction.

Shivers overtake me, the first tremors of an apocalyptic earthquake that will level everything in its path. I shook so hard in that container. Not even Gracie’s hypothermic body clinging to me stopped the quakes.

I don’t know that my bones have thawed since those endlessly cold days. An eternal frost crystallised around my nerves and organs in the time I spent waiting for us to die or be rescued.

I’m s-so c-cold, Em.

I want to g-go home.