The shriek that leaves her has me moving through the water faster.
The sound of my mother’s voice overpowers the other one in my head.
Willyou keep an eye on her for me? She’s your baby sister now, and you’ll love her one day.
She’d thought schoolyard bullies would be the worst we’d encounter.
She was so wrong.
My weight, as small as I am, slams into Chuckles. He and Dollie crash into the wall before he lets the water catch her.
Rushing to her side, with my limp worse than usual, I help her to her feet.
Tiny and trembling, she hides behind me.
Little fingers jab into my skin and pinch as she wraps my T-shirt, which was dry until around ten minutes ago, in her fists and starts fingering the material to soothe herself.
“Oh, you want to protect your sister again.” Colin laughs hysterically.
It stops instantly.
Bloodshot eyes land on me as my right foot tries and fails to lead us away because each time it hits the ground, that voice in my head screams that I’m not doing it right, and if I don’t, Dollie will die from today’s injury, leaving me alone.
“Oh, what are you doing? Is that one of your special dances? Mommy said you liked to dance. You know,” Colin sits with his ass in the water. Bubbles surround him and make me eager to get away.
If only I could get my foot down right.
“Your mom was on the news today. Daddy, too. They said it’s your birthday. Would you like a gift?”
“Happy birthday, Ambrose.” The whisper comes from my little sister, who’s lost all sense of her surroundings.
I ignore her and answer the clown sitting before me.
It’s my birthday. We’ve been here four months and twenty days. It’s been so hard to keep track down here, but I know I can’t take another night down here.
“I’d like for us to go home and see them.”
“That’s not an option.”
“Why not? You don’t like us. Why do we have to stay here?”
He says nothing about that. “They said you like to dance. Do you? Is that what that is?” He bobs his head at my repeated actions.
For once, Dollie stays quiet, and I do, too.
Each step strains my left leg for nothing because I’m still in the same spot.
“Or…” Colin giggles as I glance at the stairs that I could be running up if I could only move. “Is it your fucked up brain saying that if you move, something bad will happen?”
How can he know that?
“Mommy said you had a fucked-up brain, too. One that makes you do stuff over and over and over and over again.” He moves his head like he has some kind of twitch while he talks, and I can’t tell if he’s mocking me or if he actually has one.
“She said that you repeat a lot of stuff, repeat a lot of stuff, repeat a lot of stuff, to stop bad things from happening, happening, happening. I can’t say I didn’t notice it when youfirst got in my car and then out again and then in again.” He laughs. “You are one crazy kid. Do you know why?”
I don’t want his reasons.
I don’t want anything from him but for him to stop blinking those bulging eyes at me.
