She told me last night to remember our rules and her words from that evening ring in my head.
I won’t promise not to run again because I know it won’t mean anything anymore, but I need you to know that whatever happens, I will always want you to find me.
She ran trusting that we would find her and I will be damned if I let her down.
46
FREYA
After half an hour of driving through forest trails too disorientating for me to keep track of, we pull up next to a hunting cabin. It’s a decent sized structure with a porch and wooden paneled walls stretching the width of a few rooms.
I wait in the van as Zach rounds the front and yanks open the passenger door. He waves his gun at me. “Out.”
I slide down from the seat, frozen twigs and dead leaves crunching under my shoes. I don’t have a coat on and the icy air bites through the long sleeve t-shirt I’m wearing.
Zach makes me walk ahead of him towards the cabin.
When we reach the entrance, he leans forward and I tense, his chest brushing my back as he unlocks the door. His large hand pushes the wood and it swings open inwards.
I take one step inside before my feet grind to a halt.
What. The. Fuck?
I don’t even move when Zach’s breath whispers against my ear. “Welcome home, Little Star.”
For a second I think he’s figured out it’s me but then I remember Allie said he kept calling her that too.
I force oxygen into my lungs.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t make what I’m seeing any easier because I just walked into a fucking replica of my childhood home.
Photographs of me as a child line the hallway, the same ones that were there as I grew up. For show of course, in case anyone ever visited. As far as I was aware they were all locked up in evidence. I have no idea how Zach got them.
The side table by the door is the same one we used to have, right down to the ceramic key dish and the unlit candle. I can’t bring myself to move farther into the house, but I can see enough of the kitchen, through a gap in the door on my left, to know the similarity isn’t a coincidence and it isn’t limited to this hallway.
My eyes catch on a photo at the end of the hall. It’s the one of a blonde woman twirling around that felt so damn familiar. I couldn’t place it at the time but now I remember it sitting right there on the wall. I’d pass it every time I went from my bedroom to the kitchen.
“What is this?” the words whisper from my lips before I can think whether or not Allie would say them.
Behind me, Zach spreads his arms wide. “This is home.” He runs a finger over the side table. “I never got to live here as a child, but I always wanted to. So I made it.” He’s silent for a moment before he indicates with the gun for me to keep moving. “Let’s go.”
My feet take me down the hall and to the right but my mind is kaleidoscoping. Thick breaths whoosh in my ears as I walk through the corridor towards the short door that always led to the basement. The deadbolt keeping it locked burns away any hope that this perverse replica doesn’t extend to the sublevel.
Zach holds out a key. “Open it.”
I take the key from his palm. I try to keep my focus on the basement door but my gaze flicks to the right on it’s own accord.I get a glimpse of pink wallpaper at the end of the hall before I jerk my head away and stare at the basement door.
The padlock clicks and I unhook it. The lock’s got some weight to it and for a moment I consider slamming it into Zach’s head, but he’s got the gun pointed at my stomach.
I hand the padlock over to him, telling myself to wait for the right moment. The guys will be here any minute now.
Zach pulls the heavy door open. “After you.”
A single bulb casts a dim light from the bottom of the basement, just enough for me to see the outline of the steps as I go down the stairs, Zach close on my heels.
The shuffling of clothes on concrete is a sound I’m well acquainted with and I have to fight to stop a flashback. Logically, I know this isn’t the same room I was held captive in for most of my childhood, but it looks the same. It feels the same, and the little girl huddled in the far corner may as well be me from a different era.
Harley.
