A tangle of knots unravels inside of me at the confirmation that she’s alive.
She keeps her eyes on Zach, only letting them flick to me for a second before locking back onto the biggest threat.
“I don’t want to be here,” I say, only just remembering I’m supposed to be playing the part of my sister.
“I don’t care,” Zach answers. “I need to make a call to sort out the mess you made. I’ll be back later.” He waits till I’m farther inside the basement before going back up the stairs.
My body revolts at the sound of the door slamming shut and it takes everything in me not to flinch. I know I need to go to Harley, but I’m barely functioning right now. The air down here is somehow stale and damp at the same time and the taste makes me sick.
I take a moment to notice all the differences in this basement to the one I grew up in. The space is smaller by a couple of feet. There’s no sign of the twin mattresses Allie and I used to sleep on, just a small pile of blankets in the corner. The walls are bare too, no coded messages scratched into the concrete.
The pressure in my chest at being locked up is still there but I breathe a little easier as I let it sink in that this is not the place I spent every other day of my childhood. I am not a kid. I am not powerless.
I close my eyes and when I open them again, I don’t see a younger version of myself, I see Harley.
She’s watching me now that Zach’s gone. She hugs her knees to her chest, the navy leggings she’s wearing covered in dust. Her skin is pale and she’s thinner than she was in the photo I saw but Zach must have been feeding her because she doesn’t look malnourished.
I drop down to my knees and sit cross-legged on the floor, not moving any closer yet. “It’s Harley, right?”
Her eyes widen but she doesn’t say anything. I check the corners of the room for cameras. I don’t see anything obvious. The guys should be here any moment now and Harely’s been scared long enough so I decide to take the risk.
“My name’s Freya. I’m with the FBI. The police.”
Her eyes dart to the stairs then back at me.
“Can I come closer?”
A moment passes but then Harley nods. I shuffle across the room till I’m sitting in front of her. A faded bruise stains the skin around her eye a sickly yellow and dried blood dots the cuffs of her shirt. “Can you show me your wrists, sweetie?”
She pulls up the sleeves of the blue striped cotton top. The skin around her wrists is mottled and scabbed over in places.
“He put duct tape around them,” she whispers.
“Are you hurt anywhere other than your wrists and your face?”
She shakes her head.
I force myself to stay calm, to not show the emotion storming inside of me. I don’t want to ask but I need to know. “Harley, can you tell me if he hurt you in any other way?”
Her gaze darts to the stairs again before she studies her knees.
“Do you know what I mean by that?” I ask.
She nods.
I don’t push her on it, giving her time. When she speaks her voice is a whisper. “He tried to on the first day. He took me upstairs to a bedroom, but he kept calling me Annie.” She looks up at me. “My name’s not Annie and I just kept saying ‘my name is Harley, my name is Harley.’ I said it again and again and he got mad and hit me but then he brought me back down here.”
My breath gushes out of me, relief making me lightheaded. “Has he taken you back upstairs again since then?”
She shakes her head. “He keeps trying to get me to say I’m Annie. He gets mad when I don’t but then he leaves. I don’t want to go back upstairs so I just keep saying I’m Harley.”
I bow my head, wiping away a tear before looking back up at the incredible kid in front of me. “That was really smart, Harley. You are so clever and so brave, and I promise I’m going to get you home, okay?”
She stares at me for a moment before launching into me, circling her arms around my back. Sobs wrack her tiny frame. I bite my lip. There’s nothing more I can say to make this better, so I just hold her close and let her cry.
After a while, I grab one of the blankets and wrap it around her. We sit like that for a long time.
Too long.
