When I was young—maybe eight or so, before Mama died—I loved to be outside, to be in nature. I loved to watch the squirrels scamper and chitter, the birds flit and flutter and sing. I watched caterpillars crawl across leaves, eating as they go, hump-slide hump-slide hump-sliding their way along. I watched butterflies—or as I insisted on calling them, flutterbys—touch onto a flower and see if I could watch its proboscis unfurl.
One time, I found a caterpillar in the house. My father was going to kill it, but I pitched a fit until Mama convinced him to let me save it. I was supposed to put it outside, but instead I found an old Folgers coffee tin in the trash and cleaned it out, stuffed the bottom full of grass and leaves and dirt, leaned a little piece of a branch against the wall, and put the creature inside. I covered the top with plastic wrap, poked holes in it, and hid the tin under my bed. I’d sneak it out at night and watch the caterpillar shuffling around its enclosure, nibbling on the leaves and grass, and napping on the branch.
I watched it and I watched it—and then, one day, it was gone, and there was a chrysalis hanging from the side of the branch.
I watched and I watched and I watched. I took the tin with me everywhere I went, determined to see in person the moment the butterfly emerged.
It was every bit as magical a moment as I’d spent days and days hoping it would be. The insect struggled and fought its way out of the chrysalis bit by bit over many long minutes. I wanted to help it, but I knew instinctively that I shouldn’t.
When it finally emerged, it sat there on the ruined, shredded husk of its chrysalis and pumped its wings for a while, drying them.
I unwrapped the top to set it free, feeling sad and proud and amazed, awed by the process of transformation.
When the butterfly flittered away, I cried—not because I was sad to see it go, but because I was happy it would have a whole new life. From ground-bound to having the whole world to explore, that butterfly has always represented to me the power of change.
I would lay awake at night after Mama died, thinking about it. About the caterpillar trapped in the tin, and then the long days in the chrysalis, and then the moment it flew free. I’d imagine myself as that creature. I imagined the compound as the imprisoning tin. I imagined the suffering I was enduring to be the chrysalis.
It was how I kept going. How I held onto hope that somehow, someday, I would be free. I would claw and struggle my way out of the chrysalis and find a bright endless blue sky to explore, flowers to alight upon and nectar to drink.
Now, I lay in bed, and I know I’ve become that butterfly.
The chrysalis is behind me, no longer my home. My sex is deliciously sore, and as I close my eyes, unable to fall back asleep, I replay the amazing moments I got to spend with Silas, exploring the peaks and depths of pleasure: the clear endlessly blue sky all mine to discover.
From unending pain and torture and abuse, I’ve found love and care and passion and pleasure. Silas’s touch heals me. His kisses make me new. Touching him, watching the effect I have on him…I feel like I have power. My body is beautiful. My hands can give him pleasure. My mouth can make him wild.
I’m on the verge of dozing back off when that finely honed instinct rouses me: danger.
I hear Silas’s admonishment to listen to my instincts, and I do so without hesitation. I roll silently off the bed and pull on clean clothes—underwear, a pair of tight, stretchy black leggings, socks, a soft but supportive sports bra, and a pale gray T-shirt whose hem drapes in a low U over my backside, dipping in a V at my chest. I bind my hair back in a tight braid and stuff it under a ballcap—one of Silas’s. I have to adjust the back to fit me, and I pull the brim low. The last thing I put on is the body armor, ratcheting the velcro straps tight.
The pistol he left is on the small table beside the bed, complete with a belt and holster, which also allows for the knife. I wrap the belt around my waist and buckle it; the weight of the weapons belt feels alien and uncomfortable.
The leggings feature a small pocket in the thigh midway between knee and hip, and I tuck the phone there.
The sense of danger increases until my belly is roiling with it.
Silas’s words ring in my ears.
Don’t hesitate.
Shoot to kill.
Do whatever it takes to stay safe.
My pulse pounds in my ears as I creep silently away from the bed and to the corner of the room parallel to the door and the window, like he told me.
Our room is on the ground floor at the back of the house, probably once the master suite of the home.
I strain my ears but hear nothing. Perhaps I was mistaken. Maybe the sense of danger is nothing, just fear materializing physically.
But then…
I hear a shuffled foot on concrete. The doorknob rattles. A whisper. Silence.
I pull the pistol free of the holster with both hands, cupping it the way I remember being taught, years ago: before Mama died, my father actually showed me a semblance of fatherly care, spending time with me, teaching me things that mattered to him, such as using firearms. He would take me to the range at the back of the property and let me shoot pistols and rifles and shotguns, even a machine gun once—with him behind me, helping me, of course.
I remember his instructions with the pistol as clear as day: hold it in both hands, wrap your fingers of one hand around the other. Keep your trigger finger outside the guard until you’re ready to fire. Extend your arms out straight in a triangle. Don’t try to aim, just point it at the man-shaped paper target fifty yards away. Breathe out, breathe in, hold your breath, and squeeze the trigger gently.
I crouch with one knee on the floor, the other tucked up against my belly, ready to spring. I take a good, stable grip on the weapon, finger along the trigger guard, and point it at the door.
