“
We’re going to
California.” Ally beamed.
“
California? What’s in
California? How are we getting—”
“
Jeez, Katie, this isn’t
twenty questions. I’ll tell you what’s in California—acting and
modeling jobs!”
“
Are we old enough?” Katie
asked.
“
Of course. Garrison says
we’re at the ‘prime’ age.” Ally held her hands up and made
quotation marks over her head. “I’ve set it all up. We’re going to
pack light—just the essentials—and meet Garrison Thursday at three
a.m. in the park.”
“
Who’s
Garrison?”
“
He’s a guy I met the
other night when I snuck out. You should’ve come out with me. I had
to convince him to take you with us.”
“
Weren’t you scared out
there in the middle of the night?” Katie hugged her comforter to
her chest.
“
Me? I’m not afraid of
anything.” Ally sat up in her bed and faced Katie. “You’ve gotta
grow up, Katie. We can’t stay here. We have to make our own way.
You want to be a doctor, don’t you?”
Katie nodded her head.
“Yes.”
“
Well, if you stay here
you’ll become Maxine’s maid, if Rick doesn’t have his way with you
first. Or kill you.”
“
What are we going to do
when we get there?”
“
I’ve got it all taken
care of.” Ally’s face portrayed a confidence that made Katie
believe her.
Katie’s mind was flooded with
questions and apprehension, but anything would be better than
living with the Higgins. She let her mind wander back to a few
months ago. She lay on her bathroom floor, willing herself to die
from the brutal beating Rick had given her with the buckle side of
his belt. Large purple welts covered the backs of her legs and some
of them had bled. When death didn’t come, but the pain throbbed
until life was unbearable, she raided the medicine cabinet and
swallowed the entire contents of the first bottle of pills she
found.
As she lay there waiting
for the peace of death to come, she wondered if she would go to
hell for taking her own life.
I AM in
hell. What would be the difference?
She
sat up, trying to present herself in a more dramatic position when
her body was found.
They’ll be sorry when
they find me. I wonder if the police will come and investigate.
They’ll put Rick and Maxine away forever, and Ally will be free
from this hell. Ally! What will she do once I’m dead? She’ll be
heartbroken . . . and all alone. What if the police don’t put
Maxine and Rick away and she’s left to take all the beatings? Oh
no, what have I done?
Katie pulled herself
up and took the empty bottle off the counter to read the
label.
I’ll just call poison control and
see what I should do.
When she read the
label on the bottle she exhaled a breath of relief and then chided
herself for being so stupid.
Aspirin
!
***
Thursday seemed to tick by at a
turtle’s pace. Katie thought she would lose her sanity before three
a.m. arrived and they began their adventure to California. Trying
not to arouse suspicion, they finished dinner, helped Maxine clean
the kitchen, and headed to their room to finish
homework.
“
We can’t pack until
Maxine goes to bed, but do you have an idea of what you’re
bringing?” Ally asked.
“
Yes, I think so. How many
shirts are you bringing?”
“
He said whatever we can
fit in a small duffle. There’s not a lot of room for bags. I think
I can fit three shirts, an extra pair of jeans, socks, underwear,
and toiletries.”
The door to Maxine’s room shut at
exactly eleven forty-five. Ally and Katie quietly gathered their
things and packed the two small duffels before tiptoeing down the
hall to the bathroom for toiletries. Returning to the room, Ally
pulled out a wad of cash from under her mattress and tucked it in
her bag between her folded jeans.
“
Where did you get that?”
Katie asked.
“
I took it out of Rick’s
wallet,” Ally grinned, proud of herself.
“
He’ll kill you when he
finds out.”
“
He won’t be able to find
me, Katie. We’ll be long gone before he even realizes it’s
missing.”
“
You’re right.” Katie
twisted a strand of hair around her finger until the lack of
circulation made the tip pulse. “I’m nervous, Ally. Are you sure
we’re doing the right thing?”
“
Yes, I’m sure. We’re
starting our lives tonight. You’ll be a wonderful surgeon one day,
and I’ll be a famous actress. You’ll see, Katie, everything is
going to be just perfect. Garrison promised that he would help us
out—he already has jobs lined up for us and a place to stay. He has
connections in California.”
Katie stuffed her ragged doll into her
bag, ignoring Ally’s scolding face. “I’m bringing her.” She felt
the surge of confidence soar through her and decided from this
moment on she would no longer be a timid little girl. From now on,
she was Katie Rose Harrington, rising surgeon.
***
Ally and Garrison were obviously
arguing. Katie tried to listen in on the conversation while sitting
on one of the swings at the park. She looked over Garrison Ford,
trying to form an opinion of him. He appeared to be only a few
years older than they were—sixteen or seventeen. He had messy blond
hair, blue eyes, and wore a black leather jacket. She watched him
flick his cigarette butt across the parking lot, using his thumb
and forefinger. His tone changed, causing Katie to sit straighter
while she listened. He was scolding Ally. “This is all you could
get? Forty bucks won’t even be enough for gas.”
“
It’s all he had. I’m
sorry.”
“
You were supposed to
bring at least twice this much.”
“
He would’ve killed me,
Garrison. You don’t know how mean he is.”
“
Well, I don’t know what
we’re gonna do. Seth’s coming too, hopefully he has some cash.”
Garrison shook his head and leaned against the white Ford Mustang.
“At least money won’t be an issue for long,” he mumbled under his
breath.
“
Who’s Seth? You didn’t
say anything about anyone else coming.”
“
He’s fine. Just be cool,
and don’t give me a reason to leave you both behind.”
Seth walked up in a black jacket and
jeans. He was obviously older than all of them, in his twenties,
Katie assumed. He had black eyes and black hair and reminded her of
the bad guy from a movie she’d seen recently. He gave her the
creeps. She rubbed her hands up and down over her arms, trying to
rid the goose bumps.
Katie strained to hear what Garrison
and Seth were talking about, but their muffled whispers came
through in chunks that didn’t make sense. “James . . . that one . .
. pissed . . .” She casually got off the swing and inched her way
closer, pretending to look for a dropped earring and heard Garrison
say, “What was I supposed to do? Besides, I should get a bonus for
bringing two.”
Ally lifted Katie up by the arm. “What
are you doing?”
Once the informal introductions were
made, they were on their way. Assuming the police would be looking
for them, they drove at night and pulled off on undeveloped dead
end streets to sleep during the day. Katie and Ally were mostly
quiet during the three day trip, listening to the radio and
conversations coming from the guys in the front seat. Everyone was
exhausted and hungry, which caused their tempers to be on edge.
They arrived in California around two in the morning, following the
directions Garrison read from a slip of paper as Seth drove. They
finally pulled into an apartment complex that looked as if it might
be condemned.
Katie leaned over, whispering in
Ally’s ear. “I hope he took a wrong turn. This place is
creepy.”
“
I don’t even care,” Ally
said before yawning. “I just want to stretch my legs and lie down
somewhere—anywhere.”
Katie could barely carry herself up
the stairs leading to the apartment, let alone her small duffel
bag. She was exhausted from being cramped in the backseat for three
days with minimal food and drink. The best meal she had on the trip
was a small order of French fries that she choked down.
They entered the dark apartment and
set their bags down by the door. Katie was led to a twin mattress
on the floor of the living room and fell onto it gratefully,
allowing the veil of sleep to wash over her.
***
The smell of strong cologne mixed with
something that burned Katie’s nose woke her up. She blinked her
eyes open, trying to figure out where she was, but it was too dark.
A fresh wave of the burning filled her nose and she discovered it
was a cloud of cigarette smoke being blown directly into her face.
Katie coughed and turned her head into her pillow, trying to suck
in a breath of fresh air. Her muscles tensed at the sudden
foreboding.
“
Oh, did I wake you,
princess?” A gruff, sarcastic voice filled her ears and sent a
chill down her spine.
“
What—where am I?” she
cried.
“
Heaven,” the man replied
before injecting something into her arm. Katie tried to break free,
but the full weight of him was pinning her down and holding her
arms. The drug swam through her veins, causing the walls to breathe
in and out as if they were alive. Katie’s body felt warm and spongy
as she lay on the mattress on the floor. She knew she needed to get
out of there, away from the people in the room, but she couldn’t
move. She lifted her arm up into the air, as if it would somehow be
the leader, commanding the rest of her body to follow. Her arm
dangled in the air alone and the rest of her body just watched as
it fell back down onto the mattress defeated. The people around her
looked like something out of a comic book and she smiled as she
watched their lips curl up and around past their ears. She tried to
focus on her surroundings—figure out where she was—but everything
started to get hazy and she slipped into a deep, dreamless
sleep.
The room was suddenly
cold, causing Katie to reach for cover, only to realize her arms
wouldn’t obey. She squinted, trying to make out the shadow hovering
over her. The face contorted from a human to a large orange
dinosaur she had seen on a children’s television program, causing
her to laugh. She began to sing the song that he sang every day
before a large white sheepdog pranced in, knocked him down
playfully, and covered his face with kisses.
“One-two, here’s a clue. Three-four, he’s never a bore.
Five-six, he kisses with licks. Nine-ten, it’s my best dog
Ben!”
Katie smiled and said, “Where’s
Ben?” before closing her eyes, trying to make the room quit
spinning.
When she opened them again, the
shadowy figure’s face was much too close to hers. She tried to
focus on his features, but his face danced around like a strobe
light. She tried to grab his head and steady it, but her arms were
heavy as lead and felt like the flesh was melting off her bones.
She barely grazed his chest and felt her arms fall down next to her
body.
She lay there, suddenly realizing she
was naked and cold, and pleaded with the stranger to get away from
her. His mouth was abruptly on hers, his tongue forcing its way
between her lips, and she was powerless to stop him due to the
drugs that swam through her veins.
“
Please . . . stop.” Katie
slurred and tried to free herself from underneath the shadow. “I’m
only thirteen . . .”
The shadow ignored her pleas and
proceeded to rob her of her innocence until she passed out from the
mixture of drugs, pain, and shock. Katie fell in and out of
consciousness as the horrific event seemed to go on for hours. She
concentrated on one specific feeling—the worst one—a feeling of
sandpaper scraping inside of her.
When the traumatic event was finally
over, hot tears slipped down her temples into her hair as she wept
before slipping back into the darkness.
Nineteen
Sunlight breached the dark curtains,
causing Katie to stir. It was an effort to open her eyes. The rank
smell of alcohol, cigarette smoke, and cheap cologne filled her
nose. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it felt
scorched and dry, as if someone had stuffed cotton balls down her
trachea. With every heartbeat her head pounded in an offbeat rhythm
as if someone were learning to play the drums for the first time.
As she tried to remember where she was, she was instantly filled
with terror. Trying to be as quiet as possible, she lifted herself
up onto her elbows and looked around. Katie felt like she was hit
by a truck. Each time she moved the pain reminded her of what had
happened. She let a slight groan escape her lips, looking around to
see if anyone had heard her. Three males were asleep in the small,
dingy apartment. Two were on old, beat-up couches and the other was
slumped over in a tan recliner while the remains of a beer can
dripped slowly onto the arm of the chair.
A guy with black hair and
a goatee slept on one of the couches with one tattoo-covered arm
dangling. Her eyes roamed to the guy in the recliner, who would
surely have a crick in his neck when he woke up. He was short,
stocky and had thick brown hair. Finally, she came to the last
person on the other couch and her heart raced in panic. It was the
shadow that hovered over her just a few hours ago, causing so much
agony. She studied his features, beginning with his messy blond
hair . . .
Garrison! But why—how could
he?—”