Preface

  Terror swept across my tear stricken eyes as I watched them

beat him over and over because of what I could have prevented.

This was my fault. This was all my fault. I should have never let

him in or smiled at him or led him to believe I was anything

worth risking something for. I should have left him alone from

the beginning.

Jonathan warned me that this was eventually going to happen,

but I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t bring myself to forget about

him and walk away from all that we had already been through. And

even if I was to somehow let go, I knew Elliot wouldn’t be as

understanding as I was.

The wall between us was not thick enough to muffle the

sounds from the room he was in next to me. They asked him the

same questions over and over, but he wouldn’t answer them.

I couldn’t tell what was more tormenting for him, the blows

to the side of his face, or having me in the room while this was

all happening. I broke free of the guard holding my arm and ran

to him.
 “Elliot!” I cried. I held his face in my hands and wiped the

dirt from his face. I pressed my lips onto his, hoping this

gesture would ease his painful wounds if even only for a moment.

I kneeled down between his legs and rubbed the remaining blood

and tears from his scarred face. I directed my eyes at his bloody

wrists, burned and cut from the tight, knotted rope. His fingers

were bruised and mangled from the man that tortured him. I tried

freeing his hands, but without success, leaving me teary eyed and

frustrated. Elliot leaned his forehead against mine and tilted my

lips up to his for one last time. His eyes closed shut tightly

seemingly synchronized with mine. A dark, heavyset man behind me

emerged from the black of the room to retrieve me.

“Don’t touch her!” he yelled. But the man ignored Elliot’s

hopeless threats and pulled me by the hair back to the corner of

the room. Elliot was furious.

If we were to make it out of here, I would never let go of

him. I would never leave his sight. I would never let him go

again.

 
 Chapter 1

“When’s Daddy coming home?” I asked. I hadn’t seen him in at

least three months. My mom said he was just late from overseas

because work was hectic right now.

“He’s not,” my brother Thomas mumbled. I gave him a dirty

look then glanced back up at her.

“He’ll be home soon, baby, I promise.” She was lying. Even

at my age I could see the worry on her face. She finished

chopping the carrots and slid them onto my plate. I stuck my

tongue out at them. “Don’t give me that look. Eat up sugar,

mommy’s got to leave soon and she wants that plate cleaner than

when she took it from the closet.” She had her cocktail dress on,
ready to make her appearance at daddy’s work party alone, again.

It was the usual thing that she did every Friday.

She inhaled the last puff of smoke from her cigarette then doused

it under the sink and threw it into the trash can.

I carefully lifted my plate above my head and onto the

island and climbed up one of the large bar stools. Thomas joined

me on my right with a plate twice my size. He ate in silence. His

brown sway bangs hung just above his eyes covering his face in

shadows. He looked much better with his hair this way. Daddy

would never approve though. His last hair cut daddy gave him

definitely was not his best look.

“My tooth! My tooth fell out!” I held the square front tooth

in my small fingers. Thomas jumped, startled from my squeal, then

flicked me gently on the side of my head with a smile. This was

the third one this year. I ignored the steaming veggies left

untouched on my plate and darted up the stairs. I slipped at

least four times on account of the new wooden floors. Socks and

slippery surface never seemed to end well. I could hear Thomas

snickering in the kitchen. Quickly, I collected myself and jumped

over my bunk banister hitting the ceiling on the way up. I

cleaned the tooth and put it in a small velvet bag. Mom said the

fairy never liked unclean teeth. I lifted my pillow and noticed a

crumpled picture of the four of us that I just remembered I still

had. I always kept under there. Even back then, my daddy had grey
and white hair and looked the same age as my grandpa. A tear

dripped from the corner of my eye. I missed those days.

I quickly slid the picture and the bag back underneath the

sheets and wiped the salt from my face before the clicking of her

heels made it to my room.

“Make sure you’re in bed by eight thirty and don’t forget to

put that tooth under your pillow too,” she whispered with a

smile.

Yes! No sitter again. My mother stopped calling a sitter and

even a house maid ever since the plastic cards in her wallet

stopped working. I nodded in response and stared up at the roof

again. Her heels clicked the marble floors. She slowed to the

front door. The door slammed shut, locking behind her. I took a

final glance at the photo and shoved in back under along with my

tooth.

Thomas had Daddy’s new television on at full blast watching

one of his boring music channels. I watched him for a moment in

the distance until he noticed me standing behind.

“Hey, squirt. Come sit.” He patted the space next to him on

Daddy’s new leather couch.

“Daddy doesn’t like us sitting on that couch, Thomas.”

“Well, Daddy isn’t here and he is not coming back,” he

mocked. I hated when he said that. I believed it even more every

time I heard it. This was the longest I had seen him away and
judging by the growing stack of cigarettes in the trash, my mom

was thinking the same thing we were. He patted the seat harder. I

ran to his side and jumped on his stomach. He still had the

traces of bruises on his face from where Daddy hit him. It wasn’t

even his fault. It was mine.

Thomas turned on the television to the movie channel. “What

do you want to watch Pay?” We had every channel known to man on

that massive screen.

“Scary, lets watch a scary movie!” I shouted. He never let

me watch those, but it was worth a try. He typed in the purchase

code into the set and clicked buy. He slouched further into his

chair. I pulled the blanket from underneath the couch and held it

up to my face.

“Okay, we’re not watching this if you’re going to hide

behind that old thing.” He paused the movie though it was still

only on the credits. I ignored his insults and sat between his

legs in his lap and leaned my head against his arm. To me, Thomas

was my father. My mother relied on his small income now and split

it down the middle between them. I didn’t understand why either.

I thought daddy was rich.

Thomas worked at the local lumber yard down the street. He

only earned a few dollars an hour, minimum wage. I had always

admired his maturity for his age. He was only a teenager. Before

working there, he looked like a tall skinny beam. Now, his

muscles had evened his physique perfectly and from the many

conversations I had secretly overheard, he was a heartbreaker. I

didn’t think that of course. I thought of boys more like brothers

than gross creatures. Eating worms wasn’t as bad as everyone

thought.

Mom never liked to talk much about her ‘early years’

whenever we tried bringing it up. That was a sore spot to her. I

don’t know how Daddy met mom. All I know is that she was, and

still is, embarrassed about her unplanned pregnancy of Thomas

when she was a teen.

A dark figure emerged from behind the door. Run you stupid

girl, run! I jumped out of my seat. Thomas only laughed. I pulled

his arm over me. I felt so much safer here. I still couldn’t

understand how he could stand there and not even flinch. Even

when I tried to scare him by jumping out of his closet of hiding

underneath his bed he wouldn’t twitch. He simply laughed and

whenever he did it to me, I always jumped at least four feet in

the air and screamed.

The credit’s scrolled down the screen. Even on this

television twice the size of me, I still could not read the names

that whizzed from the bottom of the screen up.

“Time for bed. Let’s get you upstairs and sleeping. Mom’ll

be home any minute now.” I still had my blanket over my eyes. He

picked me up and threw me on his back. It was already ten thirty,

but I knew he wouldn’t tell. He tossed me over the white railing

of my bed and pulled the covers up to my shoulders. “Night

Payton…” He kissed my forehead and switched the light off. I made

an intentional clearing of the throat. “Sorry, I almost forgot.”

He plugged my nightlight into the outlet and gave me a smile just

before he closed my door. I hated the dark.

Now, I finally understood why I wasn’t allowed to watch all

those scary movies. The coat hung loosely on the rack by my

bathroom now looked like the killer in the movie. The shadows on

my wall opposite my window had the figure of long slender fingers

moving in the wind. They screeched down the side of my wall. I

squeezed my eyes shut and tried to concentrate on the quiet

strumming of my brother’s guitar. He was practicing for a gig he

had at the local coffee house tomorrow. I was his number one fan

whether he liked it or not. Mom hardly ever attended any of his

shows. Daddy has never heard him sing.

I couldn’t sleep at all. Every squeak and thump made me

jump. I tried thinking of other subjects. Mom still wasn’t home.

It wasn’t like her to stay out so late in the night. I heard an

even louder bang against my window. I was too terrified to look,

imagining the many things it could be. I couldn’t stand it. I had

to look. I had to walk down the ladder to look through the glass.
There was someone there, a man. It felt as though my heart had

stopped. It was the tooth fairy. I had always thought the tooth

fairy was pink and wore a frilly dress. He was wearing a dark

black suit with a black beanie over his hair. I froze with my

eyes open as wide as they could stretch.

“Open the window,” he whispered.

“Tooth fairy?” I asked innocently.

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

I knew never to talk to strangers, but the tooth fairy

wasn’t a stranger. He budged at the glass frame trying to lift

it. Luckily daddy bolted them shut as a safety precaution. He

asked me again. “Hey, open the damn window!” I tried to spin off

the bolts, but they were too tight.

“Let me get my brother. He can get it.” I didn’t waste time

and ran to my door calling out Thomas’ name down the hallway. He

jumped out his door missing me by inches.

“What’s wrong Payton?” he asked concerned.

“The tooth fairy is banging at my window. He can’t get in,”

I said quietly. He had to lean down to hear me. I grabbed onto

his leg holding one of his hands. He laughed, thinking it was

only a shadow that I was afraid of and creaked open my door.

“Shit!” A loud bang was heard followed by the sound of

cracking glass. Thomas pulled away from the doorframe just in

time dragging me with him. He was bleeding down the side of his

face and down his arm. He grabbed his shoulder gritting his

teeth. I looked up at him. He was just as terrified as I was. I

only had a small scratch on the lower part of my arm from a

ricochet piece of wood. He bent down and wiped the blood from my

arm.

“This is going to hurt for only a second. Close your eyes.”

He pulled out a splinter the length of my finger. I screamed at

the sight of it. He picked me up in his arms and carried me to

his room kicking the door shut behind him. He jumped at the loud

crack from downstairs. They snapped the front door off its

hinges. He threw a few papers out from a small hole in his

closet. It looked like a safe. He lowered me down into the tiny

hole. I had to curl into a ball to fit in the small box. There

wasn’t room for the both of us.

“What’s happening?”

He held my hand and kissed my cheek. “Shhh… stay very

quiet.” His hands were shaking. “Listen to me. No matter what you

hear, no matter what, you do not leave this shaft until your

mother opens this door. Do you hear me? Promise me you won’t.” I

nodded. “Let me hear you say it.”

“I promise,” I whimpered. He pulled the mysterious chain

from around his neck and handed it to me. It was a dog tag with
an unfamiliar name. Boone Briston. I didn’t understand why he was

giving this to me.

“Don’t lose this. Hold on to it and don’t ever let it lose

your sight.”

“Where are you going? Don’t leave me.” I already lost Daddy,

I couldn’t lose him.

“You have me. You will always have me,” he whispered.

“He let go of my hand and shut the small hatch door. I held

my breath hoping it would stop the quivering coming from inside

of me. Everything went quiet.

“Where’s the girl, boy?” asked a man with a deep voice.

“Where’s the girl!” He was shouting now. I heard a click.

“Look, sir, please. Lower the gun. What do you want? Do you

want money?” He ran over to his drawer and dumped the contents

onto the floor. Coins clinked as they hit the floor. “Here, this

is all I’ve got. Look, it’s one, two, three, four, five hundred

dollars. He dropped it to the floor. Though I couldn’t see what

was happening, I used sound to visualize what was happening.

“I don’t want your damn money.” The man hit Thomas, hard.

“Get on the floor kid. What’s your name?”

“Thomas. Look, sir, I don’t know who sent you. I don’t know

what you want, but my sister has nothing to do with any of this.”

He took a hit to his head again, knocking him on his back.

 Another voice was heard from down the hallway. “Hey, we have

to leave now. The cops are at the end of the street.”

“Get up! Let’s go now!” Thomas kicked his feet trying to

break loose. The dragged him out the room.

“What about the girl Joe?” It was difficult to understand

them now.

“He said to leave her if we had to. She doesn’t know

anything. Take a quick look around and I’ll meet you out back.”

He dragged Thomas further down the hallway and down the stairs to

the back door. He was gone.

“What’s her name?”

“I think he said Payton. Yeah, that’s it, Payton.”

The other man stayed behind. “Payton, come out. I’m not

going to hurt you. We just want to take you back to Thomas. He

needs your help.” His voice was quiet and tempting. His light

footsteps were almost inaudible. He threw things out of Thomas’

closet and ripped open cabinet doors. The police sirens were

ringing from the front door. Footsteps stomped up the wooden

stairs as they carried threatening voices throughout my house.

The man with the gun still rummaged around Thomas’ room wasting

no time at all. Where were the cops? He cursed his job and his

partner’s name as he smashed the glass of the rounded window.

With a quick sigh, he leapt through it and was gone.

 I sat in that hell hole for another twenty minutes

involuntarily shaking. I had his chain slung loosely around my

neck holding the two tags tightly in my hands. My right sleeve

was red now. I hated the tooth fairy. She, or he, was supposed to

give, not take. The police searched every room, anyplace that a

small little girl could hide. They called my name, but I followed

careful instructions and kept my mouth shut.

“Payton! Payton, baby where are you?” It was mom. She was as

scared as anything by the sound of her voice. She shot up the

stairs screaming at the chunk missing from my wall and the broken

glass. Mom was terrified. Her rummaging through my closet and

cabinets became more and more audible. “Payton, where are you?” I

remained silent staying true to my promise. She clicked her way

to Tom’s room. She was in his closet next to me. I tapped on the

door. She looked around for a moment. I tapped it again. She

dragged her hand along the bottom wall looking for some sort of

handle.

Light shot into my face. I squinted in pain from the sudden

burst of illumination. Mom grabbed me from the uncomfortable box

and kissed me a thousand times all over my face. I kept my eyes

shut and my hands firmly around the tags as they pulled me from

the house and onto a stretcher. There was no need for one, but I

couldn’t bring myself to even lift me head up off the bed. My mom

wouldn’t take her hands off me.

My father wasn’t coming home. My mom knew it and so did I.