Ruthless (3 page)

I don't know how the Wolfman knows all this, but he's not wrong. My warm cheeks turn scalding hot.

“Your shame is a good sign. You may break sooner than I thought. The breaking is good. It purifies.”

He's getting inside my head. I can't let him get inside my head.

“Look down,” Wolfman says.

I look at the floor.

“Not that low. Look at the table. There's a drawer in it. Right in front of you. Open it.”

The last thing on earth I want to do is open it. I don't want to know what's in there.

“Open it.”

I'm so frightened of what's in that drawer I think I'm going to throw up again. Using my left hand, I open the drawer.

Cards. Playing cards.

“Count them. See if there are fifty-two.”

Somehow this surreal twist makes it all worse. I don't want to be played with. He's the cat and I'm the mouse.

“Count them and see if there are fifty-two.”

He picks the gun up and cocks it.

As I count the cards, a question beats against the inside of my head, until I can't stop the words from spilling out of me.

“Why me?” I ask. “Why'd you start following me?”

“Whenever I spot a redhead, I take a good, long look.”

It's so ridiculous, I find myself saying, “Are you kidding me?”

For several seconds I do nothing but blink. That I have red
hair, of all things, would be what led me to this place feels so outrageously unfair, my sense of injustice momentarily outweighs the shock and horror of my situation.

“You were on thirty-two.”

I return to counting cards. When I finish, there are fifty-two cards stacked in front of me. “Fifty-two,” I say.

“I knew there were fifty-two. This was an exercise in obedience. I'm glad to see you're learning to comply.”

I can't stop myself from pointing out the obvious. “You're pointing a gun at me.”

He smiles again. “This is the sort of redheaded feistiness I expected.”

“Maybe I'm feisty, but not all redheads are feisty.”

“So far, all of you have been feisty.”

How many have there been?

My breathing quickens. I fight to control it. No good showing weakness. Have to be strong, but these references to other victims are unnerving. I look around the cabin, searching for evidence of the other girls brought here before me.

“Keep your eyes on the cards.”

I do as I'm told.

“Now deal 'em out.”

“How many?”

“Seven for each of us.”

As I deal out cards, he picks up my phone.

“Let's see if you have any new text messages,” Wolfman says. “Here's one from Mom: ‘Glad to hear you got to Becca's okay.
Drive carefully, and tell her dad we said hello.'” He navigates to the next text. “This one is from Becca: ‘So sorry you're sick. It'll be hard to have fun without you, but we'll try!'”

I sit at the table, frozen. No one knows I'm gone. No one is searching for me. No one has any idea I'm missing. I'm alone. I'm all alone in this.

Forty-Three Years Ago

IT
'
S MAY IN THE DEEP
south, and the air inside the sixth
-
grade classroom is stifling. The girls wear thin cotton dresses; the boys are in short sleeves. In the very back a tall, husky, black-haired boy wears an old green jacket that doesn't fit right. The jacket looks a bit like Little Joe Cartwright's, but nobody watches Bonanza anymore. Except the boy. He watches Bonanza.

The jacket is zipped up tight, compressing his belly into a too-small space. Heat radiates from his cheeks; he can feel them throb in time with his pulse. Dark green mushroom clouds of sweat have formed under his armpits and on his back. The stains are worrisome. They might call attention to him, and the boy's singular goal is to get through this day unnoticed.

With every sense on high alert for predators, he has nothing to spare for such trivialities as the math lesson going on at the front of the classroom.

“Jerry?”

A handful of students pivot to hear his response, but to him it feels like the entire world has turned.

“Ma'am, I didn't have my hand up.”

“I realize that. Please order these fractions from least to greatest.”

“Ma'am, I really didn't have my hand up.”

The teacher walks toward him. More heads turn. Perversely, she wears a long tweed skirt, but not a bead of sweat. Her pale hair, the same color as her face, is perfectly teased into a hair-sprayed helmet. Now five feet from the boy, she scrunches her drawn-on eyebrows in concern.

“Jerry, what on earth is going on? You look sick.”

“Yes, ma'am, I think I am. Can I go to the restroom?”

“You may.”

Jerry jumps up. Growth spurts have hit him hard, and he stumbles over the legs of his desk. Some of the jackals titter. It's a headlong tumble for the door, but he's forced to stop before he can make his escape.

“Jerry, when you come back, I want you in short sleeves! Don't know what you're thinking, wearing that jacket.”

He pauses. How can he agree to this?

“You hear me? Short sleeves. It's ridiculous, you wearing that on a day like this.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

In the empty hallway the boy opens his locker, his movements frantic. He takes off his jacket; he is shirtless underneath. From the locker he pulls out a plain white T-shirt. Plain except for a handwritten message, scrawled in ballpoint pen.

I WET THE BED.

He turns the shirt inside out, which obscures the print somewhat, then puts the shirt on back to front. The tag is now beneath his neck. Grabbing it with his teeth, he tries to rip it off. The tag is stitched in tight. He puts his head into his locker, digging around for a compass, a pair of scissors, anything sharp.

He doesn't hear the footsteps behind him until it's too late.

“I wet the bed?”

And then giggles.

He flings his back to the wall of lockers with a mighty clang. Three girls have semicircled him. They're seventh-grade girls. Popular girls. They giggle like seagulls ripping apart a crab.

“Is that what your shirt says?” asks the redhead. She speaks with a cold authority.

“No,” he lies.

“Let me see!” squeals the prettiest brunette. She grabs his shoulder and tries to pull him forward. He's a head taller than her and a lot stronger. His back stays pressed against the metal lockers.

The less pretty brunette is rough, aggressive. “C'mon! Show her!”

“Is it true?” asks the redhead. “Do you wet the bed? Do you?”

The less pretty brunette pulls on his other shoulder. She's an athlete and makes some headway. The boy's planted feet squeak on the linoleum.

The redhead keeps up her simple interrogation. “Do you wet the bed? Do you?”

“No!” He's panicked now. The brunettes are too close to success. The redhead doesn't move a muscle. She's in charge of giggling and asking questions.

The less pretty brunette grabs the front of the boy's shirt and pulls with
everything she has, forcing him off balance. He takes a stagger-step forward, and the pretty brunette seizes the moment, pushing her foot against the back of his knee. The boy's leg buckles. One more shirt tug sends him to the floor.

“See! It
does
say he wets the bed! You wet the bed! You wet the bed!”

He looks up, and something crystallizes within his brain. He is bigger than them. He is stronger than them. He should be the boss of them.

The boy bursts from the floor with his right fist raised, catching the redhead under her chin with such force she's knocked out cold. His next motion is to grab the pretty brunette. She tries to run away, but her long hair is easily caught. She's ripped off her feet, and a second later she rolls on the floor, grabbing her head and crying. A small fist cracks the boy across the cheek. It's the less pretty brunette, scrappier than her fellows by half. Her punch only serves to further enrage him.

When he unleashes on her, everything falls together. Like a crick in the neck snapped into place, the boy's brain pops and is put right. It is a beautiful undoing, a beautiful becoming. He doesn't stop to think about it when the punches follow her down to the ground. He doesn't stop to notice when she goes still or when the pool of blood under her head pillows out into a great, liquid heart. He doesn't stop until he's pulled off her, and he doesn't start to think again until that night, when he's back at home. For hours and hours his brain stays beautifully popped into place.

CHAPTER FOUR

I'M FROZEN, THINKING OF MY
parents, who believe I'm with my friends, and my friends, who believe I'm with my parents. My shock pleases the Wolfman. I can see it in his face.

He says, “Why'd you stop dealing? Seven to both of us.”

As I deal the cards, I pray.
Dear God. Help me. Please help me. Please, God, help me.

“Caleb's texts made for interesting reading. Not too bright, is he?”

“He's smart; he's just dyslexic. That's why he can't spell. But he's smart.”

“Not smart enough to get away from you.”

His mockery of Caleb makes me angry. “And neither are you, apparently,” I say.

He likes my threat, thinks it's cute. “You really are the ­toughest
case yet. You haven't even cried.” With relish he adds, “This is going to take some work.”

There's a disturbing undercurrent of perversion beneath those words. So far he's been oddly rational, under control. But I know I'm not here to play cards and be lectured to. I'm here to be purified, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the purification he has planned will defile and destroy me, and eventually leave me dead.

I want to get back to cards and lectures. “And now there's seven cards dealt. What are we playing?”

“It's a game I invented. If you win, we keep playing. If you lose, we play a new kind of game. The record holder is seven games won. But she lost in the end, of course. They all do.”

It is evident that I don't want to move on to whatever the “new kind of game” might be. “What are the rules?”

“The goal is to get the queen of hearts.” He pauses. “I call it the Virgin Queen.”

There it is. His rational veneer has slipped, exposing his slimy underbelly, and now the cards really are out on the table. I bark out a laugh and pray it sounds authentic. “If that's what you thought you're getting, I hate to break it to you, but I'm no virgin.”

I'm lying. But I figure, if it's virgins he wants, it'll be sluts he hates. I have nothing against sluts, personally. I try to channel Rachel, a girl from school who likes to brag about her conquests. She even once bragged about acquiring a disease. I call up our conversation. Not too hard, as it was a memorable one.

“Truth is, two weeks ago I had to go to Planned Parenthood.
Turns out it was trich. You ever heard of trich? It's not even a bacteria or a virus; it's a protozoa. A little animal.” I try to nod knowingly, but it probably looks more like I'm having a seizure.

“You're lying.”

“You wish I was lying.” I ransack my fuzzy brain for a key detail from Rachel's story. Her antibiotic was the same thing we used when our dog had giardia. I visualize the label on Hooligan's pill bottle. There. I see it. “I'm taking metronidazole to clear it up, but I'm still contagious.”

“You're lying. You've never even had a boyfriend.”

How did he know that? My cheeks flush again. Few things embarrass me more than my lifelong lack of a boyfriend. With all the bravado I can muster I say, “Sluts don't have boyfriends.”

Please, dear God, make me appear believable as a slut. Please, please let him think I'm a slut.

I peer into those strange eyes and I see doubt.

The cards sit before us. Unplayed.

A shrill ring blares out of nowhere, making us both jump. He stands, grabbing the gun with his left hand, and pulls a phone out of his front pocket with his right. I can't believe there's cell reception up here. Maybe we're not as far out into the middle of nowhere as I thought.

He answers his phone. After saying hello, he says “Yes, sir,” several times, his tone polite and professional. He hangs up, returns the phone to his pocket. The Wolfman leans in to the kitchen counter, his back to me. His shoulders go up and down, up and down, and I realize it's his breathing, and that he's furious. Rage
radiates out of him in waves. Fear overtakes me, makes me very still, makes me want to become invisible.

Wolfman explodes.

He attacks furniture, not me, but it takes everything I have to keep from crying at the sheer magnitude of his violence. I'm certain the gun will go off in the chaos, but somehow it doesn't. When he's done, a coffee table—which wasn't much to begin with—lies in pieces on the floor.

Drained, he turns to me. “I have to go to the plant.” He pauses, shaking his head, and when he speaks, he's not really talking to me. “I'm supposed to have this week off. I did all the proper paperwork as soon as I knew. I should have this week. It can take a week to do it right.” After a moment, he adds, “It's because I'm new.” He sounds like a pouty child, but his ham-size fists clench and unclench, making me worry another attack is coming.

Summoning courage from somewhere, I say, “Well, just think. Perfect alibi.” I'm hoping he'll think it's a feisty sort of thing to say. I'm hoping he'll be entertained into leaving this dangerous anger behind.

Instead, he roars. “Shut up, slut!”

I brace, waiting for a bullet, waiting to be assaulted.

“When I get back, we'll find out if you're a lying redhead or a befouled slut with no chance at redemption.”

To me this sounds like a choice between being raped and murdered or just murdered.

“Get on the couch,” he says, gesturing with the gun. “I have to tie you up before I go.”

When I wake up, I don't know where I am. All I know is that my head hurts with an intensity I've never felt before. My throat is like sandpaper. I'm dying of thirst. Maybe my headache is caused by dehydration. I open my eyes. It is dark.

Things come into focus. The moon must be full. Slats of pale light stream into the room.

I'm laid out on the couch, wrapped up in rope like a mummy. I'm on my stomach, my head twisted uncomfortably to the side. There is no sign of the Wolfman. Somewhere along the way I've soiled myself. It is disgusting. Exhaustion overwhelms me. Groping through memory, I recall the Wolfman coming at me with a white cloth. It smelled sickly sweet. Chloroform. Holding my breath, I did my best to take in as little of it as possible. Maybe I had some success. Maybe that's why I'm awake now.

Not that I'd call this situation a success.

My tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth. Working it free, I realize it's been a very long time since I ate, since I drank. Vaguely I wonder if the Wolfman's steak is on the counter. Then it comes back. He ate it already, in front of me.

The darkness tries to take over. It's seductive that way, luring me into itself. The excruciating pain in my head can't follow me down into the darkness. Neither can the stink of this place, the stink of me. The roughness of my tongue, the power of my thirst, none of it exists down there in the dark.

It'd be so easy, so pleasant, just to let go and fall into that darkness. To let it have me. It feels right there, so close, so delicious. All
I need to do is let go, give up, and there'd be peace. Peace and no more pain.

But what about Grandpapa? I promised him I'd fight. What about Nana and my parents? They'd want me to fight. But they don't know how tired I am. They don't know what this feels like. They don't know how impossible this is.

And I didn't do anything to deserve this.

I am a good person. I am a good person and I don't deserve this.

Then the Wolfman's notebook, his list of my sins, comes back to me. As much as I want to think those quotes were lies, I believe they're true. He got what I said right, and the comments from the other girls at the barn don't totally surprise me. I don't want it to, but it stings. I thought they respected me. Really, I thought they feared and respected me, and I liked it that way.

But my parents' words flat-out hurt. Maybe I'm not easy to be around, but I've never talked shit about them behind their backs. My loved ones have my loyalty, and my loyalty is something that doesn't break. Doesn't even bend. The family ranch gets all of me, every last bit of me. I've given it everything I have. Everything I have should be worth something. It should be worth their loyalty.

Of course, all these poisonous thoughts, they're based on the words of an evil man who tortures people for fun. Would he be smart enough to mix falsehoods in with the truth? Or twist my parents' words? Take them out of context? Maybe. It's hard to tell how smart he is. His weirdness makes him hard to read.

Except Caleb. Wolfman is right about that. I need to be better
to Caleb. He deserves better than me. He deserves so much better than me. He never fails me; he's always there, no matter what. Year after year.

I open my eyes, mostly to blink away the tears. My gaze falls upon a pile of fabric on an end table. Under a thick layer of dust there are multiple patterns and colors. They come in and out of focus as I think about my past, the things I've done, who I am. If I'm honest with myself, I can see why the Wolfman says I'm arrogant and selfish and proud. I can see why people say I am cold, I am hard, and I am only interested in winning.

Maybe I deserve this. Maybe I should take it as my due. Maybe I should just give up and die. It would be easy, so beautifully easy. Muscles I didn't even know were tensed let go and relax, ready to let me slip away.

Before I give in to the darkness, a feeble voice fights back. It says:
No, I don't deserve this. Maybe I am a bad, horrible person, but this isn't right. No one deserves this. No one.

I wake up to the bright light of day. Nothing has changed except now the sun shines. I still stare at the strange pile of fabrics on the small end table; I'm still tied up; I'm still on the couch. There's no sign of the Wolfman.

My thoughts from the night prior return to me. Am I perfect? No. Are there things I'd change about myself if I got the chance? Yes. But there's nothing wrong with being tough, with being a fighter, with being a winner. And my last thought before passing out was the right one:
No one deserves this.

I breathe in deeply. The intensity of my headache has lessened a bit. The concussion is healing.

Time to start thinking again
.

I blink to clear my eyes and my thoughts. The pile of fabrics on the end table comes into new focus, and I realize what I'm looking at. Panties. It's a pile of panties.

Signs of the girls who were here before me.

The shock of it sends me upright, and a second realization hits. I am tied head to toe like a mummy, but I am not tied down to anything else. In my fog I'd assumed I was stuck in place, unable to move. It takes energy and balance and strength, but I manage to get to my feet and shuffle over to the end table.

My left hand is hopelessly tied down, but my right fingers can wiggle free. Electric bolts of pain shoot up from my right hand to my shoulder. I ignore them. As I look down at the old, faded panties, a new horror fills me. I see a pair with rainbows on it. Another with pink cartoon flowers. These other girls, they were even younger than me. They were children.

Children.

A sense of purpose blooms. The Wolfman is right about me. He's right that I'm hard and driven and more than a little mean. He's right that I'm the hardest case he'll ever know. Because unlike these poor little girls who came before me, I'm old enough and strong enough to beat him. And God knows, if there's anybody on earth who knows how to win, it's me.

This is why I was abducted by this
thing
. I'm here to stop him. I'm here to make sure this never happens again.

I think back to the millions of lessons from my mom, back to our planning sessions before horse shows. Victory, as she has told me a thousand times, is found in the details and in setting goals.

“Here's how this is going to go down,” I say to no one but myself and God. “Number one, I am not going to be raped. Number two, I am going to escape. Number three, I will see him brought to justice. That is how this is going to go down.”