The Girls I've Been(47)

“Who did you think you’ve been talking to on the phone this whole time?” I tilt my head, the sarcasm grating. “Did she say she was a deputy?”

“You know her.”

I settle back in the chair, all comfy and as relaxed as a girl can get with a bruised throat and mashed-up face. “Um, yeah. I live with her. She’s my marshal. I lied before. I don’t have an aunt here in Clear Creek. The FBI handed me over to witness protection after the whole thing with Raymond and the marshals stuck me up here with her. She is such a pain in the ass.”

“She’s a marshal?”

“You didn’t smell the Fed on her? Are you sure you’ve been in prison?”

He shifts against the wall, wincing and pressing my flannel harder against his shirt. It’s getting redder. He’s bleeding again. I try to twist my wrists against the tape in a subtle way, testing my range of movement.

“I knew she wasn’t a deputy. She talked too smooth.”

“That’s her,” I say. “She’s gonna chase you if you manage to get away with me. She has to. This is a shitshow for her. All she’ll care about is getting me back.”

He’s looking for a trap in my words, but they’re just the truth. There is nowhere in the world he could take me where my sister won’t follow.

I need to paint a careful picture of Lee for him: the bitch of a career woman who’s got tunnel vision. He’ll buy that. He’ll want to get away from her, and it’ll make him screw up. I just need to be there when he does.

“She can’t be very good at her job, if she’s got a shithole posting watching a kid like you.”

“You’ve totally ruined her day with this stunt, which normally would make me happy, but this kind of sucks for me.”

Every time he blinks, it takes a little longer for his eyes to open again. He’s starting to drift. The pain and blood loss and coming down from the adrenaline is getting to him. Maybe he’ll slide into shock and I can get the gun off him.

“This sucks for you?” He laughs, a far too long, drawn-out thing that bares his teeth . . . and is that blood on his lips or just wishful thinking?

He coughs, holding his side. Then he coughs again, and crimson bubbles from his mouth. He reaches up to dab at it and his eyes widen.

“Oh no, did I snip something important?” I ask, digging my own shallow grave because I need to see how far I can push him. “Better hope it’s your spleen or something you can live without. Organs are kind of hard to come by.”

“You—” He lunges like he’s trying to get up, and lets out a surprised grunt of pain instead. More sweat trickles down his face, but there’s no more blood from his mouth. Whatever I hit, it’s not slowing him down too much, but the pain’s starting to kick in. If he stays still, he’ll probably be fine.

Maybe I need to make him move. A lot.

I’m weighing how fast I could get to the door and out into the hall versus how fast he could raise the gun and aim well enough to hit me when the decision’s taken out of my hands.

Duane tries to get to his feet again, and this time, the pain gets the better of him. He gets halfway up and then lets out a string of curses and his eyes roll back and bam, he’s down, and suddenly, the ground’s tilted back toward me.

Plan #4: Get gun. Get Iris and Wes. Get out.





— 41 —


    Katie: Spirited, Sweet, Smart Katie: Scared, Violated, Traumatized Katie: Talking, Learning, Healing


Almost Four Years Ago



“How do you want to spend our time today?”

That’s what Margaret always asks me first. I could lie and say I’ve lost count of how many times she’s asked me, but she would call that not being productive and falling into bad habits. (It’s eighty-nine times, because it’s been ninety sessions and she didn’t ask me the first session.)

Therapy didn’t start well when Lee first brought me two counties away to Margaret. It wasn’t even that I was resisting; it was that I had no concept of how to tell the truth about anything, especially myself. I had all the tools of a liar and nothing else.

Margaret knows a lot, but she also knows nothing. I’m an optical illusion, where one person sees the old lady and the other sees the young woman. Margaret gets to see slivers of both, but never either of them fully. She has my truths, but she doesn’t have Raymond’s name. She knows about my mother, but thinks she’s dead. Little lies, not just to keep me safe, but Margaret, too.

Stumbling toward carefully picked-over truth into healing has taken longer than I’ve liked. I like being good at things. I’m not good at the truth or opening up or asking for help.

You’re good at applying the help is what Margaret says when I tell her that. Once you get over the obstacle of the asking.

Sometimes it’s so hard to ask.

“He wants to kiss me,” I say, because it’s been on my mind for weeks, ever since I noticed.

“Who does?”

“Wes.”

Margaret looks like she’s trying to suppress an indulgent smile that might come off as condescending. I’m not supposed to break her down like that; Lee told me that therapy was about listening to the therapist and puzzling out myself, not her.

“This is your friend?”