Unspeakable Things(73)

We were past all those stages of drunk.

I glanced back at the screen. Vader was sawing at Luke, forcing him backward down an impossibly tiny catwalk leading to an emergency platform. Dad had woken up mean. I knew I should go to bed.

“Do you want to watch this movie with me?” I asked. “Everyone has seen it.”

My eyes flicked in his direction. He’d finally licked his lip but caught only part of the white crust.

“Do you think you’re a woman yet?” he asked.

I stood.

He sat up, his tone gone wheedling. “Now, sit down. I didn’t mean anything. I was just wondering when you’d gotten so uppity, telling me what to do.”

“I’m tired, Dad. I’m going to bed.” I shot one last mournful gaze at the television. Luke was cornered. There was no way out.

I walked away. My legs were stiff.

I paused at the bottom of the stairs, listening.

I heard a creak, the sound of Dad closing his recliner. My throat sealed up.

I had an impulse to run out the front door, but the stairs were closer. I dashed up them, whipping open my bedroom door and slamming it closed, leaning all my weight against it.

When I heard the bottom step complain under his weight, I moaned. I should have gone with Mom, should have forced Sephie not to leave me alone, even if it meant I had to ride in the back of a car with a stranger. Dad was going to get me, he was finally going to get me, and it wouldn’t work to hide under my mattress or in my closet. My eyes darted around my room. I had a bed, a dresser, and homemade bookshelves.

The dresser was the only object I could move.

The second stair creaked, tentatively.

“Cassie, I’ll watch the show with you,” he called up, his voice low.

Gabriel was a boy who would have yelled at my dad. He was the only one. Except Frank. And maybe Mr. Connelly. Plus Aunt Jin would for sure rescue me. But the last three weren’t here, and Gabriel was gone forever; I’d known it the minute my dad said he’d been kidnapped and not returned. No one was going to save me. The movies and the books and the shows were all pretend. Sometimes, maybe lots of times, kids got hurt really bad, and that’s all there was. The terror-shock of the truth hit me like a slap, burning and freezing at the same time.

Dad stepped on the third stair, and then the fourth, and then the fifth, spider-quick. A rope tightened around my lungs. I rushed to the far side of the dresser, wedging myself between it and the wall. I brought my knees to my chest and pushed quietly, steadily. If he heard me moving the dresser, he would hurry to my door.

I’d been quiet, but I must have made enough noise that I didn’t hear him take those last few steps, didn’t know he stood on the landing until I heard its characteristic whine. My heartbeat shredded my rib cage. The dresser gave way, shrieking the last six inches across the floor. I leaned against it, trying to modulate my breath.

I needed to say something, to acknowledge the dresser’s screech. “I’m tired. I want to sleep.”

Dad’s voice was just outside my door. “You don’t want to watch TV with your dad?”

I bit down on my scream, my stomach thumping at the back of my mouth. Mom could drive up any moment. Or Sephie. Or maybe the dresser in front of the door would keep him out. I was panting like a scared dog. I tried to take sips of air, but that only elevated the panic. I glanced at the grate in my floor. I couldn’t fit down it, no way. I was about to make for the window, to rip the screen away and leap off the roof, when I heard a shuffling on the other side of the door.

“Well, I guess I’ll go watch it alone.” Almost a whisper, but just loud enough that I could hear.

I heard him shuffle down the stairs.

I slid to the floor.

Eventually, I fell asleep. I may have remained in that spot until sunrise if the weeping hadn’t woken me.





CHAPTER 50

The crying was soft.

So soft.

A lost child’s cry. It had woven through my dreams, convincing me my own baby needed saving, waking my brain before my body. I didn’t move a muscle, trying to orient myself to the strange familiar sound. I was jammed between my dresser and my shelves. The house was dead silent but for the crying. My digital clock radio told me I’d been asleep for no more than twenty minutes. Were Mom or Sephie home?

My ears strained as far as they could, disoriented. Was it Gabriel weeping? I stood, giving the pins and needles in both legs time to back off. I could stay in my room, safe, or I could sneak out and see who was crying. But what if it was a trick? What if Dad was on the other side of the doorway, waiting?

The weeping sounded like it was coming from the kitchen, though. I tiptoed to the hole in my floor and knelt.

Not the kitchen.

The sound was emanating from the pantry.

Or the basement.

My guts turned to jellymeat.

I counted backward from ten. I knew I couldn’t remain in my room. I was just hoping something would stop me from leaving. When nothing did, I got to my feet again, my knees groaning, and pushed the dresser back more quietly than it had originally moved. My doorknob protested when I turned it, its screech ringing across the house. I stopped and listened. The crying was still audible.

I yanked the door open. The vinegary smell of my own sweat pierced my nostrils.

You gotta do this, Cassie. You gotta.

The landing between me and the stairs was clear, unless Dad was lurking around the corner. I took the chance and charged across the expanse. No hand grabbed me. I darted down the stairs before the monster had a chance to catch up, careened around the corner, and then another corner and then one more, until I stood in the pantry.