- Chapter Twenty-Two -

Georgia Mary King

––––––––

I was cold. Why was I so cold?

The world swayed, and each time, it took my brain with it.

Pain cranked and flowed. The pendulum didn't stop; not until something connected violently with my cheek. Groaning, I looked around, my eyes struggling to focus.

“There she is,” Lonnie said, his voice barely louder than the ringing in my head. He stared at me, snapping his fingers. “Hey, hi. You all there? You with me? Come on, I didn't hit you that hard.”

Acid floored through my veins. Lonnie had attacked me from behind. Where am I? Is this the same room? I lifted my head, searching rapidly. It was nearly pitch black—without Lonnie's phone glowing, it would've been. Behind him, just a few feet away, was a girl I'd never seen in person but automatically recognized. She was sitting in a chair in the corner. Her head hung low—I worried she was dead.

“Emily.” The name fell from my lips. Lonnie's face went slack. “Emily! Are you okay?”

“Conway is such a fucking idiot,” he sighed.

Struggling to stand, I noticed my hands were tied crudely behind me. My legs were bound to mid calf—I was sitting on the ground, propped against a rough stone-wall. I moved, and water splashed. It covered me up to my waist. “What's going on?” I asked, finally eyeing Lonnie.

“What's going on is my asshole brother didn't play by the rules.” He braced himself, straightening up to look at Emily. “Maybe I should have seen this coming. I thought for sure he'd hate himself too much to tell you about her, oh well. Doesn't matter now.”

There was finality in his words. I was busy focusing on all the loose ends and tying them together. “Those girls in the beds... that was you,” I said.

He crossed his arms, studying me. “I admit to being surprised to find you in there with them. I'd gone back to turn the light off, how silly of me to get halfway to my room before I remembered.”

Lonnie watched me eagerly, and I knew he was waiting for me to keep going. “Did you kidnap your own sister, too?”

“Bingo. Aren't you clever!” He reached down to pinch my cheek.  I tried to bite him, and he just dodged with a laugh. “She was great leverage.”

My head was cracking in two. “You're the one working for your dad while he's locked up.” It was so fucking obvious now. “Did you think if you did this, he'd treat you better?” I asked. “Or was Conway right, you just get a kick out of fucking with him?”

“Oh,” he said. He looked genuinely surprised. “You haven't guessed by now? My dad had nothing to do with this. He couldn't have if he'd wanted to.”

Fear had kept me warm, but now, nothing sheltered me from the icy grip of shock. “Why not?”

“Because he's dead.”

Dead.

“Everyone was so scared of Dad. Mom, Conway, my sister, and you,” he went on, walking through the water. The light went with him, tracking on the walls as he made a small circle. “It's funny. He did his best work ever while being a corpse.”

Something glinted in his fingers. Something purple.

Thrashing in the water, I worked to get closer to him. He had the ribbon from Conway's gift. “That's mine!”

“What, this dumb thing?” Tucking it in his back pocket, he walked away. “You and my brother are way too sentimental. That's why you failed. Bye, now.”

Without his phone I couldn't see. In the distance I heard the rusty crunch of something shutting. I was blind and I had no idea where I was.

“Emily,” I hissed, shuffling agonizingly slow in her direction. Moving was nearly impossible. “Emily! Please, talk to me! My name is Georgia; I'm friends with your brother. He's been looking for you.” Please, be okay.

Water splashed in the dark. “Georgia,” she whispered. “Really?”

Rejuvenated by her voice, I inched closer. “Thank god, you're alive.”

“Alive... is a big word.” That same dark humor as Conway had. “I never thought I'd meet you. But I always wanted to.”

“You know who I am?”

“In a way. We were pen pals,” she chuckled. “Of a sort.”

I sat back on my calves heavily. “You wrote me those letters?”

“Feels like forever ago. You stopped replying, did you get sick of me?”

“I had to move,” I said. “My mother needed to be closer to a better hospital. For her treatment.”

She sensed the sadness in my tone. “I'm sorry.”

“Forget about that. We've got out own problems. Do you know where we are?”

“The cellar beneath the house.”

To think, she'd been so close all along. “How high will this water rise?” I asked anxiously.

“Lonnie told me that it gets as high as the stairs this time of year.”

We'll drown for sure. “How does he know that? Conway said he'd been staying here since springtime.”

“I don't know. It's just what Lonnie said to me. He liked to tell me all sorts of awful things,” she said somberly. “Ways he'd hurt me, way's he'd torture Conway. He could be lying about the water.”

“Let's not stick around to find out.” Filling my lungs, I screamed as loud as I could. I did it until my throat was scratchy and raw.

“No one will hear you,” Emily said. “I lost my voice twice.”

“I have to try!” I wished I could see in the damn dark. “I can't give up here.” Conway has suffered so much to save us both. I was grateful that she couldn't see me starting to cry. “I won't fucking stop fighting. Not while I'm still alive.”

He called me strong. I wouldn't let him be wrong so soon.

Emily was quiet. “There's a big pipe over in the corner,” she finally said, and I sensed her new hope taking root. “I saw it a few times when Lonnie was around. It has to thread up into the house. Maybe, if you're loud enough, Conway will hear.”

Navigating without my hands to brace a fall was deadly. I inched along, knees scooting, wading through the wetness. Unless I was wrong, it already seemed higher.

I thumped against the solid wall. Using my shoulder as guidance, I scraped along, following it until I came to a corner. I took it a few more feet—smooth metal collided with my chest. “I found it!” I shouted. Tensing my body, I banged against the hard surface with my shoulder—it thwonged. Again, I hit it, using force to create a catastrophe of sound.

He'll hear. He has to hear.

Breathing in until my ribs argued, I began to scream.

I screamed for help.

I screamed for Conway.

And when my voice faded hours later, I whispered for my mother.