Run, Elly. Pretend you don’t exist.

I run. As soon as that name falls from his lips, I turn and I run. He might call after me, I don’t know. He probably does—a man like that with so much earnestness in his blue eyes. He probably calls, but she calls louder.

Run.

Up the dock and across the Harborwalk. Past the ticket hut where he was sanding. Past the main street and the bakery, clutching that bag of clothes. Up the stairs that cut into the long sloping hill and to the base of the lighthouse that shoots up to the sky like a rocket waiting to be released. I stumble up the steps toward the lighthouse, my thoughts a twisted knot. Just like a little girl hiding in a closet.

My foot slips halfway up the stairs, my palms hit the dirt hard, and the bag falls. It stops me for long enough to realize what I’m doing. Running away like a child. I suck in ragged breaths. It’s not from the running. I’m not that out of shape—physically at least. My emotional shape is another thing.

I brush off the bag. Behind me is the curve of the shops along the Harborwalk, and the Heroine’s tall masts cutting a line up to the sky at the far end. A thick forest of green beyond her as the land arcs out to the ocean.

What does he remember? Should I go back to try and explain myself? What would I even say?

Why did he have to come back? I’d isolated myself from everything that happened before. Tucked it into some great abyss and covered it over. Down tight with olive bread and croissants. Fitted out the corners with vanilla lattes and laughing with Renee.

I’d moved on. Became an adult with an apartment and a life. Safe and careful. Where no one gets hurt and no one has to run. And now I’m acting like a child.

But the second I close my eyes, I see his. Hear him saying that name. My skin itches, like it’s wrapped too tightly around my muscles and bones. It’s more than just dried saltwater.

I push up off the steps and walk to the far side of the lighthouse. It was gated long ago because the wooden steps that curl up into darkness are far past renovation. And yet the town has kept it here. Maybe because it holds so many legends—ghost stories and tales of ships lost at sea searching for it. I think it’s even featured on some of the Portage postcards. Proof that this town never forgets.

That I’ll never forget.

I’ll never forget Charles handcuffed to that register, no matter how much I try. I’ll never forget the way my mother pushed that wooden box into my hand.

You’ll be fine, Elly. She sounded so sure of it.

But I’ve never been fine, not really. Not with all these ricocheting thoughts. They were there all along. Dean might bring them out, but it’s not his fault. They were hiding. Waiting.

I slide to a seat against the back of the lighthouse, set the bag next to me, and wrap my arms around my legs. Just like I sat in that hallway where she left me with a box of syringes and a man handcuffed to a mattress in the next room with numbers written on his arm. A little battery-operated clock sat on the matted carpet next to me, and I stared at it and wished Anthony would come and tell me what to do. That my mother would come and disappear into the room with the man. That I could blink myself away. It didn’t matter where I’d go—away was a good enough destination. I just wanted to disappear.

But time had kept moving. The clock blinked over 2:15. The time I was supposed to open the door to his room and push a syringe into a man’s arm.

I couldn’t do it. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that would stop time. But it didn’t. The carpet itched my legs. We’d been staying in the house for a few weeks—no electricity or water. It was always musty and damp. She wouldn’t let us open the windows. Nothing to show we were staying there.

2:18

2:32

Time had felt erratic—numbers caught between flying and lingering. I dug my fingers into the carpet, and the fibers cut under my fingernails.

2:47

When I didn’t follow the rules, she’d lock me in a closet for a day or drop me off under an overpass somewhere. Or worse, she’d do it to Anthony even though I’d been the one to glance toward a cop or speak to a stranger. She’d leave Anthony somewhere for the night and take me out for ice cream. And she’d smile and stretch out the time while Anthony was somewhere in the dark—paying for whatever I’d done.

Maybe that’s where they were while I was counting the minutes. Anthony was paying for something I did. Or maybe I was the one paying for something.

The rattle of metal had made me still in the hallway, listening to every sound in the dark house, but my breath was the loudest one.

Nothing. For full minute—nothing. Then he moaned. I’d wrapped my arms around my knees and tried to tuck into myself. What if he escaped? What would she do to us?

I forced my legs and arms to uncurl, and then I picked up the box and stood. The syringes inside shook, and I tried to keep my hand steady.

She would hurt Anthony if I didn’t do it. She had us locked together in a kind of knot. Pull one side, and the other side had to move too. What had he done to keep me safe?

If that’s even what I was.

3:02

My feet shuffled forward, the box clutched in my hands. I pushed open the door, and the rattling was so loud in the room. I thought that maybe even someone outside could hear it. What if they did? What if they came?

I clutched the box and stared down at him as he pulled against those handcuffs. Then the rattling stopped, and he turned. His blue eyes fought to focus on me.

“Elly?”

I jumped away from my name, the syringes clattering. “How do you know my name?”

“Do you remember me?” He licked dry lips. “Charles. You used to play with my boys. You have to help me.” His breath was ragged, cutting off the ends of his words. “Please, Elly.”

He tried to sit up, but the handcuffs stopped him. Cuts ran down his arms—long straight cuts from elbow to wrist. And little nicks like he’d been pricked. I had never seen one of the men before. Not really. Little glimpses or something overheard. But nothing like this. One had never spoken to me.

The room was filled with an awful stench. The only window was closed, a smashed-up mini-blind blocking the sunlight.

“Please, please.” His voice cut out, his cough more like a rattle than a cough. “You have to help me.”

Nausea turned my stomach. I might vomit right there on the carpet. I stepped back, trying to suck in breaths, but everything felt like it was closing in around me.

“You can’t leave me here like this.”

I stared at him, and that’s the moment I realized she had to be stopped. No matter what happened to Anthony and me. All of this had to stop.

“Okay.” I clutched the box tightly. “I’ll help you.”