“What do you want to know?” Rose asked. Her blue eyes were as calming as the color of the walls.
“He was going to stab her, wasn’t he?” She nodded once in reply. I took a deep, ragged breath. “Because she tried to stand up for me?” I was aware that I was talking to Rose as if we were alone, but from the second I got down here and she offered me her hand, she’d been the one taking the lead. She was like the big sister.
“That’s correct.”
I licked my dry lips. “Has he done that before?”
Her eyes darkened, losing that friendliness. “Yes, he has.”
“You’ve seen that?”
“Yes.”
“They died,” I said just above a whisper.
She nodded, her body tensing. “He’s killed, yes.”
I looked behind her and saw Violet shrinking into Poppy. He had killed people and no one knew a damn thing. How was that even possible? I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t get it. How does he get away with it?” Surely people would notice someone missing? I’d never seen Rose, Poppy, or Violet on the news or stuck to lampposts.
“The girls he chooses are usually living on the streets. If no one notices they’re missing, then no one will suspect anything is wrong,” Rose said and tucked her dark hair behind her ear. “I ran away from my family when I was eighteen. We had never been close and our relationship was…strained. My father”—her eyes darkened and her posture shrank—“liked to drink and didn’t like us.” It looked as though sadness and terror suddenly consumed her. “Shortly after my eighteenth birthday, I left home. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I’d been living on the streets and in hostels for ten months when Clover found me. I’ve been here almost three years now.” She shrugged like being here was nothing.
I was stunned. How did she do it? I would have gone bloody crazy after three weeks. My chest tightened so much I felt like I was gonna collapse. This wasn’t temporary.
“Please don’t cry, Lily. It’s really not that bad down here,” Rose said.
I stared at her, trying to work out if she had actually lost it. She sounded crazy. Not that bad? He’d kidnapped us. He was keeping us locked up in his cellar. He would rape us when he “fell in love” with us, and if we dared to fight back, he would kill us. How was that really not that bad?
“Please don’t look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking, but if you do what he says, everything will be fine. He’ll treat you well.”
She must be crazy. “Apart from raping me, you mean?”
“Don’t call it rape in front of him,” she warned.
I looked away from her. I couldn’t believe what she was saying. How could she think this was okay? It was beyond screwed up, but she was still defending him. She couldn’t have always been like that. They must have been a time where she knew it was crazy and hated him as much as I do. How long did it take him to brainwash her?
Poppy, Violet, and Rose stood up at the same time—in perfect synchronization—and walked to the kitchen area. They spoke in hushed voices. I could barely hear their whispers, but from the way that Violet looked over, it was obvious they were talking about me. I didn’t even care. I didn’t even try listening. They could say whatever they wanted, but I was never going to think it was okay to be down here or that Clover wasn’t a psychotic arsehole.
Someone would find me soon. I wasn’t on the streets like they were. I had a family and friends—people that would know I was missing. Soon enough, the police would be called and they would start searching. Who would be the one to realize first? My parents when I didn’t return home? Or Lewis when I didn’t answer his calls or reply to his texts? Would he even try to contact me any more tonight? If we were out separately with our friends, we wouldn’t usually text each other until we were home, or if we did, it would only be once or twice.
Squeezing my eyes together, I tried to push the image of Lewis’s face out of my head. I couldn’t even think about my parents. Gulping down the rising lump in my throat, I pressed my fingernails into the palm of my hand. Don’t cry.
“How long have you been here, Poppy?” I asked.
She half smiled and walked the few steps from the kitchen table back to the sofa. Sitting down beside me, she squeezed my clenched fist. “Just over a year. Mine is a similar story to Rose’s. I was living on the streets when he found me, and I was eighteen too.” An adult. Was that why Violet got so angry? Not that it mattered how old any of us were. It’s not like she could know my age. How young do I look? Did he even care?
“Why me then? It doesn’t make sense. I’m not an adult like you.” If he was even kidnapping adults, maybe it didn’t matter as long as he got his family. I shook my head, blood boiling in anger. “My family will look for me. They’ll find us.”