I am a good person. I am a good person and I don’t deserve this.
Then the Wolfman’s notebook, his list of my sins, comes back to me. As much as I want to think those quotes were lies, I believe they’re true. He got what I said right, and the comments from the other girls at the barn don’t totally surprise me. I don’t want it to, but it stings. I thought they respected me. Really, I thought they feared and respected me, and I liked it that way.
But my parents’ words flat-out hurt. Maybe I’m not easy to be around, but I’ve never talked shit about them behind their backs. My loved ones have my loyalty, and my loyalty is something that doesn’t break. Doesn’t even bend. The family ranch gets all of me, every last bit of me. I’ve given it everything I have. Everything I have should be worth something. It should be worth their loyalty.
Of course, all these poisonous thoughts, they’re based on the words of an evil man who tortures people for fun. Would he be smart enough to mix falsehoods in with the truth? Or twist my parents’ words? Take them out of context? Maybe. It’s hard to tell how smart he is. His weirdness makes him hard to read.
Except Caleb. Wolfman is right about that. I need to be better to Caleb. He deserves better than me. He deserves so much better than me. He never fails me; he’s always there, no matter what. Year after year.
I open my eyes, mostly to blink away the tears. My gaze falls upon a pile of fabric on an end table. Under a thick layer of dust there are multiple patterns and colors. They come in and out of focus as I think about my past, the things I’ve done, who I am. If I’m honest with myself, I can see why the Wolfman says I’m arrogant and selfish and proud. I can see why people say I am cold, I am hard, and I am only interested in winning.
Maybe I deserve this. Maybe I should take it as my due. Maybe I should just give up and die. It would be easy, so beautifully easy. Muscles I didn’t even know were tensed let go and relax, ready to let me slip away.
Before I give in to the darkness, a feeble voice fights back. It says: No, I don’t deserve this. Maybe I am a bad, horrible person, but this isn’t right. No one deserves this. No one.
I wake up to the bright light of day. Nothing has changed except now the sun shines. I still stare at the strange pile of fabrics on the small end table; I’m still tied up; I’m still on the couch. There’s no sign of the Wolfman.
My thoughts from the night prior return to me. Am I perfect? No. Are there things I’d change about myself if I got the chance? Yes. But there’s nothing wrong with being tough, with being a fighter, with being a winner. And my last thought before passing out was the right one: No one deserves this.
I breathe in deeply. The intensity of my headache has lessened a bit. The concussion is healing.
Time to start thinking again.
I blink to clear my eyes and my thoughts. The pile of fabrics on the end table comes into new focus, and I realize what I’m looking at. Panties. It’s a pile of panties.
Signs of the girls who were here before me.
The shock of it sends me upright, and a second realization hits. I am tied head to toe like a mummy, but I am not tied down to anything else. In my fog I’d assumed I was stuck in place, unable to move. It takes energy and balance and strength, but I manage to get to my feet and shuffle over to the end table.
My left hand is hopelessly tied down, but my right fingers can wiggle free. Electric bolts of pain shoot up from my right hand to my shoulder. I ignore them. As I look down at the old, faded panties, a new horror fills me. I see a pair with rainbows on it. Another with pink cartoon flowers. These other girls, they were even younger than me. They were children.
Children.
A sense of purpose blooms. The Wolfman is right about me. He’s right that I’m hard and driven and more than a little mean. He’s right that I’m the hardest case he’ll ever know. Because unlike these poor little girls who came before me, I’m old enough and strong enough to beat him. And God knows, if there’s anybody on earth who knows how to win, it’s me.
This is why I was abducted by this thing. I’m here to stop him. I’m here to make sure this never happens again.
I think back to the millions of lessons from my mom, back to our planning sessions before horse shows. Victory, as she has told me a thousand times, is found in the details and in setting goals.
“Here’s how this is going to go down,” I say to no one but myself and God. “Number one, I am not going to be raped. Number two, I am going to escape. Number three, I will see him brought to justice. That is how this is going to go down.”