In Your Head

eleven

"I-I don't understand. What do you mean someone came forward? There isn't anyone who saw me outside of the cabin, because that never happened. I was never let out!" I scream, stirring on the couch back in the living room, the same two detectives from days ago sitting across from me. My leg bounces, my nails digging deeper into my palms with every ticking second, leaving marks. A dull ache grows from my hand, anything to distract me from this conversation, from being here with them. The way I used to do every time he came down to see me in that cellar.

This can't be happening. This can't. Why is this happening to me? I did nothing wrong.

"Kara, calm down, we're not saying you were let out," Detective Morgan says, placing the folder along the small coffee table as he leans his elbows against his knees. A pause settles over the three of us, my jittering knee resting.

"But...you just said someone saw me, so that means you think I was let out at some point." I try to sort out my thoughts that are suddenly all over the place.

"No, that's not what we're saying. Yes, someone came forward and claimed they may have saw someone downtown who looked like you when you were still missing—"

"Who said this? When did this happen?"

"We're not sure, it was an anonymous tip. But the person said they allegedly saw you some time in the summer of 1997, about a year after you disappeared," the other officer on my case, Detective Williams says, grabbing the folder off the table as he flips through it again, scratching an itch across his light mustache. It's patchy, kind of gross honestly, I always hated when guys had patchy staches like that. It looks as if he tried to shave in a hurry, missing portions. But I guess he likes it enough since he had that thing since last year, when he and Detective Morgan started talking to me, when I came home.

I nod, although the nerves don't calm inside me. They storm and shoot like ping pong balls in every direction inside me.

Do I know this person? Do they know me? Of course they know me, everyone does even if I don't want them to. But why would they say they saw me when they didn't? They're lying. I wasn't let out. That didn't happen. What are they trying to do?

The house is too quiet, white noise of the heat register turning on and off between our words. Even my mom and Mandy who remain in the kitchen are silent, listening in. Mom's come in a few times to ask if the detectives want anything—water, coffee, tea, whatever—but they always say no. This for sure isn't their first time in our house, it's already been the second time this week alone.

"I know we've gone over this in the past, but I just wanted to verify. Are you sure there wasn't any time in those two years where Trevor Val let you out of the cabin? Even for a few hours. Maybe you were running an errand with him? Or maybe you just went for a ride in the car with h—"

"No. I already told you. I never left that place. I was always stuck there in the woods," I pause, my leg going off again as it picks up to a bounce. My stomach contorts all which ways as I swallow my nerves. My eyes widen. Words aren't making sense in my mind anymore. Things go tingly, turning numb. A thought pops up, horrid and striking like lightning. A memory I don't just remember, but feel. Hear. Taste. Touch. "Th-there was one time though, when I was.....so close to getting out, I almost made it to the door when he let me upstairs once. But.....he caught me....too soon." My words wander away with my mind, grabbing my hand and taking me somewhere darker in time. My eyes let go of the detectives' hold. They fall to the floor, and the scene plays like a horror show, but I'm the only one in the theatre and I'm being strapped down to my chair.

**

The uneven, rough wooden steps creak and wobble as they climb the stairs; the scared, dying little flower's bare feet catch on pieces of jagged wood, splinters imbedding. But she keeps walking, she doesn't have a choice. Her hands are bound behind her, a small black barrel gun digging into her back. The pressure overwhelming, she can't forget its existence, he makes sure of it. He never lets the trapped girl forget black beauty is with them, sticking out of the back of his jeans at all times. A constant reminder that with one stupid move, everything will end.