Sleep Is Death

Red-handed

Lou was standing at the end of the hall with her arms crossed and a scowl that could make a lion bow down.

"I saw debris falling," Isaac read my journal aloud, his eyes following along to the words written in black crayon, "dust lifting, and the end tables rattling under their weight as they marched throughout the house."

I stood at my door, in the hall with the other girls. Some, like Sandra, had their hands on their hips. Some were glaring at me, and I assumed it was because they'd made up their minds that I was the enemy.

The day I slipped the letter to Jay, Isaac was watching us, and so was Lou. She saw what I did on the overhead camera, and she sent Isaac to my room to figure out where I got that paper from.

While I was writing entry twelve, he burst in and snatched the journal from me.

Lou ran a hand across the top of her head from her forehead to her tight bun. She watched me watch her unravel her hair, swirling her blonde strands until they fell across her shoulder in a ringlet just below her chest.

"I told you she was up to something." I glanced at Isaac, and when he caught my eye, he raised the back of his hand to strike the side of my face.

"Hey!" Everyone flinched, including Isaac. Lou's voice, once delicate like a Disney princess in an old Hollywood movie, yelled out with the authority of a mafia Don. "Don't touch her. I told y'all there'll be none of that when I hired y'all; imagine if someone comes to inspect the place, and they see bruises."

A few of us looked at Anna. Our gowns weren't removed from her wrist and ankle. She was leaning against her doorframe and one of her roommates, glaring at the back of Lou's head.

"You're right, I'm sorry," he said. He took a deep breath and ran his hand down his face to wipe away his frustration, then he looked at me. "I still think we need to do something."

Lou followed his eyes, matching his expression and mood. She stepped toward me, scanning me up and down.

I cringed when she stood before me. Even though she was against physical violence, I expected her to hit me.

When she took a breath to speak, I held mine. My face shrunk like a child being chastised, and then she said in her soft voice, "I'm not punishing her for doing what anyone else would do if they were afraid."

I'm not stupid now, and I wasn't then. Anyone with eyes could see that she was just as disingenuous as before.

"Lou, I think this will set a bad precedent if nothing gets done." She flicked her eyes to him, and a bolt of chills rushed down my spine. I watched her demeanor turn from motherly to hostile, and I'm sure he noticed it too because he stuttered when he said, "I'm just saying, we don't have to beat her, but maybe keeping her in the basement will give us time to figure something out."

"Or I could sit down with her and talk to her like I did Emma when she tried to leave." He scratched his widow's peak. She narrowed her eyes at him and opened her mouth like she wanted to ask him something, but she shook the thought away as fast as it arrived.

I didn't want to sit with her. For all I knew, she could've poisoned my food or lunged at me if I made one wrong move. I could've been like that nameless teenager they carted off.

They caged her and beat her, then beat her some more for acting like the animal they painted her out to be. The animal they molded into her.

What if, before all of this, she was a gentle giant? What if she liked music or swimming, going to concerts, and watching movies with her family? What if she lived on a farm and took care of the animals, causing her to build a larger muscle mass than her age group?

She didn't even get a chance to share her story. Wherever she is, I hope it's not as traumatizing as that place was, but if Lou sent her, I doubt it.

I looked at Anna, and she seemed just as defeated as everyone else. Her aura reminded me of her distress when Isaac dragged her down the stairs, when he dragged her to the basement, and when he slammed his boot into her limbs to show her how powerless she was.

As I stared at Lou, my face grew hot. My jaw felt tight and heavy. My stomach churned, and my heart was pounding like a fist against a wall.

"Fuck you," I cursed at her, holding back each word until it gained enough force to be the punch in the gut I wished I could give her. She raised an eyebrow, others gasped and flicked their gazes from one of us to the other. "I would rather die than sit and talk to you."

Isaac dropped my journal and it thumped against the wood floor, but I didn't turn around.

It was so quiet that I could hear sporadic breathing. I could hear that static in my ears and, sometimes, I heard my heart.

Anna looked at Sandra who turned to our other roommate, Lucy. Finally, Lou jolted forward with her hands outstretched and her fingers curled like claws. She gripped me by the neck, my mouth falling open, and slammed me into the wall beside my room.

Her eyes were darker than any demon you could imagine. If she wasn't confining the blood to my head, it would've drained until I was pale just from looking into her eyes.

I was taught that they're the windows to the soul, and after that day, I reflected on every encounter with her. She always had this aura that could make a baby cry, but she smiled like she wanted to distract you from that.

I scratched the webbing between her thumbs and indexes, but she wouldn't budge. When the girls charged at us, Isaac jumped between us and them.

"Devon, Malcolm," he yelled for every nearby orderly, his arms out like a scarecrow.

Some girls were bold enough to keep pushing him, fighting to squeeze through the crack and help me, but all it did was make him plant his feet harder.

He rocked back and forth against their weight. The other girls backed into their places, and five men ran up the flight of stairs.

My vision began to darken. She slammed my head into the wall three times, and her grip tightened with each blow. The men grabbed each girl and tossed them aside like they weighed nothing. One of them hit her head on the doorframe, and one almost fell down the stairs.

There was yelling and grunting, a cacophony of distress.

Just when my body began to drop and my eyes rolled back, the front doors swung open and knocked over the end tables on either side.

Men and women with stern faces stepped into the foyer, all in blue police uniforms with guns drawn.

Lou quickly let me go and my knees buckled. I fell to them with my hands in front of me. I coughed and wheezed until my throat was sore, my face was red, and drool hung from my lip.

"Louisa Anderson," a man in slacks and a button-up called for her. He matched Anna's description and had a similarly large nose like me.

Lou ran her fingers through the front of her hair and combed it out of her face. She shook her arms like a boxer preparing to swing, or someone dusting themselves off, then she flashed the biggest smile I'd ever seen.

She turned at the heels and leaned against the banister overlooking the authorities.

"Yes," she answered, taking a deep shaky breath. "How may I help you, Mr. Abelman?"

"We have a warrant to search the property and for your arrest." We all breathed a sigh of relief. We couldn't believe it.

I'd been there for, possibly, the shortest amount of time, but I did what they struggled to do. I had Jay on my side whereas they just had family and friends who didn't know who to call or just couldn't believe we were being tortured.

I'm sure some may have reported the place to the higher-ups or the police, but nothing like that has ever happened, and I know if I didn't have Jay, I'd have been just like them.

I'd have had years of my life stolen from me. I'd have been like a zombie, floating through life overmedicated until every day became a blur. I'd have given up hope of being rescued and accepted that that was the end of the line for me.