M.I.A.

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

Corey

I sit in the garden and wait. The garden is my place, my territory. Just like the broken down house on the other side of Cutter's property is Their territory. They don't come here and I don't go there. We came to that silent agreement a long time ago and I have no intentions of breaking it.

Normally, the plants that I've cultivated back to life here bring me some measure of joy, but no amount of weeding or pruning will bring my sour mood out of the gutter. All I can do is hold my breath and wait among the closed-against-night flowers.

Cutter will be home soon.

Earlier, I tried destroying the black bag and The Sisters inside...but I couldn't. I tried destroying the house. Lighting a match, toppling the furniture. Everything I've tried before in my anger and hatred, but I'm simply not strong enough to do it.

I hate that about myself. All I can do is wait...and then what? Watch it happen? How will I stop him? I had more power then than I do now...

But at least now, I'm free...

Is this freedom?

Being stuck here? Slung somewhere between life and death?
Sighing, I turn my attention back to the small hole I'm digging. I can move the earth, can move the grass and the flowers, I can pet Delilah when she's whining because Cutter hasn't tossed anything down for her to eat in days. But I can't open the refrigerator and pull some hamburger meat out for her. I can't use the garden shears. I can't dig with the shovel. The most I can do is push the small things, and that doesn't do much—because I can't push the one thing I hope to push. Him. Down a flight of stairs. Out in front of a car. Push his head under the bathwater. Anything to get him dead and gone—to rid the world of him.

Headlights break over the horizon, white on the deep blue of on-coming dawn. Cutter is back.

I stand and watch him approach. Will he have what he went out for? What should I do?

I slip between my neatly planted rows of lilies and slide through the rusted iron gate of the rickety fence built around the old garden. He doesn't even look over here any more. Perhaps if he did, he'd see the flowers growing behind the wire mesh woven between crooked pipes and rotting stakes and he'd know I was here. He'd see what I've done—brought life and beauty into the ugliness of his hell. He'd see my sun flowers and my dahlias and my wild roses and know that not everything here is dead.

The van pulls all the way into the old barn, illuminating the rising shadows of rusting farm equipment for a brief moment before banishing them to forgotten darkness once more. I stand outside of the grey-rotten doors and wait as Cutter, whistling like always, gets out and comes around to the back of the van.

Dirty fists balled, I step into the doorway and try to sound ominous. "What did you do, you fucker?" It still feels good to swear at him.

He opens the back and steps close, blocking my view. And then he turns around, showing me his prize. A limp ragdoll of a human.

My chest seizes tight and I go still, uncertain what to do.

Cutter has a new victim.

The sound of the van door slamming as he kicks it closed startles me into action. I advance on him, screaming. "What the hell are you doing? You can't bring her here! You can't do this! It's wrong! Don't you understand!?" I flit around him like a bee, stinging and tugging at him, but I'm nothing to him. Barely an annoying little flea. Despite that, I harry him all the way into the house and up the stairs.