Jay’s pov: The maids’ call came at 2:47.
Kate hadn’t shown up for school.
I hit the gas before I cleared the driveway, hands cramping on the wheel.
First day.
She’d begged to go, promised she was ready, and now- 4 years.
four years since we got out, since the last time I threw myself over her while our stepfather’s belt tore into my back.
The scar tissue still pulled when I gripped too hard.
She used to trace it during her nightmares, whimpering my name like she was still trapped under my weight while he- I’d been in lecture when the phone buzzed.
Ignored it once.
Twice.
Third time I stepped out, and Maria’s (Maid) voice came through shaky, apologetic, Miss Jay, we can’t find her, she left for the bus but never arrived- Panic attacks.
The therapist’s word, clinical and insufficient.
Kate’s heart hammering so hard I could feel it through her ribs, her breath shallow and desperate like she was drowning in open air.
She’d been doing better.
We’d both been doing better.
The speedometer climbed.
A stop sign blurred past, ignored.
If something had triggered her, if she’d frozen somewhere public, humiliated herself in front of strangers on her first day- I drove and drove until- I found her wedged between a dumpster and a brick wall, three blocks from her school, in the alley where the crossing guard said she’d seen her last.
The morning commuters flowed past the main street, oblivious, their coffee cups and phone screens blocking out the small girl curled invisible in the filth.
Kate was still wearing her uniform skirt, navy pleated, now streaked with grime from the alley floor.
Her new patent leather shoes were scuffed at the toes, one heel broken off, the white socks she’d been so proud of this morning now gray with alley muck. You are reading on novelping(.)com, the official source.
Her lips moved without sound at first.
Then the words came, tumbling, avalanching, unstoppable.
“Th-th-th-the bus, the b-b-bus, Jay, the n-n-noise, s-s-someone t-t-t-touched my b-b-bag, I c-c-c-couldn’t, I c-c-c-couldn’t, I c-c-c-” “Kate.” I dropped to my knees in something wet, my school bag sliding off my shoulder, textbooks spilling into a puddle of yesterday’s rain mixed with garbage runoff.
I reached for her and she flinched, shrank smaller, pressed herself harder against the brick.
She didn’t recognize my voice, my face, anything in the present.
The stutter caught on every consonant, her jaw locking, releasing, locking again, the words forcing themselves through a body that wouldn’t cooperate.
“Kate, it’s me.
It’s Jay.” She looked at me then, through me, her eyes black and wide and seeing something and wearing our stepfather’s face.
Her whole body jackknifed, spine arching violently, her head snapping back against the brick with a crack that made me cry out.
Her heels drummed the alley floor, fast and desperate, a rhythm of pure terror, kicking through discarded cardboard and wet newspaper.
Her teeth clacked together, biting her tongue, blood mixing with the spit on her chin, dripping onto her white blouse, the one she’d begged to wear for her first day.
“Kate, look at me.
Look at me.” Her eyes rolled white.
The thrashing worsened, her body convulsing, elbows and knees catching me as I tried to hold her, my jaw, my ribs, my shoulder.
She was small, ten years old, forty pounds lighter than me, but she was fighting with the strength of someone who had learned early that survival meant hurting anyone who came close.
I pinned her arms, terrified she’d crack her skull against the brick, terrified I’d bruise her, break something, make it worse.
Her bones felt fragile beneath my hands, bird-light, the same bones I’d shielded with my own body when she was four and I was eleven and our stepfather’s belt came down.
“You’re safe.
You’re safe. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
I’m here.” She didn’t hear me.
Couldn’t.
The stutter had become a wail, a continuous keening that didn’t need words, the sound she’d made when I pulled her from the closet that last night, when I promised her it was over, when I lied because the body keeps score even when the mind tries to forget.
A businessman paused at the alley mouth, stared, walked faster.
A woman with a dog crossed the street rather than see.
Then she went limp.
Not peaceful.
Not passed out.
Just…
empty.
Her head lolled against my shoulder, eyes half-open, pupils blown, seeing nothing.
Her chest hitched, shallow, too fast, not pulling enough air, her lips tinting blue at the edges.
I slapped her cheek, gentle, then harder, my palm leaving a mark.
“Kate?
Kate!” Nothing.
No response.
No blinking.
Her skin had gone clammy, gray, the color of old bathwater.
I pressed my ear to her mouth and felt only the faintest flutter, too quick, too weak.