Hesitantly, I thumb the button again. “Yes?”
“Could you come to the door? We need to speak with you.”
I release the button and back away from the wall, frantically glancing between the door and the intercom.
Why?
I want to ask, but the word is stuck at the back of my throat. My hands ball to fists at my sides. Ford would kill me if he knew I opened that door.
Even if he didn’t, the people outside could.
Making a hasty decision, I rush to press the intercom again. “Are either of you sick?”
The officers share a look before the female speaks into the intercom again. “No.”
Maybe it doesn’t matter anyway, I tell myself as I straighten my back and rush down the hall. Maybe the gene therapy worked and I’m not even sick anymore.
It’s what I’d been telling Ford for years. I begged him to take me to get re-tested at a real hospital. With real doctors. But he always refused. Too much of a risk, he would say, deep brown eyes hard and lips curling back to reveal shining porcelain veneers. Don’t ask me again, girl.
There is only one other way I know of to test the theory and it’s to go outside. If I die, then Ford is right and it didn’t work, but I would’ve finally found a way to escape him. And if I lived…
I don’t see a flaw with either option.
I throw back the deadbolt and twist the lock above the knob. Then I grip the handles of the bar lock and use all my shoulder strength to twist them into the unlocked position, heart hammering in my chest.
With a tug, the door opens without so much as a groan, brushing softly against the rug.
“Paige St. Clare?” The male officer inquires, a brow raised, making me wonder what I must look like. Pale and wide-eyed like some wild thing.
Attempting to school my features, I clear my throat. “Yes.”
The male officer removes his hat and folds it into his chest as he bends his head. His kind eyes widen for an instant as they catch mine in the early morning light.
Dutifully, I cast them away like Ford taught me. The reflective silver hue of them unnerves people, and Ford doesn’t like people to notice me at all, let alone pay any close attention.
“I’m afraid Mr. Ford won’t be coming home,” the man says, and I can’t help snapping my gaze back up, needing to better understand the implication of his words.
“What?” I snap, all my lessons on proper manners and decorum forgotten.
“Your…um,” the female officer glances at something on her notepad and then tucks it back into her belt, “adoptive father was in an accident.”
The way she says accident makes me skeptical, but if she is about to tell me what I think she is, I don’t fucking care the reason why.
My eyes go saucer wide. My hope floats. I can barely breathe the words for fear of shattering this beautiful illusion, “Is he dead?”
The officers nod in unison. The female bites her bottom lip and turns, gesturing to where a sleek white police cruiser perches in Ford’s otherwise unoccupied driveway. “We’re sorry to have to be the ones to tell you this, Miss St. Clare.” A pause. A sigh. “But we do need you to come and ID the body.”
The body.
Ford’s body.
Because he is no longer living. Because he is now a dead thing, like the dead things he tortured me with.
Unable to fully grasp the meaning of it all, I find myself nodding, in a sort of daze. I need to see him dead, I ration with the part of my mind trying to shy away from the outdoors and from the possibility of illness.
I need to see for myself that his heart isn’t beating. Only then will I allow myself to feel the rush of relief trying to balloon beneath the cage of my ribs.
For now, it is merely speculation. A fantasy.
They are Hagrid come to take me to a faraway place where miracles are real. Where villains get their due.
Who am I to say no to that? Consequences be damned.
“All right,” I manage. “I’ll come with you.”
I take a step out the door and the heavy tracker on my ankle chirps, disturbing the silence. I step back, a hot flush clawing up my neck as I lift the hem of my jeans. “Do you know how to take this off?”
The female officer’s lips part as she takes in the chunk of black plastic strapped around my limb. The tiny light pulses green, a constant reminder that the thing is armed. That I can’t leave.
Beneath the device, bruised and sallow skin catches the cloud-covered sun’s gray light. Scars from years of wear shine silver, and more recent sores and shallow cuts streak around the edges of the cuff.
“Oh, honey,” the officer reaches out, but draws back when I flinch, her hazel eyes confused and horrified all at once. She kneels down in front of me and gestures to my ankle, drawing a sleek black blade from her belt. “May I?”
It’s only plastic; I know she can cut it off. I’d thought of doing the same a million times before, but tampering with it sent an alert to Ford. Tampering with it meant I would be punished.
…but if Ford is dead…
The device clatters to the cement stoop after one easy slice of the officer’s blade. The cool morning air stings the sensitive skin around my ankle bone, and I grimace, but the pain is nothing compared to the utter satisfaction gained from listening to the tracker chirp five times and then sputter out, crushed under the boot of the male officer.
I watch, enraptured as the blinking red light wanes until it goes out entirely.
3
“Would you mind coming back to the precinct with us for a few questions?”
The officer gives me an encouraging, albeit strained, grin as she tucks a loose strand of dark-brown hair behind her ear. With one last glance at the shape of Ford beneath the white sheet, I draw the back of my hand over my watery eyes. “Okay,” I say and turn away.
I don’t get more than half a step. A strange pressure slams down onto my chest. I clutch it, pulse quickening at the foreign sensation.
For an instant, I wonder if I’m having a heart attack and gasp a breath, unable to choke out a plea for help. It’s crushing. I can’t breathe.
Sputtering, I reach out, looking for something to steady me as my head begins to spin, my mind fogged and disconnected without oxygen. I stumble, confused and suffocating until finally, I catch myself.
My hand curls around cold flesh and bone, and I start, my squinted eyes flying open.
A muffled exclamation floats past my ears, but I can’t make out the words. The world is fuzzy and unfocused. Everything a blur of white and steel gray under the flickering lights overhead.
Everything except Ford.
He stands in blazing clarity. A myriad of color in a monochrome world. He hunches at the head of the gurney where his deceased body still lies beneath the cloth. His dark eyes stare deep into my soul. His sneer is strong enough to curdle dairy.
A scream lodges in my throat, stoppered by my inability to breathe.
“Run, girl,” he says, the words a whisper trailing on a phantom wind. Then louder, more urgent, his face contorting into the blistering red fury that always preceded one of his more zealous punishments. “Run!”
The high-pitched peel of a scream burrows into my ears, choked off only when the officer rips my hand from Ford’s twitching, putrid flesh. The instant I let go, fingers aching from the force of my grip, the phantom Ford vanishes in a puff of curling black smoke.