I get up as quietly as I can, grab my bag, and walk out into the hallway. Unlocking and opening the room Mindy is in, I must have startled her because she jumps up from her bed like she is ready to fight me. I hold up my free hand, palm up. “Calm down tiger.”
Her still sleepy eyes scan the room, and when she realizes that it’s me she actually relaxes a little.
“Who was the guy from last night? Is he coming back?” She asks me with a shaky voice.
“Frank? I just asked him to check on you because I had to leave town. He won’t be coming back.”
Mindy relaxes even further. “Good.”
“Did he do something to you?” I told him not to touch her. He better not have.
“No, he just gave me the creeps.”
I nod. “Come on.” I walk her to the bathroom and wait outside.
As soon as she comes back out she starts asking me her normal questions. “How long are you going to keep me here? Can I please just call home? I just want to make sure my baby is okay.” She is on the brink of crying and I do my best to calm her down.
“I’ll let you go soon and your baby is fine. He is with your sister. This will all be over s…” I come to a sudden halt when I see Josie standing in the door of the room I left her in. Her face is ghostly white and shock is written all over it. When I take a step towards her, she takes a step back into the room. She keeps walking backward until she stumbles over the mattress falling backward on top of it.
“Stay in this room,” I warn her, trying my hardest to keep my voice even. I shut the door louder than I meant to and even I can’t help but cringe at the sound. The terror I just saw in her eyes hurts me more than I like to admit. Now she is even more than scared of me. She is terrified and disgusted by what I am doing.
“I thought I was crazy, hearing a girl’s voice this morning,” Mindy says as I walk her back to her room. “Who is she?” I just ignore her question. No reason for her to know. I give her some water bottles and snacks from my bag, before locking her back into the room.
I stop in front of the door, knowing that Josie is sitting on the other side. I wish I could take the fear away from her and erase everything she knows about me. That would be the only way she would ever see me as anything other than a bad guy. I shouldn’t care what she thinks about me. I shouldn’t care about her at all. But I would be lying if I said that I didn’t care. It would probably be better if just stay out here and sleep in the hallway. I guess that she would rather be alone, especially if the alternative is having me in the room.
I know all of these things I should do. Yet, I find myself reaching for the doorknob and turning it. I push the door open and step in the room. Why? Because I’m selfish. Because I know that this whole thing will be over soon. Josie will go back to her family and I will never see her again. I know it doesn’t make sense nor is it rational in any way, but I just want to be near her. Just being in the same room is enough for me. There is just something about her that makes me want to be close to her.
She is on the mattress rolled up into a ball. The blanket is covering her whole body including her head. I want to see her face and talk to her but I’m not going to push her. If it makes her feel better to ignore me, then so be it. I slide down and lean back against the door as I had before. I close my eyes in hopes I could get at least a few hours of sleep.
“Is she one of your other spontaneous kidnappings?” She sounds strained like she is trying not to cry.
“No,” I sigh. “Mindy was a planned kidnapping.” No reason to lie about it. Honesty is the only thing I can give her right now.
The blanket flies away from Josie's head. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you care about anybody else besides yourself?”
The anger in her voice takes me by such surprise that I need a few seconds to answer. “I used to care about people. All of them left me one way or the other. No one cares about me, not really anyways. So, why would I care about anyone?”
“Did you ever think that your actions might be the reason no one cares about you anymore?”
Her honesty hits me like a slap in the face. Of course, I know that my own actions have gotten me here. Still, hearing someone else say it out loud is hard. It is so much easier blaming other people. But in the end, I know that everything is my own fault.
When I was on drugs, I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t care about what I was doing to myself or to the people around me. My mind was barely my own and by the time I returned to what was left of my former self, it was already too late. I blamed the drugs for a long time. It was so addictive, I didn’t think that I could ever stop. I didn’t even care about being high, I just wanted the pain to go away. The drugs just messed with my head so much. It made the line between good and bad shift until it faded away completely. I couldn’t stop on my own. I needed help, but help never came.
“I am not stupid Josie. I know that it's my own fault I ended up where I am. That doesn’t change the fact that I am here now and that I am on my own. I need to take care of myself.”
7
Josephine
I look into Colt eyes, stunned by the confession he just made. He admits to having kidnapped yet another girl that he is apparently keeping locked up somewhere down the hall. He says that he doesn’t care about anything or anyone besides himself, but I don’t believe him.
“So what were you doing taking me to dinner as if you cared? Was that all pretend or just part of your plan? Some sick game you like to play?”
He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Just go to sleep, Josie.”
“No!” I jump up from the bed. With his eyebrows raised, his eyes open in surprise. I’m not going to sit and do nothing any longer, not when I know he has someone else here. Someone who as a baby at home that needs her. I prop my hands on my hips and position myself in front of him with my head held high. He is still sitting on the floor, in front of the door, looking up at me.
“Let her go! Let the other girl go!”
He stares at me in disbelief, still not making a move. “I can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“Both.” He pushes himself up to stand and I am starting to regret my little outburst. He is twice my size and I am not sure what I was thinking provoking him. It’s not like I could do anything to overpower him. I swallow loudly and I let my hands fall to my sides in defeat. I really need to work on thinking before I act.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Colt sighs.
“Like what?”
“Like you are scared that I am about to hit you or something. I already told you, I am not going to hurt you.” He sounds annoyed with a hint of anger. “I promise, you are going to be safe.”
I know he has been saying that he wasn’t going to hurt me and he has kept his promise so far, but I know he has hurt people in the past and I can’t forget that.
“What about the other girl, is she going to be safe as well?”
“Yes, she’s fine, and her baby is with her sister.”
“And what about my sister?” He said all he wants is for her to sign some paper. That sounds way too simple to be true. As if a signature could solve everything.