I grip my spoon. The last thing I want to do is hurt the one who’s been nice to me—or nicer, ’cause keeping kids in your basement ain’t ever nice, even if you aren’t the one hitting them. But sometimes you got to do what you got to do, and the man is the least suspecting of the two. I’m ready, or at least as ready as I’ll ever be. I’ve thought this through a gazillion times. In my head I know what to do. But still, that don’t mean that my heart isn’t going hog wild. My arms and legs is shaking and I know I’ve got to get ahold of them if I’m going to do this right. I take a deep breath, count to ten. Release it.
“Where you at?” the man is asking, hissing his words out into the darkness.
Gus says nothing. “Right here,” I say, gripping my spoon so tight it hurts my hand.
He comes to me. He says he’s got a candy bar for me to eat. I hear the sound of him unwrapping it. “Far as she’s concerned, we might as well leave you down here to starve to death. But don’t worry. I won’t let nothing bad happen to you.” He’s trying to sweet-talk me, to make up for her not feeding us for all this time. He feels badly about it. He slips the candy bar into my hand. “Go on,” he says, “eat it.” This ain’t the first time the man’s brought me chocolate. He brought me a cupcake once, ’cause he said it was my birthday. I don’t know if it was.
I bring the candy bar to my mouth. I set my lips on it and taste the chocolate. It’s richer than I’ve ever tasted before. I sink my teeth slowly in. This candy bar is the kind with nuts. It’s got something gooey inside. That gooey something falls to my chin, tasting so sweet that I want to cry. I can’t remember the last time I ever ate something so sweet in my whole life. I nibble at it ’cause I want this candy bar to last forever. I should save some for Gus. Gus would love this candy bar. And Gus needs to eat far more than I do. He’s wasting away. But I don’t want the man to think I’m ungrateful. He’s probably got another one for Gus, anyway.
I take another bite. The sweet sugar rushes through my bloodstream. I make a sound.
“You like that?” the man asks, standing so close I feel his breath on me when he speaks. It stinks.
“It’s good,” I say back with a hunk of chocolate in my mouth. It sticks to my teeth, that gooey something like glue.
The man is trying to wheedle me. He talks soft, buttering me up, and I don’t know if it’s ’cause he feels bad about the lady starving me or if it’s ’cause he’s got something else on his mind. “I got more where that came from. Whenever you want, it’s yours. All you’ve got to do is ask.”
The man is standing so close. Wherever the lady is at, she don’t know that he’s here.
There may never be another chance as good as this.
I’m nervous, ’cause I’m thinking about all the things that could go wrong when I try and stab him with my spoon. The fear almost gets the best of me. I almost talk myself out of it.
But then I get to thinking about Gus spending the rest of his life in this place, and know I’ve got to do it for him. I’ve got to get Gus out of this place if it’s the last thing I ever do.
I hold the spoon tight, wrapping my fingers around the belly of its handle. I got only one chance to do this right. I don’t plan to aim for anything in particular. It’s too dark to see where I’m aiming, anyway. I just got to stab and see where it lands.
The man is telling me what a pretty girl I am when I take a deep, terrified breath and reach out and jam that spoon as hard as I can into him. If I had to guess, I’d say I hit somewhere around the side of the man’s neck because of where he’s standing. When I stab him, the tip of the honed spoon goes into him; I know ’cause it don’t feel like a dead end when I touch skin. It don’t go far, but it goes, leaving behind more than a scratch. The man lets out a screech.
It ain’t a knife I have. It’s something far lesser than a knife. One run-through isn’t going to work. I grab my spoon out of this man’s neck and spear him again and again. I don’t know how much damage I’m doing, but by the sounds he’s making, it hurts.
The man falls to the ground, taking me down with him. He’s grunting, clutching himself, calling me names. I try rising up to my legs. As I do, he reaches out and tears at my hair with his sweaty hands. I pull away, feeling some of my hair go with him. I let out a cry and keep going.
The man reaches out again, but this time I’m standing upright. He gets my leg and tries tugging on it to keep me from leaving. I kick at him. I got only my bare feet, so that don’t hurt none, but I kick hard enough that his hands let go ’cause he can’t hold on to me no more.
I got him on the floor. From the sound the man’s making, he ain’t gonna be quick to get up and follow me.
I call to Gus, “Come on,” as I go charging up them steps. I must’ve dropped my spoon ’cause I don’t have it anymore.
At the top of them steps, I lay my hand on the door handle and turn. I hear Gus’s scared footsteps on the stairs behind me. He’s walking from the sounds of it, when I need Gus to run. I tell him to hurry up. There’s a pounding in my head, a ringing in my ears. Gus is crying.
The man downstairs is making a sound. It’s not so much a scream as it is a bellow. But it’s loud enough that I’m starting to wonder how far it carries. Far enough that the lady will hear?
Once upstairs, I have no idea where I am. I have no idea where I’m going. The only time I’ve ever been up here before was when they first brought me to this place, for those first two seconds before they pushed me down the steps and locked up tight behind me. I don’t remember it. It’s dark upstairs but, unlike downstairs, it’s not black as pitch. Here and there is a faint glow of light that helps me see.
I call to Gus to hurry up. I don’t know how far he is behind. One quick glance over my shoulder tells me he’s there, but lagging behind. I know Gus is scared to death, and I try and reassure him that everything will be all right. “This ain’t no time to be scared, Gus,” I say, trying not to be mean about it, but firm. “We got to go. You got to run.” I reach back and grab ahold of his hand, pulling him with me. His hand is cold as ice. Gus says nothing but every now and again I hear him cry.
I hear that lady’s voice somewhere in the distance, half-asleep and confused. “Eddie?” she’s calling out. “What’s the matter, Eddie?”
The man is making his way up the stairs now. He figured out how to get himself up off the floor, though he’s still groaning as he chases after Gus and me. I hear the man scream to the lady, breathless and mad. “That little bitch got out,” he’s saying. “She’s getting away.”
“What?” the lady asks. “How, Eddie? How in the hell did that happen?”