Page 39 of Captive

My chest is tight. I haven’t spoken this story aloud in years, ever since I told Ezra and Hawthorne. It’s a crazy thing how, even now, over a decade later, it can still feel so new and raw. Like a fucking knife in my back, six inches deep, lodged where I can’t reach to pull it out. A permanent injury.

“He thought he’d get off, just like he got off for everything else. The law couldn’t nail him.” I pause. “But I did. I planned for months. Dropped out of school, moved back home, and planned to kill him. I wasn’t thinking about the future. I was only thinking about making sure that asshole got exactly what he deserved.”

I sigh. “The day I finally took that jump, the day I finally got him, I tried to get him to tell me where her body is. I figured if I was going to get caught and go to prison for murder, the least I could do is bring Reign home—but he wouldn’t say. The only thing he told me was that she was dead and that I should move on.”

But people like that, they don’t ever seem to understand that sometimes you can’t move on. Sometimes the pain of losing someone is just too fucking great that it swallows you whole, and you spend the rest of your life trying to find your way out.

“I killed him, and I took his body out in the middle of nowhere and dug him a deep, deep fucking hole.” A moment passes before I add, “As far as I know, no one’s ever found him. Maybe they won’t. Maybe he’ll be worm food for the rest of eternity. Either way, I had to do it. For my sister.”

Abby can’t look at me. She’s busy staring down into her lap, as if her lap holds the answers to every important question in the universe. The arms she had folded over her chest are now loose, her hands resting in said lap.

“Then the Benefactor found me,” I say. “I had nothing left. My mom moved states away. She couldn’t bear to stay in that house with all the memories, and if I’m honest, a part of me always blamed her for what happened, too. If she would’ve kept a better watch on Reign, then maybe…” It’s too painful for me to say it. “But then again, maybe not. Doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

On Abby’s other side, Ezra sits, listening to the story he’s heard before. Though he’s not watching me, I can see the wheels in his head turning. Maybe he’s hoping that, by me sharing my story, Abby will want to open up, that it’ll be enough for her to feel comfortable with us to share hers and he won’t have to talk about his.

But she remains quiet, which is when I cough and make Ezra glance at me.

Ezra doesn’t want to. I can see it written on his face. He wants to get up and bolt out of this room as badly as Abby does, and for a moment, I wonder if that’s what he’s going to do. Thankfully, he proves me wrong.

“I lost my girlfriend,” he whispers. “We were high school sweethearts. Went to the same college together. I saved up money for years, took every summer job I could so I could save up for a decent ring. For years, she was my life.”

Abby tells him, “Ezra, you don’t have to—”

“No,” he interrupts her, “but I… you should know you’re not alone in this house.” He swallows hard before he continues, “It was our sophomore year. I was working late on a Friday night. Got a job on campus. She went to a party with her friends. A bonfire. The official story never came out and said it, but someone spiked her drink, dragged her far enough away from everyone else, and…”

Abby doesn’t say a word, but she does reach for his hand and give it a squeeze.

“It wasn’t the drugs that killed her, or even the assault. She had blunt force trauma to the head, but the cops said she fell on a rock and got too drunk. Her friends didn’t see who she went off with, so I did what I had to. I acted like everything was fine, became a member of the fraternity that threw the party, and did some digging.”

Ezra says, “At the same time, I was looking for answers, trying to reason away everything that happened. I don’t know how I found it, but I stumbled upon a chat room for people like me, people who’ve lost loved ones to violence. It’s how I met Royal and Hawthorne. Once the Benefactor approved it, they brought me in.”

She asks quietly, “And what about the guy? Did you get him?”

“I did, but it took a little bit. Hawthorne said it wouldn’t be smart to go after him right away. That we had to wait some and plan so his death wouldn’t be connected to Kaitlin’s. When it was time, when we had him where we wanted him, I made sure he knew who I was. I made him admit what he did.” He lets out a mournful chuckle. “He begged me for his life, said he didn’t mean to do what he did. That all his friends were doing it, too. Part of being in the fraternity or some shit. He got a little too rough, that’s all. He didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t let it ruin his life, so he and his friends covered it up.”

I frown at that. A common saying, if you can get them to admit what they did. The asshole who took my sister from me never apologized though, and I made him regret every single goddamned choice he ever made in his miserable life.

“After him, we had a whole long list of fraternity brothers to take out,” Ezra says. “Over the years, we knocked them out one by one. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do it too quickly, otherwise the police or FBI would’ve linked them together, but we got ‘em.”

“Sucks you had to wait so long,” Abby mutters. “They were probably hurting other girls all that time.”

Ezra closes his eyes for a split second. “Trust me, I know, but what the Benefactor wants, the Benefactor gets. They had a team in us, and they didn’t want to let us go. And, as messed up as it is, the promise of taking out the trash for the rest of our lives was enough to make me want to play ball.”

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, and then she glances at me. “I’m sorry for you both. It’s not… it’s pretty shitty what this world is capable of, the things people can do.”

“Point is,” I tell her, “you’re not alone.”

“I know I’m not alone. That’s the problem. There are too many of me out there, too many like your sister and your girlfriend. Too many like Hawthorne’s mother. Just… too many. It feels like every time society takes a step forward when it comes to equality, we take two steps back. I don’t think we’ll ever get away from it, and that’s depressing as hell.”

She sighs after that, and she shakes her head once and lets her gaze return to her lap, where she fiddles with her fingers. “You really want to know what happened? Fine, I’ll tell you. Fair warning, it’s a whole different kind of trauma.”

And then, finally, she tells us what got her into the killing business. Ezra and I find out she’s right. Her story is different than ours, but in the end, it’s exactly the same.

The pain hurts, no matter what direction it comes from.

Chapter Seventeen – Abby

I stand in the hallway in my parents’ house. Mom and Dad are at work. I’m still in high school, in my senior year. My sister, Nikki, is home for the summer, a junior in college. She commuted to and from, so she was never really gone during the year, besides when she had classes or went out with her friends on the weekends. As long as she was quiet coming home and she told my parents where she’d be, they were okay with it.