Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“About an hour, I’d guess. I saw a sign for Rogersville. We turned onto a long, winding driveway. I know it wasn’t paved because the road was bumpy. He pulled up to this old barn. Not like, dilapidated, but definitely not new. I remember my heart pounding in my ears. I had nothing on me but the half-heart necklace Hollywood had given me. I took it off and held it in my hand in case I needed to like, stab him in the face or something. He pulled me out of the car and punched me really hard in the stomach. I fell to my knees. He tied my hands behind my back.”
“What did he use to tie ‘em?” Cal asks, then glances sidelong at me. “If you know, or can remember.”
“Some kind of soft rope. The necklace is a broken heart, so it has a jagged edge, like teeth. I started sawing at the rope as soon as he pulled me to my feet.”
“Did he take you inside the barn?”
Kenzie nods. “He turned on an industrial-looking lamp, like what you’d see at a construction site. He started hitting and kicking me, on my chest and stomach. I fell to the floor, which was covered in dirt and old straw. He took my shoes off and pushed me onto my back and then straddled my waist. He felt a lot heavier than he looked. I thought my arms were going to break under his weight.”
I fight the pins-and-needles feeling in my limbs, the urge to get up and move around, to distract myself from the horrific ordeal my friend had gone through. It’s not the first or even the third story I’ve heard about something terrible happening to a girl like us, but this isn’t just some girl telling it. It’s Kenzie.
“He pulled a knife from his jacket and cut a piece of my hair off,” she says. “There was a book. He put the lock of my hair into a book.”
“Do you remember what book it was?” Cal asks.
“I don’t know. It was old. Maybe a bible? It had a worn leather cover. That’s when he started talking to me. I was in a lot of pain so I didn’t catch most of it, but what I did sounded crazy.”
“Can you recall anything he said to you, however strange?”
“He said something about purifying my body. That my soul was diseased and he was going to cleanse me.”
Kenzie rubs her eyes. I can’t even begin to fathom how painful it must be to have to recall something so fucked up. I rest my hand on her shoulder. She flinches like I’ve just shocked her. I pull my hand away.
“Sorry,” she says. “I’m just... I need a minute.”
She gets up and hobbles into the bathroom, closes the door, and runs the tap. I stare at the door as a chasm of hurt and sadness opens up inside me. Cal moves to sit with me on the couch.
“It’s not you, sweetheart,” he says. “She’s been through a lot.”
“Cal’s right,” Mary says. “Don’t take it personally. It’s going to be a while before she feels safe again.”
I nod in understanding. I know Kenzie didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, and my pain is nothing compared to what she’s been through. But I guess part of me had been naively hoping that everything would be okay once I found her. Yes, she’s safe, but I don’t feel like she’s really here. Not all of her. Not the bright, shining parts of her.
She returns from the bathroom. Cal moves back to the coffee table so Kenzie can take her seat on the couch.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he says.
Her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a breath.
“He started hitting me again,” she says. “All over. Everywhere but my face. It was like he was intentionally avoiding hitting my face. I screamed and cried, begging him to stop. He said I was corrupted, that he was beating the evil out of me.”
Her fingers curl in her lap. She picks up her teacup but doesn’t drink.
“I held onto my necklace, and tried to stay on my back, so he wouldn’t hurt my hands because I knew I needed them to cut the rope, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to...” She pinches her eyes shut. “After he stopped hitting me, he went outside, and I went back to sawing at the rope. The necklace was starting to bend from being held so tightly, and I was worried it was going to snap, but it didn’t. The rope snapped.
“I pretended my hands were still tied when he came back with what looked like a bucket of soapy water and a rag. When he kneeled down to wrap his hands around my throat, I headbutted him. Then I started punching. Just crazy, wild, punching until he rolled over. And then I ran. I ran for the door and was barely outside the barn when he grabbed me. I knew that was it. He was going to kill me if I didn’t get away, so I just kicked and slapped and punched until he stumbled back.”