10
The car stops and Moonboot turns and looks at me for the longest time.
Finally, I break the silence. “I won’t say anything if you let me go.”
It’s laughable. I know this when I say it, but it’s all I’ve got.
“Won’t you?” he says.
I can’t tell if he’s angry or amused or just indifferent.
He stares at me awhile longer then gets out and opens the passenger door and lifts off the blanket and cuts the ties to my ankles and the pulse returns to my legs.
“Get up.”
My heart beats wildly because I know this is bad, this is the reason for the long journey, the blindfold, Johnny Cash.
“Do as you’re told,” he commands when I don’t move.
I sit up.
“What’s your name, sir?” I say, reaching.
“Stop talking.”
“I was spelling bee champion in the third grade and voted most likely to succeed in sixth grade. I love animals and banana splits and my grandmother. I had my first kiss when I was twelve and collected for the blind foundation and one day I want kids. One of each. Or both the same, I don’t care as long as they have ten fingers and ten toes.”
I’ve gone too far because his hand grips my upper arm like a vise. He swivels me around so I’m sitting on the edge of the seat and takes off my boots.
“Walk,” he announces, lifting me up by the elbow.
“You won’t get away with this. My husband will be out looking for me right now. I’m a lawyer. You’re going to go to prison for a very long time. Unless you let me go. Let me go and I won’t tell anyone. Before things go too far. Think about it. I don’t know who you are. You could just leave me here and simply drive away. I can find my own way back.”
He pushes me along. Pine needles and stones prick the soles of my feet. I can’t see much through the mask because it’s dark apart from the headlight beams.
“My name is Amelia.”
“Lie down.”
“Amelia Jane Kellaway.”
I think how dumb it was to tell him my full name because now he will probably hunt down my family and kill them.
“I said lie down.”
I break loose and run. My body has taken over my mind and I run. I cannot stop it. The situation is terrifying, the way my body is moving without my consent, like I’m a mere bystander to my own life, and I want to stop because it hurts like a roller coaster, that choke of terror at your throat, the oxygen that’s just out of reach.
He’s behind me, too close, boots thumping, breath heaving. He is running fast for a man of his size. I can see myself from above, with this stupid rag-mask on my face, hands tied, barefooted, careering into trees, the shadow of him gaining ground.
Think like a champion, I tell myself. Visualize success. Me first at the finishing line, getting that hole in one, making the hundred-yard touchdown. I see myself getting away, finding a road, flagging down a passing car, ripping the mask from my face to look out the back window at the figure of him getting smaller.
I trip. Face first. My knee cracks against a rock and I scream into something that might be moss. I try to quiet myself, to bear the pain in silence, lie as still as can be because there’s a chance I’ve fallen into some sort of valley or ditch and he can’t see me. I wait. Seconds. Minutes. Nothing. There might be hope.
“I don’t blame you, Amelia Jane Kellaway. I would’ve tried, too.”
He’s standing above me like a monolith. I wonder if he’s been there the whole time.
“Cooperate and you live,” he states.
I start to cry and hate myself. “Please.”
“Say yes, Amelia, and you live.”
I’m crying hard now. It’s so difficult to breathe with this rag on my face, and I know what I’m in for, what he wants, I can hear it in his voice, smell it coming out his pores. He kneels down and gets close.
“Say it.”
“Oh God.”
“Do you want to live?”
“Yes, I want to live.”
He does it right there with his knees in the water.
11
I wake up warm. Through the tiny squares of the mask I see flames from a campfire. I don’t know how long it’s been since the river, an hour or two maybe, but it must be late. It burns between my legs. I think about the act of war committed against my body. I should feel some emotion but I only feel numb.
“Hungry, Amelia?”
He is somewhere to my left. There’s the clash of metal on metal as if he’s eating from a can. When I don’t reply, he tries again, softens his voice like a concerned friend.
“Come on, Amelia, you’ve got to eat.”
There’s a clunk as he puts down the can. He shifts toward me and pulls me up to a sitting position with his powerful hands.
“Here you go,” he says. “Give this a try.”
I feel something cold on my lips. Spam. I eat even though I want to throw up because I don’t want to give him an excuse to exert his power again. He puts the neck of a water bottle to my lips and I gulp that down too.
“Tastes okay, doesn’t it?” he says, spooning in more Spam. “A fraction down home but it hits the spot, wouldn’t you say, Amelia?”
He leans back on his heels, waiting for an answer, so I nod.
“Good for you, Amelia Kellaway,” he says.
He resumes feeding me as if I’m a child. I can see him through the cloth. His face is lit by the fire and set in a pleasant paternal expression. He has an incisor snaggletooth and a scar on his chin. He has changed into a dark green and crimson checkered flannel shirt, creases ironed to perfection, brilliant white crew neck T-shirt beneath it.
Abruptly, he stops. He lowers the fork and stares at me. He comes close, so close, in fact, that I can smell the pork on his breath. He waves a hand in front of my face.
I shut my eyes and tell myself to be still. I can’t let him know I can see him. It’s the one advantage I have.
He wipes the knuckles of his hand against his jaw as he thinks.
“Okay,” he says, sitting back, satisfied.
I rearrange my legs to let out some tension and he moves to the other side of the fire and stokes the embers with a stick, throws on more wood. Then he is out of my line of sight, going to the car, popping the trunk.
For one God awful minute, I think he’s going to make me sleep in there. But then he’s back by my side with that blanket, kneeling down to slip a zip tie around my ankle, securing it to his own so we are Siamese twins. My skin itches at the thought of being next to him all night long or that he may touch me again, accidentally or otherwise. To my relief, he keeps his distance and lies on his back with his arm under his head.
“Would you look at those stars,” he says.
He pulls the blanket up so that it covers our shoulders. I catch the scent of leather polish and salt and freshly laundered clothes.
“Sleep tight, Amelia.”
*
I feel a tug on my leg. It’s Matthew rousing me for one of our rare Sunday morning brunches at that sweet little diner near Central Park, the one with the best eggs Benedict and freshly squeezed pomegranate juice, and a great window seat where you can watch little kids skip their way to the zoo. But when I open my eyes, I see the porous weave of the cloth, and remember exactly where I am.