Chapter 21.

I refuse.

I refuse.

I refuse.

My bones ache and my head pounds and my fingers twitch and shake at the ends of my hands but I refuse.

My mouth is dry, my mind is one hundred different train tracks all en route to crash into each other but still...though my body fights me, I refuse.

I grab the pills off of the floor and I force my body up the stairs.

"Don't be stupid." They say. "Don't do something you'll regret."

I sling the bathroom door open.

"You need us." They call, frantic now. "You won't be able to get more. You need this peace. You need to go away."

I lift the lid off of the toilet seat and twist open the cap.

"We're okay." Their whispers fill my ears. "You're okay with us, only with us. Come to safety. Come to comfort."

"No more." I say as I tip the bottle over and watch the white pills stream from its mouth, crashing into the water below. "No more." I toss the empty bottle to the floor and with a steadying hand I flush.

I watch them twist and swirl as they scream, until their voices are gone.

I sniffle and wipe my nose, the tears drying on my cheeks and I turn.

I turn from the toilet and cross over to the sink and I force myself to look into that mirror.

My shoulders are shaking with my deep staggered breaths but I stare. I look into my dark eyes, I look into my own face and I stare hard at the girl who is looking back at me.

For a moment, she's young.

Her hair is up in braids and she's staring with hollow lost eyes back at me.

But slowly the image shifts.

She's taller.

She's lifting her chin.

"We're okay." I say to my reflection, feeling power in the resolve my eyes shine with. "We're okay."

I won't let that girl down.

The one I've been letting down for years.

She didn't want this.

She didn't do this to herself.

She couldn't control the circumstances of her young life, but I can. I can do better. I can fight harder, for her.

I cross the hall and walk into my childhood bedroom and I sit on the edge of my bed. I just sit for a long while, but then I turn and look at the cork board leaned against the wall.

I stare at it for so long that my eyes go dry and fuzzy.

I lift myself from the bed and kneel beside the board. Slowly I remove the pictures. I remove the pink fabric.

I set them aside until the board is left with one thing. Right in the middle.

"YOU."

I stare at the word and I feel it move over my body. I feel it take root somewhere deep inside of me.

Even then, I was searching for myself.

I let my fingertips glide over the paper and I make a silent promise to myself to not stop trying to find it. To find who I am beneath this all. To do something to make the little girl who cut out that word and put it on this board with so much hope, proud of the person we will become.

I turn to leave the room when I notice the closet door on the far wall is ajar.

I walk over to it, holding my breath as I pull open the door.

I don't know what I had been expecting, but it wasn't what I found.

The closet is empty all but for one hanger in the center of the rack that my own coat now hangs from. Below it...my boots are in the floor of the closet, standing side by side.

I'm done with this.

Done with wondering what's going on around here.

Now I'm just pissed off.

I shut the closet door and go back downstairs. I clean up the mess of plates and bowls in the kitchen and the coffee table as well. It feels good to keep my body moving. Focusing on something mundane keeping the madness at bay for a little while.

I scrub the carpet in my parent's room, getting rid of the mess I'd made in the floor when I'd thrown up the other day. I put everything in the whole house back into place and commit it all to memory.

I will not be forced to question myself again. I take painstakingly long to move through the whole house, but when I'm done, I'm confident that I know precisely as I'm leaving it all.

I check myself for my keys, my cards, and my phone that I switch back on as I walk outside. I stop at the door and triple check that it's locked before I head out to my car.

I reach for the handle when again, a note is shoved into the space.

"LEAVE NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE."

"Who's there?" I shout into the openness around me. "What do you want?" I scream, tossing the note away. "Why can't you just leave me alone!"

My screams are echoed back to me, just my own voice filling the void of silence around me.

I get into my car and lock the doors, leaning over the steering wheel to catch my breath. I know it's all connected, and somehow, I'm connected too.

I can't let this be like last time.

I can't stand by and watch it play out on the tv and huddle and hide away from the world. I've got to do better this time. I can't let it all go the same way as before.

I take a few more deep breaths and then I sit up, not looking at my hands as they shakily put the car into reverse.

I turn around in the yard and drive down the long driveway and when I reach the main road I see a beaten up old white pickup truck parked on the side of the road just passed my drive.

I don't get to get a good look at it because as soon as I come to a stop, it's tires are squealing as it pulls out into the road and then quickly accelerates away up the road in the opposite direction.

A right would take me towards town, a left, towards the truck.

I yank the wheel to the left and peel out onto the road, the back end of my car swaying back and forth until it finds purchase in the ground beneath it and levels back out.

I'm speeding trying to catch up to the truck but it's going so fast. The back taillight is out and there is no license plate. But that's all I can tell.

I pursue the truck for as long as I can but I loose it by the time we hit the highway. It's like it just vanishes.

Reluctantly I make a U-turn and head back into town. It's early, but there is hardly any other cars out on the road and when I pull down the long downtown street there is practically no one walking around.

It's like a ghost town.

I pull up to the diner and park next to Mrs. Statham's Tahoe and get out.

I pull my coat tight against the hard chill in the breeze and look around a second longer before I turn to walk up the block a bit to the diner.

As soon as I reach for the door it slings open and Mrs. Statham and I slam into each other.

"Oh," she says, one hand holding her phone to her ear while the other hand clutches my shoulder. "I'm so sorry." She says and that's when I notice the tears pouring from her eyes.

"What's wrong?" I try to grab her as she pushes passed me. She's still talking frantically into her phone as I follow her towards her car. "Mrs. Statham! What's the matter?"

She yanks her car door open and climbs inside glancing back at me. "I'm sorry," she says to me, still crying. "My niece...my niece didn't come home." She tells me. "I'm going to help look for her."

She shuts her door and flies out of her parking spot while I stand frozen on the sidewalk.

No, no, no.

Not to Mrs. Statham.

Is truly nothing in this world good enough to be worth protecting? Why do the worst things always seem to go for the best people?

I get back into my car and turn the radio dial to find a news station but no one is saying anything about another girl. They're still talking about finding Jasmine's body and interviewing police who were on patrols at the field trying to figure out how anyone could have passed them by without notice.

I try a few more stations but it's all the same. Jasmine is still the name of the hour. The other two girls now just known as that, the first two victims.

I get back out of the car and go into the diner, stopping at the counter. "Hey," I say to the burly man with the beard and he sighs.

"She said to tell you she'd call later." He tells me. "Something came up."

"Her niece is missing?" I ask and his mask of not caring slips a little.

"We don't know that for sure yet." He says, a hand absently rubbing at his chest. "She just didn't come home from her lunch shift and so everyone is worried."

"Oh god." I wince. They don't want to say it yet. They don't want to believe it. But I know the truth. I think we probably all do.

"You don't need to be here." The man snaps, slipping back into his no bullshit persona. "You gotta leave."

"I just want-."

"No." He cuts me off. "I don't need you being here scaring off costumers, ok? So just go."

That's when I realize.

He's afraid of me.

How far can my father's shadow really reach that even after all of this time the towns people are so distrustful of someone with my last name.

I hang my head in shame and walk back out of the diner just in time to see that same white truck pulling down the road and turning onto 1st Ave.

I run to my car and pull out of the space and drive that direction, but again, the truck is gone.

I turn around and drive solemnly back home, still keeping the radio on for any word on Mrs. Statham's niece, praying I don't hear a new name to replace Jasmine's as the latest victim.

I park the car out front and double check that I've locked it before I head inside.

I go upstairs and take a shower, trying to warm the hard chill that is seeping into my skin. It's not as pleasant as it was before. No matter how hot I turn the water, I'm still cold.

I get out with red splotchy skin and change into a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie then quietly brush my teeth at the sink.

I can see the toilet in the mirrors reflection and I can still hear them from their resting place.

I told you that you would want us back.

They taunt me.

But no, I don't want them back. I want to feel this. Every bit of the pain that will come from getting rid of them because I'm tired of being fucked with. I'm sick of not even being able to trust myself, so despite the way my body aches and shakes and screams for relief, I won't give in.

I ignore their quiet taunting as I leave the bathroom and tread back down the stairs.

It's so quiet that at first I don't hear it at all...

The little tisk tisk tisk at the back door.

But then it gets louder, more persistent.

I cross the kitchen on my tiptoes and lean around the fridge to try to see through the glass top half of the door but it's too iced over to make out what's on the other side.

A small quiet rapping against the door again.

"H-hello?" I squeak, knowing I'd left my phone upstairs on the bathroom counter. I lean to the other side of the fridge and pull a knife out from the drawer. "Who's there?" my voice is low and shaky.

"Missy?"

I rush to the door, slinging the deadbolt out of place and fling open the door.

"Oh my god." I cry, letting the knife clamber to the ground at my feet.

"Oh, god." He sighs. "Missy."

I throw myself into his arms, feeling the stiff iciness of his top coat but I don't care. I wrap my arms around him, squeezing tightly to be sure this is real. But I've never been more sure of anything.

It doesn't matter how many years have passed, I'd know that voice anywhere.

"What the hell are you doing here, Miss?" He asks into my hair, holding me just as tightly as I hold him. "What were you thinking? Didn't you get any of my messages?"

The satellite phone....

It had been so long since I'd heard from him and so much has been going on I'd completely forgotten all about it. I'm not even positive I brought it here with me.

"I didn't, I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." He kisses the top of my head and slowly let's me go, sliding us back into the kitchen. He turns and closes the door. "You don't need to be sorry, I just don't understand why you'd come back here."

"I-I had to." My voice is stuck in my throat, full of emotions I'm not sure how to process. "Ruth, she-."

"But here?" He gestures around the house and I can see all the pain this place inflicted in those eyes I know so well. "Why would you come back here? Of all places?"

"I didn't really have much choice in the matter." I say, defensive. "I had to come for the money, I needed it."

A small part of me wonders though. He's not wrong. I could have stayed in the motel in town. No one forced me back into this house. Maybe, a part of me needed to come back after the way I'd left it. Maybe a piece of me needed to see if coming back and putting it all to rest would give me some sort of closure.

But of course, I'd been wrong.

"I should have been there for you." He says quietly.

I look up into his face, so different from the last time I saw him. Gone are all of the boyish features I'd watched grow and morph through our childhood together.

He seems to have gotten even taller and his body is muscled in ways I'd never seen him be before. His jaw is covered with a thick dark brown beard and his eyes have dark rings beneath them.

He looks worn and exhausted and still so much like our father.

Despite how much he's changed, beneath it all, I still see him.

My brother.

Dallas.