Lost Girls

CHAPTER SIX

Emily looked once more at her abductor’s face and was disappointed by what she saw there. He was so ordinary. He looked like anyone else you’d find wandering the aisles of a library, picking up some milk on the way home, or walking out of a barbershop. There was nothing overtly evil about him. Nothing was even interesting about him. That was her initial impression.

A closer look at his eyes though, and she saw how he was like no one else she had ever been around. Emily was used to being noticed. Whether it was because she was young, or female, or simply because she was another human being; Emily, like most people, was conscious of other people seeing her. This man did not notice her. He was three feet away and staring at her, as he had been now for almost a half hour but he did not notice her. She realized that so far this was the most horrifying moment of this ordeal. To this man, to this person who controlled everything about her down to the moment of her death, she was of no interest. She was not even human to him. She was nothing, just a means to an end. What the end was, though, she had no idea.

Emily returned his stare. Only hers was not blank: it was filled with judgment and loathing. Then she saw the scar. It was mostly hidden by his short dark hair. But on the left side of his head there was a furrow that ran from just behind his temple to the rear of the skull. She tried to imagine what could cause such damage but drew a blank, not being aware of the vagaries of bullet trajectories once they encountered flesh and bone.

“I’m not going to kill you.” He repeated it as if the statement negated all that came before it.

“Why me? What did I ever do to you? Why did you pick me?” Emily was determined not to cry one more time for this asshole.

He looked at her with genuine puzzlement. “I know you didn’t do anything to me. I didn’t pick you. You picked me.”

“You’re kidding right? How the hell did I do that?” Emily liked getting angry. It felt much better than being terrified.

“To be more exact, your father brought you to me.” He had a look of sincere truthfulness on his ordinary face.

“My father?” Emily felt a cold chill settle over her. She only had the roughest idea of what her father did in the Army, but she knew he was involved in a lot of secret stuff. He’d been gone most of her life, off to some corner of the world doing things he could never talk about. “How is my father involved? How did he bring me to you?”

The man folded his arms, not answering.

“Will you let me go? I won’t tell anyone about you. You’d be safe. We could pretend this never happened.” Emily saw the futility immediately. For him this was already over. “How can I believe you’re not going to kill me? You’ve kidnapped me, drugged me and marched me to this godforsaken place. Why shouldn’t I think that killing me is the whole idea here?”

“Because it is not.”

“Then what is the idea, damn it?”

He zipped up his pack, looked around as if he were missing something and finally stood up. “You curse a lot you know.”

Emily stared up at him in blank amazement. “You’re kidding, right.”

“Why would I do that?” He turned and looked around at the small clearing, and then he chose a different path than the one that brought them to this place. He began to walk away.

“Wait a minute. Where are you going? Hey, look at me! Turn your fucking psycho self around and come back here. You can’t leave me here. Wait! God-damn you, wait. I’ll do whatever you want. Motherfucker! You motherfucker. You can’t just leave me here.”

He turned his head before he stepped into the covering of the dense wood. “You really do curse a lot. Your father will understand what is happening.”

Emily sat in stunned silence as he disappeared. She was momentarily shocked into silence. Then she screamed.