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Hannah Givens was thinking about the letter again, wondering if she had made a mistake.

Three days ago Walter had presented her with a nice sheet of stationery and matching envelope with postage. He gave her a pen and told her to write a letter to her parents. He promised to mail it.

Hannah knew full well Walter would never mail the letter. It was too risky. The way forensics worked now, the police could trace a postage stamp to the exact post office where it had been purchased. She had seen it done on a TV show.

The letter, Hannah knew, was a peace offering, a way to get her to speak. Walter needed her to talk. He had tried to get her to open up by sharing a horrible story about how his mother had almost burned him to death and then followed it up with all that religious talk about the importance of forgiveness.

When she didn't speak, when she continued to sit there, silent and staring, she could tell he wanted to hurt her. To his credit, he didn't, but that didn't mean Walter would wait forever. He'd hurt her once. There was no question in her mind he'd do it again.

Walter had left the felt-tipped pen. For a good amount of time she had played with the idea of using the pen as a weapon – stab him in the throat, if possible. At the very least, she could take out an eye. She had played through the scenarios in her mind and noticed that not once did she feel any fear. She had never injured another human being before but felt certain, if and when the time came, she could do it.

Walter, though, was smart. He wouldn't forget the pen. At some point he would ask for it back.

Another idea had taken root in her mind, one with possibly even greater potential: What if she could use the letter as an opportunity to gain some leverage? The question consumed her waking thoughts.

Hannah came up with a plan. She concentrated on what she would say, creating several drafts in her mind before committing the words to paper. Walter,

The Virgin Mary came to me in a dream last night and told me not to be afraid. She told me what a good, caring person you are. She told me how much you love me, that you wouldn't do anything in this world to hurt me or my family. Your Blessed Mother also said that you would allow me to call my parents and tell them not to worry.

After I talk to my parents, I was thinking that maybe you would join me for dinner, and we could talk and get to know each other better. Hannah had set the envelope and pen in the sliding food carrier along with the dirty paper plates from today's lunch. Now she had to wait to see what Walter would do.

To pass the time, she reread the short diary written by a woman named Emma. Hannah flipped to the last page and began to read: I don't know why I'm bothering to keep this journal. Maybe it's a coping mechanism, this need to leave something behind – to leave my mark. Maybe it's the fever. I can't stop shaking; I'm cold and hot at the same time. Walter, of course, thinks I'm faking. I told him to take my temperature and he did. He said my temperature was a little high but nothing to worry about. He said he wouldn't let anything happen to me.

When my fever didn't break, Walter came into my room holding two big white pills – penicillin, he said. He came back at lunch with two more pills, then two more at dinner. This went on for days (at least it seemed like days; time has no meaning down here). Finally I said to him, 'Do you want me to die?'

'You're not dying, Emma.'

'The pills aren't working. There's something wrong with me. I can't keep any food down. I need a doctor.'

'You have to give the medicine a chance to work. Keep drinking water. I bought you the fancy kind you like, the Pellegrino. You need to stay hydrated.'

'I don't want to die here.'

'Stop saying that.' Walter then launched into another story about how 'his' Blessed Mother came and told him how I would be fine.

'Please listen to me, Walter. Will you listen to me for a minute?' He didn't answer so I kept talking. 'I've been giving this a lot of thought. I don't know where you live. You can blindfold me, put me in the car and drive me to a hospital in some other city. Just drop me off and leave. I swear to God I won't tell anyone who you are.'

His face changed and, I don't know, he looked disgusted, as though whatever was wrong with me was somehow my fault.

'I don't want to die alone,' I said. 'I want to see my father.' I begged, I cried – I did it all.

Walter waited until I was done, and then he gripped my hands and said, 'Pray with me, Emma. We'll pray together to Mary. My Blessed Mother will help us, I promise.'

Walter has just left the room. I try not to think about what will happen to me when I die.

Maybe God gives you a second chance. Maybe he lets you come back until you leave your mark. Or maybe there is no such thing as a soul. Maybe you're just like everything else that wanders the earth, alive for a short amount of time only to die alone, only to be forgotten. Please God, if you're there and you can hear me, please don't let that be true.

Hannah skimmed over the next paragraph, a long, delusional rambling of a repeated fever dream where Emma found herself wandering around dark streets at night, wondering why the sun wouldn't come out, why there weren't any lights on inside the houses, why the streets didn't have any names.

And here were the last words the woman named Emma wrote: I keep thinking about my mother. She died when I was eight. The day of her funeral, when my father and I were finally alone, I remember how he kept reassuring me that my mother's death was a part of God's divine plan. The image that comes to my mind over and over again from that day is how the traffic kept moving past us, the people in those cars going about their lives, going to their jobs, going to see their families and friends. Life just keeps moving forward. It doesn't stop for you. It doesn't even pause to offer you an apology. What scared me then – what scares me now – is how small you really are. In the grand scheme of things, you don't matter. If you're one of the lucky ones, you'll get a nice obituary and maybe a handful of people will pause to remember you for a while, but in the end they just go on, keep on moving forward and force themselves to forget until you've faded just a bit – you have to fade just enough so when they remember you you're not as sharp. You're easier to carry.

My father won't be that lucky. He'll leave my pictures up and he'll stop and stare at them and wonder what happened to me, what my last moments were like. I wish I could give him this diary or whatever it is I'm writing here so he could have some, I don't know, some final peace, I guess. I want my father to know

The entry ended.

I want my father to know. Emma's last words.

What happened to her? Had she died here, in this room? On this bed? If she died here, what had Walter done with her body?

Had he killed her?

Walter knocked on the door.

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