Elaina J. Davidson's Blog, page 97
August 22, 2023
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Chapter 10: The Orphan
An orphaned boy searches for a lost girl.
A woman abandons her new-born at a motel in the back ofbeyond. Adin grows up unloved, bullied, and no one remembers him. He doesn’texist.
Until he sees a poster for a missing girl on a lamppost.There is an instant connection to little Sunflower, kidnapped for ransom, onlyto disappear after the money is paid. He exists because he must find her.Alone, he searches, a journey that takes him into the wild places, meetingalong the way some interesting characters.
In dreams he speaks to her, for she is the one who willremember him.
Chapter 10
Your face is also your fingerprint.
SUNFLOWER
SHE SAW FRED’S face.
When it happened, she realised hewould never let her go. He would soon kill her. He needed her alive for thephotos he took of her with the day’s newspaper, but once her father paid, hewould kill her.
She had seen his face.
Fred surprised her. In fact, hefreaked her out completely. There was nothing normal about him, just as therewas nothing normal about her. His type of strange came from a different planet,though. He did not act or react as a child expected. She doubted adults coulddeal with him either.
Late one evening – she knew itwas evening when a bar of light appeared under the door, for he switched thelights on for the night – he unlocked her prison and beckoned her out.
The action was familiar to her.Either it meant he needed another photo, or he was allowing her to go to thetoilet. He allowed the latter only once a day, and sometimes it was morning andsometimes it was night. Sometimes she had to hold for untold hours between, butnever did she surrender and wee on the stinking floor.
He looked odd this night. Notquite the Fred who now no longer wore the balaclava over his face in herpresence. Unfortunately, she finished in the toilet one time before he wasready, despite having stolen time to splash water on her face and wash herhands, and exited the cubicle to see the balaclava rolled up, revealing his features.She had thought him old, like her father, but he was more like her friendTara’s older brother, when she attended his twenty-first birthday party. Fredwas too young to have a daughter, and she had believed him that day in the park.How naïve she really was, of the real world.
Tonight, his brown eyes seemedlike living orbs. As if two worlds moved there in his face. Usually he showedno emotion; he just beckoned her to duty with dead eyes. His kind of strangewas all about no expression. His hair was a funny reddish-brown, worn slickedback, which she thought might be because he always wore the balaclava rolled upas a cap, ever ready to pull it down when his face needed hiding. Tonight, hishair stood on end. In fact, as he waved a hand at her to come, the other messedhis hair even more. Obviously, he’d been running hands through his hair.
It was strange behaviour.
Fred was excited about something.
Had her father paid the ransom?
Her heart became a lump of ice inher tightening chest. Fred was about to kill her. That was the reason for hisexcitement.
He preceded her down the shortdark passage, knowing she would follow. Sunflower once went the other way,seeking escape, and discovered only a blank wall. Besides her cell-room, therewas nowhere to go. Her heart started beating again, loud thumps she was certainwould soon jerk her up and down in the violence of its movement.
Where this was, she had no idea.Her room had no window, the passage was lightless, and this space, where heforced her to pose with a newspaper, was boarded up. There were two windows,but dirty slats had been nailed over them, tight, allowing no light or sightthrough. A naked bulb overhead highlighted the nastiness. The narrow toilet cubicleto the left did possess a small window and that one allowed light in – when shevisited it in the day – but was constructed of glass that allowed no view. Itwas rusted in place; she had attempted to pry it open, if not for escape, thenat least for knowledge of her whereabouts. Well, escape had been first on hermind, but the sight of a tree or a building might help, too.
No sounds other than Fred’sgrunts, footsteps and occasional words now formed part of her life. She had notyet heard the whisper of a bird in song, or a tyre crunching over gravel orswishing in rubbery silence on tar. Whether she was in the country or hiddensomewhere in the city, she could not know. Not knowing meant she was as lostinside as she was to the outside.
The only other sounds sheexperienced emphasised the state of her existence. The slap of a tin plate onthe floor – deposited once in the morning and once in the evening, and she knewit as morning and evening by the food on it – and the scrape of it being collectedagain. The click of the camera on Fred’s phone. The rustle of the newspaper.Her ablution noises, and the flush of the toilet.
And her sobs, but those weresilent. He was not to know of her pain, although it was true that herhopelessness sounded loud in her own mind.
In her dreams, when she managedto sleep, blue eyes watched over her. Once she watched a documentary with herfather about New Zealand, and said how lovely the blue rivers were, and herfather said the melting snow caused that kind of blue.
Snow-melt eyes.
Because he saw her, she lived.And while he looked, she could endure. It was a boy, she just knew it, but alsowondered if even her sleeping mind played tricks on her. Maybe she needed aprotector so much, she made him up.
Fred motioned her to the plasticchair she usually sat in, and then dragged another closer. This, too, wasunusual behaviour. She had seen the other chair between the two boarded windows,but he had never bothered to use it before today.
He sat in it, facing her. Staringat her. With dancing, gleeful eyes.
Sunflower swallowed. “My fatherpaid,” she whispered.
A massive grin split his face. Helaughed then, and slapped his thighs. “He paid!”
“What now?”
He lifted a finger into the dankair. “Now it is time for decisions.”
“Yours?’ she dared.
“Yours!” He chortled and slappedhis thighs again.
She did not dare ask what thatmeant, but he told her without her having to prompt him. His excitement couldnot long contain his ability to create suspense for her. He wanted to share,because she was the only one he couldshare it with.
“I now have enough money todisappear, little flower, and you will need to deep disappear also. Thepermanent kind, because you had to look, didn’t you? But you have a choice. Youhave made me rich, so I’m giving you a choice.”
She did not trust that, butanything was better than a knife across her throat. He wouldn’t use a bullet,no; too loud. And she had a suspicion he’d prefer the thrill of her blood overhis hands, rather than a clinical kill.
“Choice?” she whispered.
“See that door there?”
Fred pointed at a door to theright, one she thought led either to a kitchen or maybe a hallway that led tooutside. It was locked. She’d seen him lock and unlock it with a bunch of keyshe kept in his pocket.
She nodded, staring at him, herheart alternately beating hot and cold, sending heat and then ice to shiverover her skin.
“There’s a hole beyond it, realdeep. Either I throw you into it and walk away, for none will find your bodyfor months, maybe years, or …” He stopped there, leering at her.
“Or?” she shuddered.
“You come with me, and wedisappear together.”
Would he beat her if she wentwith him? Or have sex with her? Would he throw her into another cell somewhere?Maybe he’d kill her in another place. Maybe he liked the idea of her scared,putting off her murder until she could barely talk for fear.
But maybe she’d escape fromsomewhere new. Even if he beat her. Even if he raped her.
“You have ten seconds to makeyour mind up, little flower.”
“I’ll go with you,” she stated.
THE ORPHAN
