April Henry - The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die

For an answer, he grabbed my arm, just above the elbow. His fingers dug in. I could feel my muscles separate. And then he found a nerve bundle. An electric shock jolted up my arm. I let out a yelp.

I didn’t know this man. I memorized his smooth voice, his faintly perfumed smell, his expensive shoes. I could see them in a gap at the bottom of the pillowcase. I studied them for clues. They were a graduated reddish brown color I thought was called oxblood. They looked like the shoes a successful businessman would wear, not a killer. But I had no doubts that was what he was.

“Where is the information about the virus and the vaccine?” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” If my parents had told me more, would I have been spilling it? I hoped not.

He hit me then. Punched me in the jaw. I felt one of my teeth move. My mouth tasted like metal.

“Stop lying to me! I’ve already had to do bad things today, Cady. Very bad things. I don’t want to have to do any more.”

Bad things? What did he mean?

But he didn’t give me time to think about it. His tone changed. It was like he was playing both roles: good cop and bad cop. Only there was no one on the other side of a one-way mirror to stop him from going too far.

“Where would they hide something? A girl like you, a smart girl, you must know where your parents hide things.”

“I don’t know.” I tried not to let the strain sound in my voice. “I don’t know anything. If they hid something, I don’t know where it is.”

“Do they have a safe-deposit box?”

“I have no idea.”

Again, he took my left ear in his hand and squeezed it. Then he whispered into it. “Cady.” A pause filled by nothing but his breath. “Pretending you don’t know anything won’t help you.”

“But I don’t know anything.”

He sighed as he straightened up. Then he slapped the back of my head. I tried not to make any noise, but a grunt pushed through my teeth.

I felt him lean closer again. “I’m going to put the gun up against your head again and next time you lie to me I’ll pull the trigger.”

I was telling the truth, but he thought it was a lie. Should I try to really lie? Should I make up a place my parents might have gone, or a place they would hide things, just to buy myself time? But if I did, it would backfire sooner or later. Probably sooner. And if I sent them running off on a wild-goose chase, how many others might end up tied to a chair with a gun pressed against their heads?

“Have they told anyone else?”

I decided not to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know!”

“Stop lying,” he said, and cursed me. His slap jerked my head to one side. “Stop lying or the same thing will happen to you that already happened to your little brother.”

I froze. “What are you talking about?”

HIs voice was flat. “He’s dead.”

What? My little brother, dead? It couldn’t be true. Not Max. Not Max with his smile so big that his brown eyes nearly disappeared.

“What use was a crying child to us? He couldn’t help us. And I’m starting to think you are just as useless. The same thing will happen to you if you don’t tell me something useful. Now!”

“Max can’t be dead,” I said. Pushing away the thought of how this man had just boxed my ears and slapped and slugged me. Pushing away the memory of the gun pressing between my eyes.

“You want proof?” the man with the oxblood shoes said roughly. “I’ll give you proof.”

He walked out of the room. Behind me, he spoke to someone. It sounded like they were arguing. Their words were too low for me to make out, but I memorized the timbre of their voices.

“They’re bringing his body,” he told me. “So you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”

I was too stunned to speak. The pillowcase in front of my face was now wet, slimy with tears and snot. How could this be happening to me? Already French class seemed like something that happened in another world, another universe.

A minute or an hour later, I heard voices. A knife sawed at the tie that held my hands. I could hear it cutting into the wood of the chair. I didn’t care that one more thing in our house was being ruined. I didn’t care that in a few minutes my hands would be free, although my legs were still tied up and at least one man had a gun. I didn’t care that there must be some combination of moves that would leave me able to run and my attackers too disabled to pursue me.

Max couldn’t be dead. Could he?

Something heavy and yet somehow soft landed on the table.

“Touch him,” the man with the oxblood shoes ordered. “Touch your brother.”

I kept my hands where they were. My whole body was shaking.

He grabbed my hand and began to force it up. “Max is dead. And you’re next if you don’t tell me what I need to know.”

I tried to pull away, but he was stronger than me. Through a sheet of plastic my fingers touched something. A leg or an arm. Firm, but yielding. And cool. Then he moved my fingers so that they touched my brother’s hand. His poor little hand, fingers curled and stiff.

Max was dead. They had killed my brother.

Max. He weighed thirty-three pounds. You wouldn’t think you could pack so much life into just thirty-three pounds. His giggle, his imagination, his sudden hungers for ice cream or piggyback rides or stories. He bounced rather than walked. He was always waving an imaginary wand and proclaiming he had just turned me into a frog or a butterfly or a witch.

Max was dead.

My brother was dead.

And with my fingertips still touching his cold, dead hand, my mind shut down. Went blank. Went someplace where I wouldn’t have to remember. Even when they pulled out my fingernails, it wouldn’t come back.

The scream that tears itself from my throat sounds like an animal’s.

Now I remember everything, but I would rather be dead myself than know that my little brother, Max, is.

“You killed him!” I scream at Brenner. “You killed Max.” The pieces are falling into place. Brenner and the man with the oxblood shoes were the men who searched my house, the men who took me to the cabin to search there and then tortured me again when they found nothing and I told them nothing. They’re the ones who killed my little brother and stuffed his body in a plastic bag like a piece of garbage.

With a wordless cry, I launch myself at him.

He takes a half step back, his eyes uncertain. Flesh-colored makeup doesn’t hide the red scratches running the length of his face or the wine-colored bruises under his eyes.

I don’t care that Elizabeth has a gun pointed at me. All I care about is getting my hands on one of the men who killed my brother.

Before he can decide what to do, I grab his wrist and step behind him. In one motion, I pull his arm out and up, rolling the knife edge of my free hand along the nerve bundle just under his biceps. He falls to his knees at the same time as I brace his arm across my thighs.

Red rage clouds my vision, hums in my ears. He killed Max! I don’t think, I just act. With the heel of my hand, I break his arm, right at the elbow.

His scream is high-pitched and wordless. I stare down at the back of his head, which has been shaved and covered with a white bandage, and feel… nothing.

Nothing at all.

“Let Michael go!” Elizabeth has to yell to be heard over his keening. “Or I’ll shoot your friend.” I look up. She’s grabbed Ty’s shoulder and her gun is now pointed at his head.

As ordered, I stand up and back away. Brenner screams again when his limp hand hits the floor. Then he pulls it to his chest and cradles it, rocking back and forth. “I’m not a killer,” he moans. “I’m a computer scientist.”