seconds passed, my body became numb yet I was simultaneously in more pain than I thought a human could survive.
And as the adrenaline ebbed and reality sank in, I wasn’t sure I wanted to survive at all.
Cora
Four years later…
“Shit!” I cried as I threw the covers back and sprang from the bed.
The most obnoxious drone was coming from the alarm clock across the room. I knew better than to keep it on either of the mismatched nightstands next to my bed. The snooze button was my only addiction. But it seemed I’d finally mastered the fine art of sleeping through the alarm.
“Shit,” I repeated when I tripped over my accounting textbook. I vaguely remembered the thud of it falling over the side of the bed as I’d dozed off while studying.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I couldn’t afford to make that mistake again. What if—
No. No what-ifs. I lived in today. Not in the past. Not in the future. Today.
Lifting the mattress off the floor, I used my toe to shove the book underneath, careful to make sure it was deep enough that the lump it caused was unnoticeable.
After that, I snatched my new turquoise silk robe off the old rocking chair that served double duty as my “clean” laundry hamper and shrugged it on. I shouldn’t have bought that robe; it cost a small fortune even if it had come from the discount store. But I hated sleeping in anything more than a tank top and panties. With as many midnight “emergencies” as I dealt with, including those where I’d forgotten what I was wearing and run out of my apartment practically naked, I decided that it was time to invest in something that at least covered my ass.
Dragging my long blond hair up into a ponytail, I hurried to my bedroom door. It took two hands to force open the stubborn deadbolt and then slide the chain free. Making a mental note to get some WD-40 on that, I added it to the priority section of my to-do list, which was roughly long enough to wrap around the Earth—twice.
My bare feet padded against the short hallway’s distressed hardwood. It wasn’t the purposeful type of distressed meant to make that tiny apartment appear charming and rustic, but rather the kind that said it had been at least three decades since anyone had treated that flooring with anything other than contempt. But there was only so much a bottle of wood oil could do. And in the twelve years I’d lived there, I’d tried pretty much everything.
Holding my robe closed with one hand, I knocked on the door to the girls’ room. They hated sharing such a small space, but after listening to the constant bickering and arguing over the last six weeks, I was sure I hated it more. In a two-bedroom, eight-hundred-square-foot apartment, our potential sleeping arrangements were limited.
“Girls, get up! I overslept. You’re gonna be late for school.”
Silence. Where the hell had that been at two in the morning, when they were still up fighting over a curling iron?
“River. Savannah. Up. Now! If you miss the bus, I can’t take you this morning.” I rapped my knuckles louder on their door, but at thirteen and sixteen years old, they could have slept through me crashing into their room on a wrecking ball Miley Cyrus style. “Girls! Come on. I don’t have time for this. Get up and get dressed.” I gave the tarnished knob a loud rattle only for it to turn in my hand.
My skin crawled and panic slammed into me as the door creaked open.
No lock. No deadbolt. No chain.
Nothing to protect those two innocent children from the monsters who lurked around us.
My heart clawed its way into my throat as I flew into the room. The sight of River’s dark hair splayed across her pillow, her pink cheek barely showing from beneath her polka dot comforter, momentarily quelled my fears.
However, the twin mattress on the floor beside hers was heartbreakingly empty.
“Where is she!” I shouted, snatching the blanket off River. She’d been wrapped up like a burrito and went tumbling to the floor.
“Jesus, Cora,” she complained, rubbing the sleep from her big, brown eyes.
I squatted in front of her and squeezed her cheeks with one hand. Forcing her to look at me, I slowly repeated, “Where…is…she?”
Her eyes cut to Savannah’s bed before flashing wide with a similar terror that was spiraling inside me. “I…I don’t know.”