my migraine pills, Jen? And my antihistamine meds. They’re in the bathroom cabinet. Oh, and I need my reading glasses too.”
“Sure.” Jen left the room and came back with my Beanie pills and a glass of water. While she had her back to me, I double-checked the label on the vial to make sure they were the same pills I normally took: Benadryl. They were. But my hands were too weak to turn the childproof cap. I wanted to ransack the house for a laptop, my phone, car keys, anything to connect me to civilization, but I could barely muster up a breath, let alone enough energy to go rampaging around the house.
Jen sat on the bed and laid her hand on my sweaty brow. “I couldn’t find your glasses anywhere,” she said, opening the bottle and popping out a couple of pills.
I took the Benadryl and chased them down with some water. “Another reason I need my phone. So I can use the torch to find things. Even if there’s no connection, I still want my bloody phone!”
“I swear on my mom’s life, we hunted for it everywhere and can’t find it.”
“Maybe I dropped it outside on my walk. When it stops raining, I’ll go and take a look.”
Jen’s smile was candy-sweet. “Nuh-uh. You’re not going outside. You’re not going anywhere, sweetie. You’re not well enough, you’ll catch pneumonia in your state. And just in case you get any crazy ideas about leaving, Dan made sure all the doors and windows in the house are locked. For your own safety.”
I clamped my eyes at her. “Jen, why are you doing this to me?”
“What? We just want you to get better. You’ve been a danger to yourself. We just want to protect you from harm.”
“I want to go out!”
She giggled. “You’re not going. Any. Where. You might hurt yourself. Play nice, now.”
What did they know? What had they found? For your own safety and ours.
I sat up and tried to crawl my way out of bed. I felt like a beetle at the end of the season, on my way out—one squish and my life would be extinguished, a splotch on the floor. Jen pushed me back down. Her little finger was stronger than my whole body. “Then take me to see a doctor, for my ankle,” I pleaded.
“There’s nothing any doctor can do that we can’t do for you ourselves. I’ll get some ice for it. RICE. You know that one? Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. I’ll fix you up. I’ll play nursie.”
She left the room. I shoveled myself out of bed again and hobbled to the sliding doors. Locked. I remembered what Kate had told me about these doors. Not even an angry Dan with a hammer had managed to make a crack. Earthquake-proof, no doubt. I checked the landline again. Dead. I plopped back down on the bed like a two-ton pile of rubble. I’d never felt so powerless.
Despite my fragile state, I needed to get the hell out of the house. Via the garage? While Jen and Dan were upstairs in the kitchen, and Kate was having a shower, I hobbled to the garage (or rather, crawled). But when I pressed the button for the automatic door, it didn’t budge. Locked. But the tin of spare keys would still be here, hidden in the toolbox. I rummaged around and found the tin, along with a spare set of my Land Rover keys. I grabbed a small hammer for good measure and hopped out on one foot as fast as I could, back to the laundry room. I hid everything in a pillowcase, which I lodged behind the washing machine. Just in case the triplets locked me in there again. I collapsed, slumped over the dryer, panting from the effort, my ankle puffed like a blowfish. Then I remembered there was a spare front door key at the back of a kitchen drawer under a pile of linen napkins (I hoped) and realized I should bring the pillowcase with me and drag myself upstairs to the kitchen, escape Cliffside while I could, get the—
“What are you doing in here?” It was Kate, her dark hair slick and wet from her shower, but dressed for work.
“Just looking for some fresh sheets.”
“Get back to your room. I’ll bring them to you.”
“No, Kate. This is my freaking house! How dare you boss me around!”
She clinched me by the wrist. I flailed my arms around and tried to punch her in the