“And in the process, see what she knows,” I say.
And see if Harper’s there.
I don’t add that part aloud. I don’t want my brothers to worry.
We left her tied to a tree somewhere in that snake-infested swamp. I barely made it out without being bitten by one of the vipers. She couldn’t have gotten away from the ropes, let alone gotten past the snakes and hiked twenty miles back to town without shoes or clothes.
Could she?
If there’s one person on earth who’s tough and resourceful enough to do that after what we did to her, it’s Harper. And she’ll be out for revenge.
So, if she’s alive, why hasn’t she called the cops? And if she’s dead, why can’t I find her body?
six
Harper Apple
I don’t count the days. I know there’s something wrong with me, that this isn’t normal, but I can’t muster enough fucks to do anything about it. When the Phantom hands me a box with a brand-new iPhone, the latest model, and tells me to text my mother, I do it. I don’t bother telling him I had a third-hand phone that shut itself off for no reason, couldn’t hold a charge, and had so many cracks in the screen I could barely read an email. It makes no difference what phone I have, if I have one at all. I don’t use it except when he tells me to check in with her.
Days go by, then weeks. I know school is coming to an end, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Mr. D will have pulled my scholarship, and I wouldn’t be able to face the Dolces and their friends who came back for me that night. School seems trivial and pointless like everything else. It would take effort I can’t give, and so, I don’t.
One night, when I wake up mewling like some pathetic, drowning kitten, crying that they’re coming back for me, the Phantom holds me against his warm chest and tells me he’ll keep me safe, that no one will find me here if I don’t go outside. He thinks I’m scared, that I’m hiding like he is, but I’m not. I just don’t have the fight in me to leave. So, I stay.
He doesn’t lock me in or even try to convince me not to go. I’m not a prisoner. I could walk out. I even went to the clinic when he told me, the pharmacy where they sent me. I took the antibiotics he handed me each day. But there’s no reason to leave again. I can exist in this neat, orderly space as well as anywhere else. Better. No one demands answers for what’s wrong with me. No one asks for things I can’t give, for me to make impossible choices. The Phantom asks so little in return for this haven in which I can exist in the bubble he’s created, not taking up any space in the world.
Maybe we’re both phantoms.
He feeds me, putting my food before me and taking it away when he’s done eating, never commenting on how much or little I’ve eaten. After dinner, we go onto the roof where he trims and waters flowers, sprays plants, and admires his garden. Sprouts have grown into plants, and the older ones come alive as if to show them the way—the saw-like leaves of one produces a stalk with clusters of white flowers that hang like bells; orange blossoms like curling starfish emerge from another.
I don’t go to the edge again. I don’t care enough to jump. I sit in the chair where he tells me to sit, like the good girl he tells me I am. When it’s time to go inside, he brings me back in. He measures me one day, touching my body with possessive thoroughness, detached and entitled, as if I’m a doll and not a human. He runs his thumb over the silky burn scar on my hip, checks my healed hand, sets my birth control pill on the bedside table each morning. I am another plant to him, a fixture, something to tend.
He cuts my fingernails, paints my toenails. He dyes my hair a richer, dark-chocolate brown, irons it straight, and brushes it in front of the only mirror in the house, on the inside of his closet door, while watching a tutorial on how to fix it in different styles. He puts a ring through my bellybutton and buys me makeup and a bag to keep it in. He calls me his good girl. Soon, among his usual deliveries, more clothes for me arrive—a padded bra with heavy gel inserts that make me more evenly proportioned, skirts and dresses that hug and accentuate my curves without looking trashy. I know they must be expensive, and I’ve never had clothes made for my body, that fit me so well. The style is nothing I’d choose for myself, though. They’re rich girl clothes.
But then I realize I don’t know what I’d choose anymore. I’m not the girl who liked tiny cut-offs that showed her thigh tattoos, who wore combat boots and hoodies. I don’t know who I am. So I try on this girl the Phantom wants me to be, just like I try on the clothes when he tells me to. He watches with arrogant indulgence, picking out the things he doesn’t like to send back. I look at the straight-haired girl in the mirror with tits that balance her hips, with a tiny waist and red-soled shoes.
I wonder if she’ll ever be me again.
Every morning and evening, he fucks me quickly and efficiently as I lay there not moving, letting him extract his payment.
I’m the whore Royal always said I was.
Once, he slides up on the bed next to me when he’s done.
“Want me to finish you off?” he asks. “This isn’t the kind of relationship where I’ll eat you out, but I have a vibrator and a couple clit stimulators.”
My stomach clenches with revulsion, almost panic, at a memory I won’t let form. I shake my head quickly. I don’t want or need pleasure. I’d rather just lie here, my body hollow except for what he puts inside me.
seven
Royal Dolce
She’s not fucking here. I stand at the base of what I’m pretty sure is the tree where we left her. It’s hard to tell. It’s rained since then, and the water is higher, and judging by the rumbles in the distance, it’s about to get even higher. I bought a pair of thick waders that make me look like I belong on a whaling ship, and I spend the weekends mucking through a fucking swamp, shooting snakes and being drained dry by mosquitos.
There is no sign of anyone in the swamp but me.
Fuck Harper. She doesn’t fucking matter. She doesn’t deserve this much attention. I should be at the bridge, where someone important died. I should be mourning Crystal, thinking of Crystal.
Fuck this shit.