Cut Me Free

 

 

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.

 

 

For Krista: Thank you for being my first
honest
reader, for always loving Piper more than anyone else, and for showing me how important sisters can be. Love you!

 

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

Acknowledgments

Copyright

 

1

The city embraces me. Shiny rectangles so tall I can barely make out where they end and the sky begins. They wrap me in shadow. Hiding me. Holding me. In this single moment, I feel safe here, and I don't remember the last time I felt safe anywhere. The sun sets against an unseen horizon, but I don't head back to the hotel. No one waits for me there.

The sounds and smells of this place are like a different world. It smells like people, so many people. I'm accustomed to the smell of emptiness, but it would be foreign in a place so full. No, it's more than full. It is bursting with life. The scent of Rittenhouse Square fills the air around me, green and lush. I'm encircled by millions of breaths taken at once—surrounded by life. The best thing the Parents ever did for me was to go down without giving me much trouble. At least I only had to escape once. I'm not positive that they're dead, but I certainly tried. And I really can't think about that now.

Instead, I need to live. Everything I've ever known is death and pain; being drenched in life feels good.

Closing my eyes, I extend my arms and the warmth of the city flows around me, flows through me. No more pain. No more clawing fingers dying to break another bone or raise another bruise on my pale skin. No more cruel eyes and words twisting my world. Now they are dying. Now they are dead.

And I don't regret what I've done.

I open my eyes and squint at the statue across from the bench I'm sitting on. It depicts a battle—fierce combat, lives at stake. A massive lion crushing a serpent beneath his claw in the final victory of a fight to the death. In some ways, I relate more to these animals than to the people in the park around me. I struggle to move past my own battle, still remembering every moment of the fight for my life yet never able to celebrate the triumph.

Lifting my wrist, I check the time on my watch. It's a digital one I found in a kids' section of a department store. I haven't quite figured out the twirling hands of its more confusing counterpart. And the adult ones were all loose on my too thin wrists. There aren't many people in this section of Rittenhouse Square, and all of them were here when I arrived fifteen minutes ago. He's late. Only five minutes, but that's five minutes too many. There is nowhere I need to be, but it doesn't matter. He's my fourth attempt. The first didn't show up. The second, I left the minute he let his eyes wander a little too freely. The third didn't seem intelligent enough to entrust my future in her hands. If I'm going to hire this Cameron Angelo person, I need to be sure he will do what I ask, when I ask. I need to be certain he knows his business.

If this doesn't work out, I'll move on to the next name that my money can buy me in a shady bar or dark alley. Illegal services are easy to obtain, especially in a big city like Philadelphia. If you can find the right places to search and are okay with paying for the information, you can get anything. The books Nana used to slip me in the dead of night were more educational than I ever imagined. The ones she'd let me keep taught me the most—
Flowers in the Attic
,
Oliver Twist
, and
Kidnapped
. She'd been planning my escape for a long time, but neither of us thought I'd be doing it alone.

We'd shared a favorite quote. The paper that held it had been as yellowed and wrinkled as Nana's hands, but I still wish I'd brought it with me. She'd ripped it from an old tattered book of English poets. Only two lines from a poem, but Nana said it should bring me hope.

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

I mutter the words three times under my breath, my heart holding tight to the quote with a grip stronger than my fear. There is nothing I need more right now than hope. I shove aside the aching pit that replaces my insides whenever I think of Nana or Sam and get to my feet. Switching my suitcase to my other hand, I squeeze it until my fingers stop trembling. I couldn't leave it in the hotel—it holds two hundred and thirteen thousand reasons not to. Only ten thousand less than it had when I packed it. Not bad for over a year on my own, but living under the radar doesn't exactly play well with extravagance anyway. Even now, it feels weird dragging my suitcase behind me when I know what it contains. I can feel everyone looking at it—at me.

A young girl walks past holding hands with a man and a cold rush spreads through me, like an arctic wind starting at my feet and blowing up through the winding tunnels of my veins. As plain as the city around me, I see her pain. She tugs down her pink sleeve, but it still isn't long enough to cover the bruises beneath. Her hand is wrapped in his, but it's limp, not holding on for support. It's trapped, ensnared.

Millions of memories of Sam pelt my brain, and my free hand digs around in my pocket for the black metal bolt I always carry with me. I rub my thumb across its worn ridges as I struggle to keep the images entombed. The past I wish I could bury forever crawls out of the darkness to haunt me again: Sam and me cowering in the dark corner of the attic, the Father's breath hot on my face as he pins me to the wall, the Mother ignoring my pleas to leave Sam and take me instead as she drags him down the stairs and slams the door, later followed by tears on his face and mine when he comes back with new bruises and cuts I couldn't prevent. I'd watched him sleep every night and dreaded the next week, the next day, the next hour, when it would begin all over again.

I force a choked breath in silent agony. The memories are too painful to touch. I skirt away from them and barricade myself in a corner of my mind, trying to pretend this little girl isn't suffering the same way my brother did.

The man with her reminds me of the Father, but the similarity isn't outward. It's like the same darkness radiates from him. I focus on the details, driving back the ache of confusing emotion with the unfaltering black-and-whiteness of logic. They look nothing alike. This man is younger, maybe forty, and his hair is dark. The Father had blond hair, like Sam and me, and his paranoia made him stay trim and in shape. This man is an overweight slob.

He stops to scratch his shoulder and she flinches when he raises his arm. Her dirty, dark hair falls across her face the way Sam's used to. She's hiding and no one else sees. She's dying and no one else notices. I battle through a wave of nausea and try to keep breathing.

I watch them walk away. Sam's small voice pleads in my head—tells me to save her.

No one will save her but you.

Like a magnet, I'm towed along in their wake and fighting the desperate need to do what I couldn't do for Sam. To stop this man before it's too late. I know I have to ignore it. I can't get involved. I must pretend I didn't see, but Sam won't let me.

She needs you.

I follow them to the edge of the park, keeping my distance. Just watching.

All I can do is watch—at least, for now.

“You give up too easy.” A deep, warm voice speaks from behind me and I whirl to face him. My hands fly up in the defensive posture I know too well.

“Whoa, slow down.” He takes two steps back and stares at me until I drop my arms to my sides. “Sorry. I just didn't want you to leave. You're”—he glances down at his phone—“Piper, right?”

“Yeah.” I pivot to one side, keeping him in full view, but glance toward the back of the little girl disappearing from sight. The guilty feeling that I'm losing her is almost as strong as the surge of relief that she's gone. No longer my responsibility.

No one else will save her.

I suppress a shudder and ignore Sam's words. Focusing on drawing a single deep breath, I release the bolt and draw my hand out of my pocket, fix my attention on the guy in front of me. It didn't take me more than a few days after I ran away to learn that noticing the details keeps me alive—both in and out of the attic. This situation is no different.

Cameron is tall with broad shoulders and chin-length brown hair. Olive skin, nose slightly broader than it should be. His jeans and red short-sleeved shirt fit him well but don't look new. He's confident, poised, and calm.

His stance tells me that he can more than hold his own in a fight, but that's not what I need help with. A genius is what I need, a criminal wizard. The hazel eyes returning my gaze are inspecting me as well. I can't deny the intelligence there. He might be smart, but he's too young. Not what I'm looking for.

“Thank you for coming, Cameron, but it's not going to work out.” I turn and walk away, my suitcase wheels clicking rapidly on each crack in the sidewalk.
Click, click, click, click
—the rapid pulse of a city that seems as alive as the people that reside here. Each part of Philly is different. One section is a cozy tree-lined neighborhood, the next a bustling center of business. It makes me feel safe, like death can't follow me here. Even though deep inside I have no doubt death
can
follow me anywhere.

A second later he's walking beside me, his long legs easily matching my fastest pace. “Call me Cam.”

“Fine,
Cam.
” I don't miss a step even though the name is a little too close to my brother's for my comfort. “It's still not going to work out.”

He glances at my luggage. “Looks like you gave up on me before we met. Either that or you're the youngest flight attendant I've ever seen. You have a flight to catch or something?”

“No. I just think we're done here.” I shift my suitcase to my other side so I can be between him and it. Any future I might build depends on keeping it safe.

“And can I ask why?”

“You're too young.”

He laughs, but it sputters like a dying car when he sees I'm serious. Then he lifts an eyebrow. “When you're the best, age doesn't matter. Besides, how old are you? Fifteen?”

“Seventeen.” I don't admit that I'm not entirely certain. Time was so hard to track in the attic. And even before I'd been stuck in there when I was six, one of our neighbors—an old woman whose name I wish I could remember—was the only person who'd ever wished me a happy birthday. There is very little I can remember from the time before the Father. It wasn't good, but it was better. The pain was still there, it was just different. Exchanging hunger pains for bruises and scars wasn't my idea of an upgrade. Six years with the Mother and her addictions, then ten years with the Father and his.

“Then we're even. Not a good enough reason.”