Chapter 9

Don't Ever Let Me Go 

I go straight for Shanna.

She's so gaunt that I barely recognize her as my sister. But it's her. It's Shanna. Alive.

I pull the tube from her nose and remove the duct tape. As I unwind the wire from her wrists, her eyes focus on me dully as if she's just awoken from a deep sleep.

"Celeste?" she whispers woozily. "Why are you here? It's too dangerous. Get out of here."

"I'm taking you home," I say.

I glance over my shoulder at the guy. He's pulling himself to his knees. Quickly, I go from girl to girl, tearing the duct tape from their faces and removing the ketamine tubes.

"Stop," he slurs. "Stop!"

He finds an oily rag on the workbench and tries to wrap it around one of the stumps where his thumb used to be, still bleeding badly. But he can't manage it. Without thumbs to grasp the rag, he's able only to push the rag around the bench awkwardly. Furious, he swipes in onto the floor and focuses his attention on me.

I'm working to unwind the wire from the wrists of the girl beside my sister. Already, without the ketamine tubes, the girls are beginning to awaken from their stupor.

"Stop!" the guy shouts again, and with this he lunges toward me. He tries to pry my hands away from the wire.

But he can't.

His hands are useless. Without thumbs, all he can do is try to swat my hands aside. But this doesn't work. I'm able to free the next girl, and then the next.

He tries to stop me with growing desperation. My hands are now covered in his blood. He starts to sob in frustration. "Stop," he pleads again. But soon I've freed the last girl from the wire.

"Don't take them away from me," he sobs.

I try to step aside, but he falls to his knees and wraps his arms around me, almost as if he's hugging me.

"Don't go," he cries. "I won't let you go. You're the one. I see that now. You're the one I've always wanted."

"Get the fuck off me!"

I try to pull away, but I can't. His hands are useless, but his arms are still strong. "Don't go," he sobs again. All around us, the girls are pulling themselves groggily from their beds. One is already trying to pull herself out through the hole in the wall. The others are beginning to realize that they've been freed and that they've been given a chance to escape.

But I'm trapped. The harder I try to pull away, the tighter he squeezes his arms around me and the more strenously he insists that I can't leave. "I won't let you go," he stammers. "Not you."

I scream, "Get off me!"