She looked down at her left foot and quickly wriggled it as the pain shot through. The copperhead had bitten her there when she was thirteen, while she’d been picking up wood from a stack to carry into the house. Her damn foot had swelled up, the venom started eating her skin away, and a serious infection had set in. Desiree had poured what she called “magic water” over it and spoke some gibberish Cain couldn’t understand, and she doubted Desiree could, either. Three weeks later Cain had come out of a coma, a term she had learned about later. Wanda had been there when she came to. Wanda apparently had some medical training. Cain’s foot had been heavily bandaged and there were some bottles of medicine next to her bed. The dressings smelled strongly of what she now knew was antiseptic. The skin on her foot would never look the same, but she didn’t care. Cain had lived. What more could she hope for?
These musings abruptly stopped when Cain heard the announcer on the radio.
Rebecca Atkins. The FBI was looking for a Rebecca Atkins from Georgia in connection with a matter from the early 2000s. Anyone with information about her was to call the number provided by the FBI, and there was also an email address provided.
When she had been held captive all those years, a cold dread would come over Cain whenever she heard the footsteps coming closer. This was when she was younger and unable to defend herself. What would happen when the door opened? What was Desiree’s mood? Cruel? Batshit? Drunk and docile? Or doped up and mean? Was Joe going to be regular Joe or monster Joe? How bad would it hurt? Would she cry? It was a feeling like your stomach had turned in on itself. That your blood had solidified, and where your hearing became so acute you could hear grass bending into the wind at a hundred yards. Your entire world was condensed to the shape of a door with your heart pounding at the thought of what would come through it. The monster of every fairy tale nightmare, only this monster lived in the house with her.
She hadn’t felt the “freezies,” as she had called them, since she had turned fifteen. When she had grown to her full height and was as strong as a horse, the comings of the Atkinses no longer terrified her. After that, she had terrified them. But she still had been a prisoner.
Now the debilitating freezies were settling in all over her body.
The FBI was looking for her about an incident in Georgia from the early 2000s. There could only be one incident involving Rebecca Atkins from Georgia during that time.
She took out her joint and lit up, sucking the smoke into her lungs like these were the last pops of weed she would ever take. The PSA ended and the radio channel went on to something else, but for Cain there was no going on to something else. Headlights suddenly slammed against her windshield like a wave of water. When she saw it was her colleague in the other Steele Security clown car, she lowered the joint out of sight, but did not roll down the window, though he opened his. She held her phone up to her ear as though she were on a call. He smiled, nodded in understanding, and drove on.
For the next six hours Cain drove around and around like she was on some giant carousel that didn’t have an Off button. But she wasn’t seeing any of the houses, or random car or person, even though they were all there. All she could think was: The FBI was looking for her in connection with an incident. Her shift ended, and she aired out the car before dropping it off and getting back into her ride in the Steele Security parking lot. She had a sudden thought and used her phone to go online and Google “FBI” and “Rebecca Atkins.”
This took her to the FBI’s official website, and caused her another shock as a fuzzy still photo came up on the screen. It was her after she had just burst through that door on her way to freedom.
I . . . I look batshit. And I probably was. No, I definitely was. But I was also cunning. I was focused in my total madness. I just wanted out. Who wouldn’t have?
She looked in the mirror again and then stared at the image on her phone screen. She breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way anyone would think those were the same person. Her hair was long. Her face was thinner and drawn and filthy. She looked like a lifetime member of some insane asylum. While she didn’t necessarily look normal now, she didn’t look like that anymore, either.