Page 15 of Desperate Creed

“I know that sounds strange,” the woman had said, “but you spent the last sixteen years being called Charlotte. It may take some getting used to hearing Brodie.”

It wasn’t strange at all. There were still times when someone called for Brodie and it took a second call before it registered in her mind. The more difficult part was trying to embrace that name. In her mind, Brodie was the little girl who disobeyed her parents and climbed into that RV at the rest area.

Iris Malone had told Brodie how naughty she was. So naughty her parents didn’t want her anymore. She said they told Iris to keep her, to never bring her back. Brodie was the scared, little girl who cried herself to sleep. Brodie missed her family and wanted to go home. Brodie was weak, a big baby.

But Charlotte...Charlotte was the brave one.

Now, everyone was expecting her to be Brodie, again, but she wasn’t sure how to do that. She hadn’t told this to anyone, not even the kind and all-knowing therapist. She didn’t dare, but she also knew it wasn’t right that secretly she felt like a piece of her was still Charlotte.

How was that possible?

She’d never even met the real Charlotte. The little girl had died long before Brodie was taken to replace her.

But none of this matter right now. The storm had triggered a memory, and she wanted to write it down before it left her. The memories were coming more often just in the last several days. Dr. Rockwood had warned her that it might happen.

“Don’t be surprised if the memories come flooding back. Don’t be afraid of them. They can’t hurt you. Write them down. It’ll help you feel like you have control over them.”

“But why,” Brodie asked, “am I remembering all the bad stuff now when I’m safe? When I’m finally free?”

“You’ve gone through such trauma,” the woman had told her. “You were drugged, dehydrated and malnourished. Your mind and body were in survival mode. There was no energy for anything else. Post-traumatic stress disorder works that way sometimes. When things calm down, when you’re feeling safe is when your mind feels safe to remember the things that may have been too painful when you were vulnerable.”

“It’s not a setback?” Brodie wanted to know.

“Not at all. It’s a good thing.”

“But it doesn’t feel like a good thing,” she admitted to the therapist.

“Write it down. Control it. Own it. Then set it aside and move on with living.”

Brodie had been faithful about keeping the journal ever since she’d left Omaha. But only recently had the memories come flooding back—more like nightmares than memories. The morning storm had triggered another.

She hadn’t lied to Ryder. She wasn’t scared of thunderstorms. But as they made their way from the kennel to the house under the dark sky, Brodie had started to hear voices carried by the fierce wind.

In the back of her mind, she could still hear Iris at the top of the basement stairs. She was calling for Aaron. There was urgency in her voice. Urgency on the verge of panic.

Brodie remembered feeling the rumble of thunder. The beams that held up the house seemed to tremble. Iris must have felt it, too, because suddenly, she was yelling for Aaron to hurry.

“What’s happening?” Brodie had asked when Iris came clomping down the basement steps, the flashlight stream leading her way in the dark.

She shot the beam directly into Brodie’s eyes. Even now Brodie blinked, remembering the sharp pain of the sudden brightness. She had no idea how many days before, Iris had taken away the lone light bulb. Nor did Brodie remember what she had done to deserve the punishment of total darkness. It hadn’t been the first time.

But that day, with the storm descending upon them, Iris Malone stomped around like a madwoman. She searched through bare cupboards and cursed Brodie—actually, Charlotte—as if she was the reason there were no emergency supplies. Not even a single light bulb.

Brodie recalled a brief and fleeting impulse to race up those stairs to the unlocked door. Of escaping into the storm. Iris wouldn’t dare follow. Her fear of lightning would hold her back. But the idea had quickly been tamped down. Not out of fear of the storm, but because she was too weak and sick to even move. Stomach cramps had kept her curled up on her mattress clutching the threadbare blanket. Iris made sure that Brodie had very little food, keeping her weak. What rations she was given often came with drugs hidden inside, further ensuring that she couldn’t escape.

“It’s your own fault,” Iris had told her once. “I told you if you behaved I wouldn’t need to punish you.”

But it wasn’t just escaping that warranted punishment. There was always something. An illicit piece of fruit she’d managed to steal. The furnace manual she kept hidden for something to read. Even a pink ribbon she’d found to tie back her long, greasy hair.

But that night, Brodie didn’t attempt—couldn’t attempt—escape. So she simply closed her eyes against the flashlight’s laser beams. She remembered biting back the bile and curling tighter against the stomach spasms. But she also remembered the wicked pleasure in listening to Iris’ gasps and Aaron’s quick breaths each and every time the thunder crashed.

The wind made the house above them groan and sent the walls creaking. It seemed to last for a long time, and it sounded like the structure would give way and collapse on top of them.

But for once, Brodie’s captors were more frightened than she was.

12

Creed was sitting alone with a cup of coffee when Hannah came back. Without a word, she marched to the counter, poured herself a cup and sat down at the table across from him.