Lily recoiled.
Carol crouched so close Lily could smell mint and coffee on her breath. “There are people in my house.”
“Help me,” Lily croaked.
Carol’s hand shot through the bars and clamped around Lily’s jaw. Not hard enough to bruise badly, but hard enough to force stillness.
“Listen carefully,” she said. “You do that again, and I stop bringing you food.”
Lily’s eyes filled.
Carol released her and stood. For one terrible second Lily thought she might hit her.
Instead, Carol smiled.
It was the smile that changed Lily forever, because there was no anger left in it at all. Only calculation.
“You know what your problem is?” Carol asked softly. “You still think somebody is coming to rescue you.”
Then she walked upstairs and locked the basement door behind her.
The party sounds above turned muffled and surreal. A burst of laughter. The scrape of chairs on the deck. Once, a man said something about burgers and everybody laughed again. Lily curled up against the bars and stared at the concrete floor until her vision blurred.
The house had become a theater, and Carol was good at her role.
By the third day, Lily understood exactly what kind of woman her stepmother was.
Not an impulsively cruel one. Not a woman with anger problems. Not somebody who “went too far.”
Carol was a woman who enjoyed power more when the powerless person knew exactly what was happening.
Late that afternoon, after the guests left, a summer storm rolled through. The sky darkened until the basement window turned green-gray. Thunder boomed so close the glass rattled. Rain struck the window well in hard sheets, and for the first time in three days the air cooled enough for Lily to stop sweating.
She lay with her face against the blanket, exhausted beyond crying.
At some point, headlights swept briefly across the small window near the ceiling.
Then the garage door rumbled.
