Chapter 1
“You have to go,” he says. I pause and stare at him as he opens the door to the small room I am in. The walls are dark blue, with a bed in the corner and a small, brown coffee table in the center of the room. There is a small bathroom with a toilet and a shower. It's a bland room, but I’ve grown to be very comfortable here. He wants me to go? Is he letting me go home? Home.
Can I even call it that? Home is a strong word. Home is a place where you feel safe and secure. Home is a place where you can relax and enjoy the company of your family. That house is not my home. I never felt safe, or secure. I have never relaxed a single muscle in that house. I have lived in fear that I may not live to see the next day. I have lived in fear that my mom would overdose and no one would notice until it was too late. I have lived in fear that my father would touch me again. I have lived with trepidation that I might decide that I no longer need to be in this messed-up world. That is not my home, that’s a house that I lived in for 16 years and I never want to go back.
Is it wrong to feel safer and more secure here, in the home of a serial killer? I can’t go back, I can’t. Not after a whole year of this isolation, not after I met him. I look at Wayde, my kidnapper. His long hair is messy and strung around his face. His eyes are a light chestnut brown which is interesting since he is Korean, but his eyes couldn’t be more perfect. That’s when I notice a single tear fall from the corner of his eye. Is he crying? I know he has a fear of people leaving him. His parents were drunks, and his father was lazy and wasn’t there most of his life. His mother was a druggy who was violent and would only pay attention to Wayde when he did something wrong. Why would he cry? He is the one telling me to leave. Could he possibly have feelings for me? That’s ridiculous Kira, why would he have feelings for you? He kidnapped you for God’s sake.
“No,” I say as I get up from the bed and face him.
“No? What do you mean no? I can’t let you stay here forever, you made me realize I was wrong all this time.” His expression changes into a confused stern look, yet I see the smallest glint of relief in his eyes.
“I can’t go back. Where would I even go? My house? No, you can’t make me go back, I can’t. I can’t” I sit back down on the bed as my heart starts to race. I repeat I can’t over and over again. I can feel it, it's starting to happen again. My leg bounces as I rub my wrists together, trying to calm down. But I can’t, my breathing starts to become broken and skewed. Wayde races over and kneels on the floor in front of the bed.
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. Breathe, just breathe.”
“Don’t tell me it’s okay! You got to escape from your hell hole and I finally escaped from mine and you want me to go back?” He pulls my hands to his chest and squeezes them tight and repeats, “It’s okay.” My breathing starts to slow down as I relax a little. He is the only one who can calm me down during an anxiety attack. Tears start to fall down my cheeks and I think about his hands, the way they are squeezing my hands with strength but yet he is so gentle. His hands are soft, what lotion does he use? He brings my hands up to his lips and kisses them gently. His lips feel soft as they linger on my hands for just a moment. My breathing stops for a moment. I close my eyes and my leg stops bouncing and my breathing returns to normal.
“You can’t stay here forever, it’s not good for you,” he says softly, still holding my hands.
“I’m giving you the choice to leave and go live your life and you said no? Come on, you have to think rationally.”
I am thinking rationally, aren’t I? It’s safer here in this room with this man than it is in that house with my father. Am I wrong for not wanting to leave? No, I’m not wrong. Anybody in my situation would feel the same.
“I can’t go back to that house, I lived in fear every day, wondering if I will even be able to get out of the house to go to school. But here, I don’t have that fear. You wanted me, you’re the first person to ever do that.”
“I’m a serial killer, I kidnapped you to kill you…”
“But you didn’t kill me. I’m still here aren’t I?” I search his eyes for a clue as to what he is thinking, for the reason why he didn’t kill me, but I see nothing. It’s like he is masking his emotions like when I first met him.
“You have to go, you have no choice.”
Then the realization hit me. “You’re trying to get rid of me, you’re just like everybody else.” I pull my hands from him and stand up from the bed. He doesn’t want me here anymore, it’s not because he wants me to go live my life. He just doesn’t want me to be here, maybe it’s because I live here rent-free, or maybe it’s because he can’t handle my manic episodes.
“I’m not trying to get rid of you Kira. “
“Yes, you are! If you don’t want me here, just say it! Why didn’t you kill me? You could’ve killed me so I wouldn’t have to live in this god-awful world. ”
“I fell in love with you, Kira!” I freeze and my heart feels like it’s going to explode right out of my chest. He shouldn’t have said that, I look at his face for some kind of regret but there is none. I shake my head as he talks.
“Kira, please. Just go, you can’t stay…”
“I can’t go; please, I have nothing for me out there. Not a family who loves me, no friends, no high school diploma, no job, nothing. I have nothing but you.”
“You’re going, walk to the door.” I stand and don’t move. He can’t make me leave.
“Walk to the door or I will drag you there, and trust me, Kira, you don’t want to make me drag you there.” I just stand there challenging him, he’s not going to drag me. He has been nice and gentle with me this past year, he couldn’t possibly go back to his old ways, right? When he first kidnapped me, he was aggressive and scary. He slowly started to become a gentle and caring person and he never hurts me anymore.
“I warned you, Kira,” he grabs my arm and pushes me toward the door. I try to pull away, but he has a firm grip on my arm. I can feel my wrist burn in pain as he opens the door and drags me through the doorway and slams the door shut. I glance at his eyes and I see nothing but rage and for the first time in a year, I felt terrified of this man. But despite that fear, I won't budge. I glanced at him for a brief moment. I saw nothing but fear and pain. I stand at the bottom of the dark staircase staring at him. His expression doesn’t change as he scoops me up and throws me over his shoulder. He walks up to the top of the staircase but doesn’t put me down until we get to the front door. When he sets me down I notice his living room for the first time. It’s not what I expected, I expected a dark ominous living room with dark paintings. But it is quite the opposite. It's bright and very coordinated. There are modern paintings in elegant picture frames on the wall. Wayde leans toward me and unlocks the front door behind me. I don’t move to open the door.
“Just open the door, Kira, please.” His tone has changed to a pleading agonizing whisper, and I almost open the door. He sighs heavily and walks toward the kitchen, he comes back with a small brown bottle and a washcloth. He pours the liquid from the bottle onto the cloth as he walks toward me and I read the label on the bottle, that’s chloroform. My eyes widen and I move away from the door and try to run toward the stairs, but he immediately catches me and shoves the cloth to my nose. I try not to breathe as I flop around, trying to get free. But he doesn’t let go and I feel my lungs burning, I finally take a deep breath and I regret it immediately. I gasp for air as my throat itches and I can feel my throat start to prickle with a stabbing sensation. I feel my eyes start to droop and then I smell something sweet but toxic as my eyes shut and I hear Wayde say, “I’m sorry,” and I drift into a deep, sleep.
2 days later
I sit and stare at the forest in front of my house in the woods. It’s been 2 weeks since Wayde let me go. Well, he didn’t let me go technically, he forced me to go by using chloroform. After I passed out from the toxic chemical, he took me here and laid me on the couch. I woke up to a note on the coffee table.
Kira,
I bought this cabin in the woods for you to live in. I wasn’t going to send you back to your “hell-hole”, that was never my intention. I knew that if you stayed with me for much longer, I would never be able to let you go. You are the only person who has ever listened to what I have to say and you understood what I went through. You understood the reasoning behind what I do, and I can’t thank you enough for that. I now see that what I’ve done was wrong, very wrong and that is why I couldn’t let you stay with me anymore. I couldn’t live with myself after that and I didnt want you to see me tumble down a dark path because I knew what was going to happen and I didn’t want you to talk me out of it. I turned myself in to the police and wrote apology letters to all of the families of all of my previous victims, but I know that won’t change how they feel about me. I couldn’t live in prison for the rest of my life so I’m going to stop this misery because I can’t take it any longer. I hope you like the cabin in the woods, it should keep you cozy and safe away from your parents. Again, I am sorry, so very sorry. I really do love you.
~Wayde Colliar
I had stared at the paper for a long time and a tear falls on the paper, and then more started streaking down my face, and those tears turn into sobs. Those tears didn’t stop falling down my face until I walked outside and screamed. There was nobody around, and I collapsed on my knees in the dry dirt. I didn’t realize how cold it was until I saw my fingertips turn red, but I sat there on my knees despite it being 10 degrees outside in the dead of winter. That day I was a mess, I didn’t eat anything and I didn’t shower off all of the dirt from my hands. I had constant tears running down my face even as I lay in bed waiting for sleep.
It’s been 2 weeks, and sleep isn’t coming easily. I would lie awake in bed and just think about things and sometimes I cry myself asleep. I pace back and forth in the kitchen, my wrists are raw from rubbing them back and forth all day. My breathing starts to become skewed as my pacing gets faster. Wayde. That’s who I want but he is gone, he left me here all alone in this empty cabin in the woods. Why does he get an easy way out? Angry tears run down my face as I spot a butcher knife on a cutting board. I stand still for a moment, a part of me wants me to look away and call someone to take me to town. But what I want so desperately is for all of this pain to stop. I want to be done with this life and these stupid anxiety attacks. My feet start moving without my brain telling them to. I reach down and pick up the knife. Nobody will miss me if end it here. Nobody misses me right now, they probably think I’m dead anyways. I point the knife toward my chest and I take a deep rigid breath. I don’t feel anything as I plunge the knife through my chest. I close my eyes, Wayde, I’m sorry.
