Appetite for Innocence: A Dark Psychological Thriller Read online

  “You’re a survivor,” she says. “You’ve walked through hell and you made it. All by yourself. But you don’t have to keep walking by yourself anymore. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

  ELLA

  (THEN)

  “It’s over,” I tell Paige.

  “What’s over?” she asks looking up from her book.

  “Him being nice to me and not wanting anything.”

  “Oh.” She exhales slowly and closes her book. “I’m sorry.”

  I start to sob. He hasn’t raped me yet, but it’s coming. He tries each night after dinner. He makes me undress and lie down on the bed. He starts kissing and touching me. I try not to cry, but I can’t help myself. Each time I cry, he gets angry and stops. My crying makes him not want to touch me and he loses his erection. I should feel happy that I keep dodging it, but I don’t. I’m terrified of making him mad and he grows more and more furious each time I can’t keep my emotions under control. I’m afraid of what he’ll do to me if he can’t have me.

  It’s why I’m here. I know that now. My days of pretending like I’m just a prisoner he likes to have dinner with are gone. He has one goal. Always has.

  I start to cry. “What’s he going to do if he can’t... if he can’t...”

  I can’t speak the words, but I don’t need to. Paige knows what I’m talking about.

  She comes over to my bed and holds my hand. “I don’t know, but I don’t think you want to find out.”

  I want to die, close my eyes and never wake up.

  “Here’s what you have to do.” She motions for me to come closer. “You just pretend you’re somewhere else. You have to make your brain go away. Switch it off and think about something happy.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Sometimes. Not always.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  He always says he’ll be gentle. He promises to go slow.

  “Yes.” Her voice is barely a whisper.

  I start dreading each day more than ever, even more than my first week. I cringe each time his voice calls out over the intercom and relief washes over me when he calls Paige instead of me, but then I’m wracked with guilt because I know he’s hurting her. I cry for her until she comes downstairs again. I try to lay next to her on her bed and comfort her but she pushes me away, tells me not to touch her.

  Whenever he calls my name, I’ve started throwing up in the toilet before I go upstairs. Sarah gets super annoyed with it. She says he doesn’t like to wait. I can barely eat because I’m sick to my stomach but I’ve discovered the effect wine has on an empty stomach. It dulls my senses. Blurs all the edges.

  I’ve started drinking more and more at dinner. If I drink enough, it’s like I’m sleepwalking. He notices how much I’m drinking because he’s the one who fills my glass, but he doesn’t say anything. By the time he’s ready to move into the bedroom, my head is swirling and I’m unsteady on my feet.

  Tonight he has to practically carry me there because I drank so much. I don’t shake while I drop my robe. My hands are steady. My fear is still there but it’s outside of myself where I can’t touch it. I lay back.

  Just pretend you’re somewhere else, I tell myself over and over again. I picture myself in my bedroom at home, but I know what’s about to happen and I don’t want my room, even if it’s only in my imagination, to be tainted with his filth. I switch to picturing myself at the beach, but that doesn’t work either. I can still feel his hands on my body, pinching, pulling, and prodding. I can still hear his moans in my ear as he gets more and more excited. His hot breath on my neck. His slobbery kisses all over me.

  My head is spinning. The room is tilted on its side. Before I know it, vomit is in my throat and it spews out of my mouth uncontrollably. I turn my head to the side, gagging and heaving. I can’t stop. It just keeps coming. He slaps the back of my head and yanks me up by my hair.

  “Now you’ve done it,” he hisses through gritted teeth. “You’ve pissed me off.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” My words are slurred. “I was trying. I was really trying this time.”

  “You don’t understand how patient I’ve been with you,” he says. He wipes at my red puke with his shirt. His face is filled with disgust and revulsion. “I can’t have any of this. This is not how it works. You’ve got one more try.”

  Terror rushes through my body. “What happens if I can’t?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  SARAH

  (THEN)

  He’s given up hope on Ella. I’ve seen it happen before. Sometimes the girls just can’t get it together. They can’t do what they need to do to make him happy. When they can’t, he gets rid of them. He has an appetite for innocence and a very short attention span. It’s not a good combination.

  It doesn’t matter to me, anyway. He’ll replace her with somebody else if things don’t work out. At least her end won’t be as painful as some of the others. He has more compassion for the girls who are too afraid to give him what he wants than the ones who lie to him. He goes into one of his rages if he discovers they’re not pure. Then, he has no mercy.

  He’s already planning his next one if this doesn’t work out. It’s why I know its nearing the end for her. He skips bringing either girl up for dinner and spends it on the Internet, scouring social media profiles to find the perfect one. I don’t understand why girls are so dumb. They put a target on their back with their constant check-ins, telling the world where they’re at and opening up private lives for anyone to see.

  But I cherish our nights alone. He asks for my opinions on their pictures and I’m honest. He can tell when I’m lying anyway so there’s no point. Besides, he’s the one who cares what they look like. Not me.

  We eat dinner together. I get to be the one to sit with him rather than having to serve him. It’s so much better this way. I talk to him about my day. The things I did around the house. The shows I watched on TV.

  I love being in the house alone. When it’s just me, I pretend it’s all mine. I plop on the couch with the expensive chocolates he brings back from work trips and flip through the channels, settling on whatever show I want. Sometimes I take a nap in one of the bedrooms. Never his bedroom or the one he uses for the girls. Always one of the spares. My favorite one is the red room. Just one red wall against the contrasting white. The bed is like sinking into heaven. The windows are next to the trees that bloom small orange flowers year-round. During the spring, it’s covered in bees and the same family of robins come back each year. It’s my favorite room and the one I’d choose as mine if he’d ever let me move upstairs permanently.

  Someday, he will. Everything always takes a long time with him. It was ages before I got the freedom I have now. I had to prove myself first, but I’ve never let him down. Not once. I always do what I say I’ll do and I follow his directions. It’s not always easy. He is picky and can be finicky about things. Like one day he insists that the black mugs go on the second shelf, but the next day, he’s angry because they belong on the third. The towels in every bathroom need to be lined up perfectly. That was my first lesson in how particular he is.

  One day they were uneven, just slightly off, but enough for him to notice. He took away my food for three days and didn’t let me out.

  I’ve studied him for a long time, though, and I’ve learned to read his moods like I read my favorite books. I can tell by the slightest twitch of his eyebrow if he’s getting angry or by how far apart his strides are in his walk if he’s had a bad day and I plan accordingly. I anticipate his every move. Every need. I try to meet them before he even has to ask.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he’ll say when I surprise him with what he wanted without him even having to ask like I’ve read his mind.

  I always beam. I love when he tells me he’s proud of me.

  He confirms what I already suspected as we sit down to eat.

  “I don’t think Ella is going to work out. I think she’s one of those,” he says.r />
  I take a sip of my wine, dabbing my mouth afterward with a napkin just like he taught me. “Really?”

  “Yes. She just can’t get past her fear.”

  “That’s too bad. Have you tried the chicken yet?”

  He takes a bite. “It’s great. Really juicy.”

  I beam. “I tried a new recipe. I saw Rachael Ray do it the other day.”

  “I’m going to give her one more try, but I think we’re going to have to start preparing for her to be gone.”

  I nod. “I understand. Will you let me know so I can get things ready?”

  He smiles at me. “Of course.”

  ELLA

  (THEN)

  I should just let him kill me. Get it over with. End all of this because what do I have to live for? Let a man brutalize me so I can stay his prisoner? I hate the thought of him killing me. I’d rather just kill myself. Maybe I should. But what about my mom? I know she’s still out there searching for me, but it’s been over two months and I’m losing hope that they’ll ever find me. It seems silly to hold on, but I know she’d never give up. Ever. She’ll never stop looking for me so don’t I owe it to her to stay alive?

  Would she want me to stay alive if she knew I was living this way? And when he’s done with me, when he’s had his fill, then what happens? What happened to the other girls? Does he let them go? That’s the question nobody knows. It’s a story whose ending nobody has despite all the tales passed down. What if he lets me go free when all this is over? What if this is the rite of passage to my freedom?

  My head spins with all the questions. The questions that have to be answered because either way, it’s all going to be over soon. He’s put me on a timetable. I can either make the decision myself or leave my fate in his hands.

  I think about praying. It’s what I’ve done for every other decision I’ve made in my life. I’ve always asked for wisdom and guidance. Or strength. Whatever I needed for the situation. I used to think God provided it, but I don’t think so anymore. If God can let something like this happen, then God’s a horrible person and I want nothing to do with him.

  The next night when it’s my name he calls over the intercom, my stomach flips. I swallow back the taste of bile in my throat. My legs are lead as I follow Sarah up the stairs. The bath is quick tonight and he barely pays me attention. His thoughts are somewhere else.

  And then it hits me—he doesn’t let us go. If he did, I would’ve heard countless stories about it in the news and there’s never been anything. No stories of girls kept in basements and released once he was done with them. The media would be all over it. It’s not like he’s only done this a few times. We’d all be on the alert for a serial rapist, but we’re not, which means nobody knows about him and if nobody knows about him, then nobody knows about us.

  He kills us. That’s what he does.

  He doesn’t speak during dinner. He’s never been quiet while we eat. He taps away on his phone. It’s as if I don’t even exist to him anymore.

  “Did you have a good day?” I clutch my glass of wine.

  He shrugs his shoulders. Doesn’t even make eye contact.

  “What are you reading?” I ask. I’m obsessed with getting him to talk to me. Look at me. Anything.

  “Nothing special.”

  My hands are shaking so hard it’s difficult to bring the fork to my mouth, but I have to eat something to counteract the wine. I can’t make it through this night without the wine and I can’t throw up on him like I did last time.

  There’s too much silence. I stumble over my words trying to fill it. He’s annoyed. Annoyance is one step away from his anger. I have to do it. I can’t give up and die here. If I die here, he gets away with it. He can’t get away with this. He just can’t.

  “Are you done yet?” His voice is clipped. Eyes are dark.

  “Yes.” I put down my fork and take one last huge gulp of my wine.

  He doesn’t have to push me into the bedroom. I plod along with him behind me, each step getting closer to the inevitable. I fight the waves of panic pummeling me.

  He shuts the door behind us and locks it like always.

  I look into his eyes as I drop my robe in front of him. I force myself to make eye contact, to look deep into his eyes like people do when they’re in love at the movies. I don’t flinch. I don’t look away. I don’t cover my body. The flecks of silver glimmer in his eyes. A smile slowly tugs at the corner of his mouth.

  I step back to the bed and lay down. His eyes devour me. I want to move so badly it makes my muscles twitch, but I force myself to stay still. And then he’s on top of me. I lay motionless, but I don’t cry. I bite my cheek to keep the tears inside. The taste of blood fills my mouth. I swallow it. Keep biting. I turn my head to the side. Stare at the blinking red light from the camera above the door staring back at me. What will he see in my eyes when he watches this later?

  And then it’s happening. I fight the urge to kick. To scream. Hit. Bite, scratch. Claw. White hot pain sears me like a knife. My insides are being torn apart. I want to scream. Instead, I moan. It only makes him more excited.

  Pretend you’re dead, I chant in my head. Pretend you’re dead.

  When it’s over, he lays me on my side and rests my head on his lap. He strokes my hair, softly petting me like I’m a kitten. “See, that wasn’t so bad now, was it?”

  ELLA

  (NOW)

  I’m tired of the stale air in here. The fluorescent lights. The meals on trays. I just want to go home. I still can’t sleep. It doesn’t matter how many pills they give me. I’m exhausted, but wide awake and it’s brutal.

  “Mom, are we ever going to leave?” I ask when she returns with tea for both of us. Decaffeinated for me. Caffeinated for her.

  “I talked to Blake about it this morning. He said as long as the doctors clear you, we should be able to go either tomorrow or the next day. They’re not sending us home alone, though. It looks like one of the officers will be coming with us and probably Randy too.” She frowns. She grows more and more annoyed with Randy every day. I can’t blame her. She has something to say about everything Mom does and she rarely agrees with her.

  “Ugh,” I groan. “Can’t they find us someone else?”

  “Apparently, she’s the best there is,” Mom says.

  Randy has started trying to get me to talk about the rapes. She says it will help me begin to move past it, but I don’t want to. I’m not telling her the details of what he did to me. Not now. Not ever. I haven’t told Mom either and I won’t. It would crush her. She knows he raped me. That’s enough.

  “There’s something else I want to talk to you about,” Mom says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Sarah.”

  Even though her real name is Petra, we still call her Sarah. Mom’s been going back and forth between our two rooms ever since Phil told her Sarah’s real story.

  “What about her?” I ask.

  “I’m thinking about asking if we can bring her home with us.”

  I sit straight up in bed. “Are you kidding me? No way!”

  I’m not bringing that girl to my home. Not after everything she did. It’s bad enough that I’ve had to share Mom with her these past few days. I’m not sharing my home. She’ll contaminate it. I’m trying to leave all of this behind me, not bring it with me.

  “Honey–”

  “Don’t call me honey!” I snap. I’ve already told her that. She can call me Ella Bear, but no other terms of endearment. No Honey. No Sweetie. No Darling. Nothing. He’s stolen those words. I’m never getting them back.

  “Sorry, I forgot. But before you get upset, just hear me out. That poor girl has nothing. Nobody. When I was talking to Phil this morning about where she’ll go after here, do you know what he said?”

  I shake my head. I want to cover my ears. I don’t care where she goes. She’s not my problem. I want to forget everything about her.

  “They’re going to have to put her back in foster care. S
he’ll probably just float through the system until she’s eighteen. I just don’t feel right about sending her into foster care. Those places can be so terrible. She needs someone to love her. To give her a safe place where she can work through everything she’s been through.” She sounds close to tears.

  If it was Paige, I’d say yes without a second thought, but Sarah? No way.

  “Will you please just think about it?” Her eyes are pleading. I can see she’s made up her mind already. “It might be nice for the two of you to work through things together. You could be each other’s support network.”

  “What’d Randy say?” I ask.

  “She doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Then, you should listen to Randy. She’s the expert,” I snap.

  She frowns. “I thought you’d be more excited about it. You’ve always wanted a sister.”

  That part was true. Yes, I wanted a sister, but not someone who pretended to be a psychopath’s daughter. Not someone who could’ve helped us escape any time she wanted to, but chose not to. Not someone I had to fight off just so I could try. No way. It’s not happening.

  SARAH

  (NOW)

  I’m afraid to look at the pictures. Last time I looked at their pictures, they told me I was someone else. Blake and Phil keep calling me Petra no matter how many times I tell them my name is Sarah. They don’t care. They insist it’s who I am. At least Randy calls me what I want to be called.

  This time the pictures are of teenage girls. There’s hundreds of them.

  “Who are these girls?” I ask.

  “They’re all missing children,” Blake says.

  He’s not kind to me anymore. He treats me like a criminal. I don’t blame him for it. I’ve done unspeakable things. Things I’ll never tell anyone, but I wasn’t always this way. I didn’t set out to become what I’ve become. I didn’t have any other choice. Everything changed after Tiffany.