She never looked back.
In the end they dragged me back and locked me in a room.
I begged the man to let me go. Just send me home, I told him, and I would repay him however he wanted.
He only sneered.
"What are you thinking? Myrtle gave her orders. You're supposed to suffer, and suffer well."
"You still don't know what I am to Myrtle, do you?"
He watched the shock and despair drain into my eyes, and came toward me one slow step at a time.
"My name's Noah."
"I'm Myrtle Fox's cousin."
And just like that, I belonged to Noah.
Afterward I fought it. I ran.
But Fox Hollow was full of Myrtle's people, and there was nowhere to run.
Every time they caught me and brought me back, the price went up.
Noah beat me. He broke two sticks across my body.
The worst time, he'd been drinking, and he cut off one of my arms.
Blood spread across the floor, and he didn't dare call for an ambulance.
He found a couple of rags, wrapped it up, and called it done.
After that I finally learned to be obedient. I never dared run again.
A year and more has passed now, and my arm has healed.
But the wound my own mother drove through my heart only hurts worse.
And there she stood in front of me, voice cold as ever.
"After I sent you here that year, I went back and found those punks."
"Not one photo of you ever got out. They were all destroyed, and those boys are behind bars now."
"I pulled every string I had to avenge you. Can't you show me a little understanding?"
I didn't want to bring it up.
I never wanted to bring that up again!
Why wouldn't she let me go.
Did she have to watch me lose my mind!
I clawed at my own hair and broke down sobbing.
"Stop talking about it! Say one more word and I'll throw myself off this mountain!!"
She saw that something was wrong with me, that I wasn't faking it.
At last she took out her phone and called someone, I didn't know who.
"I invested three million in your Fox Hollow so you'd look after my daughter for three years."
"Why is she in this state? What happened to her?"
"And her hand—what happened to her hand? You'd better explain, or I'll see you in court!"
There was a beat of silence, and then the mayor's voice came on.
"Mrs. Gilbert, we've taken good care of your daughter Irene the whole time."
"But she's jealous of Myrtle. She wouldn't listen to a word we said."
"She broke her own arm two years ago. We wanted to call you then, and she wouldn't let us."
"This really has nothing to do with us..."
My mother hung up.
A businesswoman's caution kept her from believing the mayor outright.
She made a few more calls, and the answer came back the same every time.
The villagers were united. Every one of them said I'd broken my own arm.
That I'd always been arrogant, that I looked down on everyone.
When the last call ended, my mother was past containing her fury and swung her hand at my face.
The slap cracked across my cheek, knocked my head sideways, and left me standing there with hollow eyes.
Her chest heaved.
"It seems you still haven't suffered enough."
"If it weren't time for you to take over the company, I'd leave you here another ten years!"
Then she told the driver waiting nearby to push me into the car.
My ears were ringing, my cheek burning in waves.
I sat in the car, silent, heart gone to ash, the same as every other beating these three years.
It didn't matter where I was.
It was a beating either way.
The only thing that changed was that Noah had been swapped out for my mother.
To me, there was no difference.
Three hours later, I came home to the house I hadn't seen in three years.
