There's something wrong with Phoebe

26 - Mollie

I woke early and looked out of the slightly ajar window. It had been so hot last night, and I recalled tossing and turning as I tried to get comfortable. Heat always reminded me of that day way back when, just like snow did another day. A cool breeze blew through from outside, and I liked the feel of the air on my skin. I looked to my right and saw Adam still asleep, his face finally showing an expression of tranquil. Then I remembered that, though I had struggled to get to sleep last night, I had not been woken at an absurd hour.

Excitedly, I slid the duvet sheets off me, kissed Adam gently on the cheek and slipped out, pattering across the hallway to Lily’s room. I peeped around the door which was always open, and looked at the cot where Lily lay, cuddling her blanket like a teddy, her chubby legs sprawled either side of her and her dimpled cheeks were flushed. I smiled as I closed the door again. After six restless months, she had finally slept through the night. I crept back out of her room and poked my head around the next door where Taylor lay. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring up at the ceiling. Taylor had just turned twelve. And she had no idea what she was doing with her life.

I loved Taylor, but she was a constant reminder of him every day of my life. Her dark hair reflected his, as well as those deep, meaningful eyes and sharp chin. She was a quick thinker but closed herself off from everyone. I hadn’t known if the arrangement would ever really work, but my officer, Nicole, had said it was better I tried to make something of a relationship with my daughter.

We’d started to get on, and then, just over a year ago, I’d found out I was pregnant. That had been the tipping point. She hadn’t talked to me, and glared at Adam all the time. She didn’t treat me like a mother. It was like I was holding her hostage. She had no idea what it was like to be held hostage. I doubted she remembered any of it. She grew up with a paedophile and mass-abductor. She was raised by him, away from her mother, and made to love him. It had been all she had known when the police had taken all of the kids from the underground home. A few had been identified as missing kids, but many had been orphans.

Some were similar age to me, and they still felt it necessary to obey him though he was behind bars, and so they caused five explosions over the country in little under a week. The police force feared they would never realise their mistakes. I had been going the same way as them though.

Just another few months in his hold and there would have been no going back for me. Just like that Lily. Lily had gone mad. She’d grabbed a shot gone and killed twenty three people in a street before shooting herself. I’d had to name my daughter after her. She hadn’t had a chance at life, to be who she really was. She had been my greatest friend for so long, though I often questioned if we’d ever actually liked each other. When two people are flung together and made to work with each other, it makes it easier if you get along. I remembered when I’d first met her and she had despised me. My whole life had been a lie; I didn’t see why my friendships wouldn’t have been too.

It’s been six years. It’s scary to think I’ve been apart from him for as long as I was in his grasp. It’s even scarier that I still imagine seeing him round every corner I turn though I do not dare speak his name, though the listening devices in us have been removed. It’s been enforced in me to think before I speak. I still think maybe he’s listening.

When I shut my eyes, I see his face. I hear him sometimes; talking to me. And I feel him on me. I catch myself randomly, in a daze, remembering something that happened during those six years. Sometimes it’s simple images of me creating bombs with the other girls; sometimes it’s the screaming as I give birth to Taylor without any medication. That had been the reason I’d been so anxious about my Lily. No matter how hard I tried to forget, the memories of being in a dark, musky room and hearing Taylor’s first scream haunted me.