Bury Me(10)

I follow her down the hallway toward the front door.

“Tell your mom thanks. Maybe another time,” she says as she reaches for the handle of the door.

It suddenly opens before she can get to it, and I stop a few feet behind her as she jumps out of the way.

I watch as Nolan steps inside, a surprised look on his face as his glance shifts between Trudy and me before focusing on her.

“Nice to see you again, Trudy,” he tells her with a cocky smile.

Her face immediately reddens in embarrassment, and she gives him a wide berth as she quickly moves around him and out the front door. Nolan turns and watches her leave as she yells over her shoulder without turning around.

“I’ll give you a call later to see how you’re doing, Ravenna.”

She jogs down the stairs of the front porch and disappears from sight. When she’s gone, Nolan turns back around and stares at me silently. Trudy was right: he really is something nice to look at, even if being alone with him right now makes me nervous. His skin is tanned from working outside all day, and the finely toned muscles in his arms and under his t-shirt prove that he spends most of his time doing a lot of hard manual labor. He’s taller than me and obviously stronger.

Strong enough to hurt me if he wanted to.

Trudy told me he was bad news and at least that information feels right for some reason, but she also said she didn’t know him personally. Going by the familiar way Nolan looked at her and said her name, he knows her, and she definitely knows him.

“Tell your father I finished mowing around the lake, and I’m going to head home for the day,” he tells me gruffly.

Without waiting for a reply, he backs out of the door, and it slams closed behind him. My feet stay glued to their spot in the middle of the hallway as I stare at the large wooden door.

“My name is Ravenna Duskin. I’m eighteen years old, I live in a prison, and my best friend is lying to me.”





Chapter 4





I spend the next few days wandering around the inside of Gallow’s Hill, reciting facts about the prison to myself as I go, hoping the things I know will unlock some of the things I don’t, but nothing works. I feel like I do when I sometimes fill in for my father as tour guide, saying things I’ve memorized from a book instead of things I should inherently know after growing up here.

I’ve attempted to get some fresh air and walk the grounds outside a few times these last couple of days, but each time I’ve stepped out onto the porch, I’ve seen Nolan working around the yard. Even if his back is to me, he immediately stops what he’s doing as if he somehow senses I’m close. When he turns and looks at me and our eyes meet, I’m immediately filled with fear, and I rush back inside, pushing aside the need for fresh air and sunshine to run away from the man who looks at me with equal parts anger and curiosity.

While my days are filled with wandering and trying to avoid Nolan, my evenings are filled with uncomfortable dinners with my parents at the small kitchen table in our living quarters. With stilted conversation and vague answers to the questions I ask, I feel like I’m sitting at a table surrounded by strangers instead of the people who raised and love me.

Needing something to do to occupy myself, I’ve spent the last hour rearranging items in the gift shop and stacking new inventory on the metal shelves that take up most of the small room. I suddenly hear raised voices upstairs, and I pause with a folded t-shirt in my hands, craning my neck to better hear. A loud thump above my head has me tossing the shirt haphazardly on top of a pile of others and moving quickly out of the room toward the stairs. I tiptoe upwards, careful to avoid the loose floorboards, so the creak from the old wood doesn’t alert anyone to my presence. At the top of the stairs I pause as the voices grow louder, and I hold my breath as I listen to my parents argue.

“There’s something not right with her, Tanner; you’ve got to see that,” my mother complains.

I hear the shuffling of feet and I move a little closer to their closed bedroom door.

“Stop borrowing trouble, Claudia. Just keep reminding her who she is and everything will be fine,” my father tells her in an irritated voice.

“We shouldn’t have to remind her who she is!” my mother shouts. “We shouldn’t have to tell her what kind of person she is! She’s not the same person, and I know it. I know what you did, Tanner. No matter what lies you keep telling me, I know what you did! What happened to my baby? What the hell did you do with my baby?! Where did she go?”