Refused to name the girl.
Refused to sign the legal papers to let her go.
Hedging her bets, because thats what she always did.
Credit: Alison Rosa
She could remember tugging on her jeans before she left the hospital.
They were still damp from her water breaking.
It had been like that for as long as she could remember.
Ten years old: her mothers pimp offering to trade a meal for her mouth.
Fifteen: a foster father who liked to cut.
Twenty-three: a soldier who waged war on her body.
Thirty-four: a cop who convinced her it wasnt rape.
Thirty-seven: another cop who made her think he would love her forever.
Forever was never as long as you thought it was.
She touched her daughters face.
Gentle this time, not like before.
Her skin was soft, unlined.
Her eyes were closed, but there was a tremble behind the lids.
Her breath whistled in her chest.
Carefully, she stroked back the girls hair, tucking it behind her ear.
She couldve done this at the hospital all those years ago.
Smoothed a worried forehead.
Kissed ten tiny fingers, caressed ten tiny toes.
She touched her fingers to her daughters lips.
The girl was losing too much blood.
All those lost years.
She shouldve held her daughter at the hospital.
She shook her head.
She couldnt go down the rabbit hole of everything she had lost and why.
She had to think about how strong she was, that she was a survivor.
There was a scuffing noise outside the closed door.
The slit of light at the threshold showed the shadow of two feet slithering along the floor.
Her daughters would-be killer?
The wooden door rattled in the metal frame.
Just a square of light indicated where the knob had been.
The knife sticking out of her daughters chest.
The girl was still breathing.
She touched her fingers to the knife for just a second before she slowly pulled her hand away.
The door rattled again.
There was a scraping sound.
The square of light narrowed, then disappeared, as a screwdriver was jammed into the opening.
Click-click-click, like the dry fire of an empty gun.
Gently, she eased her daughters head to the floor.
She got on her knees, biting her lip as a sharp pain sliced into her ribs.
The wound in her side gaped open.
Blood slid down her legs.
Muscles started to spasm.
She found screws and nails and then her hand brushed against something cold and round and metallic.
She picked up the object.
In the darkness, her fingers told her what she was holding: the broken doorknob.
The four-inch spindle stuck out like an ice pick.
There was a final click of the latch engaging.
The screwdriver clattered to the concrete floor.
The door cracked open.
She narrowed her eyes against the coming light.
She thought about all the ways she had hurt the men in her life.
Once with a gun.
Once with a needle.
Countless times with her fists.
The door opened a few more careful inches.
The tip of a gun snaked around the corner.
FromTHE KEPT WOMANby Karin Slaughter.
Copyright 2016 by Karin Slaughter.
Reprinted by permission of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
