Annabel Lee ─ emily prentiss

four

IN THE heat of the moment, when Troy grabbed her and shoved her into his van before she could stop him, Bel didn't immediately connect the dots. At first she thought it was a one-time thing for Troy, like maybe he'd been watching her for a while and jumped on his chance while she was alone. The world was moving too fast for her to think critically. It wasn't until Troy dragged her into the basement of his house that Bel realized he was the man who'd kidnapped and killed the three other girls.

The basement floor had patches of dried blood all over. When she fell to the floor after he tied her wrists to a support column, Bel noticed tiny tumbleweeds of long hair scattered across the room.

"You killed those girls," she'd said to him. "Shawna, Elise, and Jaime."

Troy grinned. "You're familiar with my work? I hope you're a fan, because you're my next piece."

"Somebody doesn't pay much attention in church." She sat up. "I thought 'thou shalt not kill' was supposed to be pretty important."

The grin turned into a grimace. Troy threw a punch, splitting Bel's lip. "Keep your mouth shut or I'll duct tape it."

He stalked off, and Bel knew her fate was sealed. After the initial freak out and brief consideration of possible escape methods, she realized her life wasn't worth all that trouble. If she somehow survived this, if the police found her or if Troy had a sudden change of heart, she would just be going back to her shitty foster home. The Howells were somehow not the worst foster parents she'd ever had, but they were pretty damn bad. They locked her in her room from 9 PM to 7 AM. They kept the fridge and every cabinet padlocked. They made her do all of their chores, which wouldn't be terrible if they didn't punish her for not doing things just right, like when she didn't dry the dishes enough. Fred Howell believed in old-fashioned punishment—belts, spatulas, anything that left a mark. And if it wasn't the Howells, it would be someone else doing more of the same. Some of her foster homes had not been terrible, but most had.

Her death would be painful, Bel knew, because Troy would probably strangle her like he did with the other girls. But it wouldn't matter, because she'd be dead in the end. Her dead body wouldn't remember the pain or feel whatever he did with it after killing her. It wouldn't know the difference.

Bel picked up a ragged piece of cement that chipped off the floor and began scratching spirals on the ground as best she could. Between her wrists being tied together around the column and her lack of artistic ability, it wasn't going great. Then she heard yelling and what sounded like gunshots coming from the first floor.

"Shit." She dropped the rock. She heard multiple voices, none of which belonged to Troy. The doorknob on the basement door began jiggling. The lock clicked, and the door opened. Someone came down the stairs holding a gun. It was a dark-haired woman wearing a bulletproof vest that read "FBI" in big block letters.

"I got her!" Emily called up the stairs. She approached Bel slowly, lowering her gun. Bel's lip was split, dried blood on her chin, and she had bruises and small cuts on her face, neck, and forearms. "Annabel? I'm Emily. I'm with the FBI. You're safe now."

"Everyone just calls me Bel," Bel said. Emily holstered her gun and knelt down to untie the rope. "Thank you." She meant it genuinely. Finding her probably wasn't easy. "I...I was okay, though. With it."

Emily unknotted the rope, allowing Bel to free her hands. "An—Bel. Do you know what Troy was planning to do to you?"

"Yeah." Bel stood up. "But I wouldn't know the difference once I was dead." She shrugged. "At least if I died, I wouldn't have to go back to my foster parents' place."

Emily didn't know what to say. How bad did the Howells have to be for a fourteen-year-old girl to choose torture and death by serial killer over living with them?