My Stepfather, My Ruin

I woke up to sunlight on my face and a dull, heavy throb behind my eyes. For a second, I didn’t know where I was. The ceiling was too white. The room was too quiet. Nothing in it belonged to me. I sat up too quickly, and the room swayed. My mouth was dry, and my skin flushed. My entire body felt heavy and sore, and my stomach turned before I could even understand why. The spot beside me on the mattress was empty, and the sheets were cold to the touch. I pressed a hand to my forehead and tried to piece together the night before. A glass of fruit juice. The room spinning out of control. A voice down the hallway. Strong arms lifting me up. After that, everything dissolved into a fog. Just a strange, burning heat, and the sound of my own voice agreeing to something I couldn’t remember. My graduation dress hung folded over a velvet chair, creased at exactly the right places. I never fold anything. Whoever did this had taken their time. On the nightstand, my phone showed four missed calls: two from my mother, two from Anna. None from the person I’d believed was with me. I told myself that didn’t mean anything. I didn’t believe it. I made myself look. No note. No wallet, no watch, nothing left behind. A faint smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air, though the room had no ashtray and no one I knew smoked. Then I dressed with unsteady hands and stepped into a quiet corridor. A man in a dark uniform appeared almost at once. “Miss Sinclair. Your driver is waiting downstairs.” I hadn’t called for a car. I hadn’t told anyone where I was. And no one had called me that name before. Once, I would have demanded to know how they’d found me. I had believed that asking the right questions got honest answers. I’d learned better in that house. So I asked nothing. I followed him downstairs, letting him think I was too dazed to wonder how they’d found me. If he was reporting back, I wanted to know who was listening. I stepped out into the morning air, weighed down by the secrets of a house I barely understood, with no idea who had put me in that bed. I knew only one thing for sure. Someone had planned last night down to the last detail. And whoever it was, they were nowhere near finished with me.