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eat,” my mother sobbed as she sat at the edge of my bed. I knew she was worried about me, but I couldn’t make her feel better. I didn’t have the energy. I didn’t have an ounce of strength left in my body. It was taking everything from me just to breathe.
    “Please, sweetheart,” Mom whispered, stroking my hair. “Come downstairs for a little while. It’s Christmas.”
    “Leave me alone,” I managed to say, though it was a struggle.
    “Cade …”
    “Go away,” I hissed, clenching my eyes shut.
    I waited for my mother to leave before I rolled onto my stomach, buried my face in my pillow, and started to cry.
    I didn’t give a fuck who saw me.
    They could call me a pussy for crying. It didn’t matter to me.
    The only thing that had ever mattered to me had been snatched away.
    Mackenzie …
    The image of her face infiltrated my mind, the sound of her screams the night she was snatched played like a broken record in my brain, causing my sobbing to turn into hard, ugly crying.
    Jesus Christ, the pain was killing me.
    I couldn’t live with the guilt …
     
     
     
    ****
     

Mackenzie
    December 31 st , 2002
     
     
    My skin was burning – blistering and weeping. The sun, flooding through the holes in the ceiling was blinding me, paralyzing me, and I couldn’t see a thing. I was so thirsty – so desperately thirsty. Strangely, I wasn’t hungry, even though I hadn’t eaten in three days. But, then again, I didn’t think I would ever eat again. Not after what had been forced into my body ...
    Rocking back and forth, I wrapped my arms around my skeletal legs and wept silently. I couldn’t live like this anymore. I wanted to die. I wished I were a stronger person, so that I when I tried to hold my breath and suffocate myself, my body would comply. My mind wanted to die. But my traitorous body kept inhaling the precious air needed to keep me alive.
    “Don’t let them get into your head,” I heard Mary croak. “They want to crush your spirit – they get off on that. Do not let them win. Fight them. Fight back and never stop fighting …”
    Mary and I were alone in the cells. Usually, I was never brought down here. But yesterday I’d been bad. I’d vomited during an act and that had made Master furious.
    “Sunshine – are you listening to me?”
    Flinching, I curled up on my flea-infested mattress and clasped my hands over my ear. “Don’t call me that,” I begged Mary. I hated that name. “Never call me that.”
    “Okay, I’m sorry,” she rasped, as she crawled over the urine-stained concrete floor towards me. It took all of Mary’s strength to get to me because she collapsed on my mattress the second she reached it. Mary was the thinnest of us all. She was also the one with the worst scars and wounds. Sometimes I was afraid to be too close to Mary. It was scary watching all the bugs crawl on her skin and hair.
    Master told me never to touch the others – never bathe their wounds or share their food. I wasn’t supposed to talk to them either. They were dirty. But so was I …
    “What’s your name?” Mary asked me. She was breathing fast and hard and I wished I had some water, because if I had, I would give it to her. She needed it more than me.
    “I can’t remember,” I sobbed. I had purposefully blocked everything out in an attempt of survival. If I thought too much about what my life had been before the nest, I would surely lose my mind. Only one name broke through my resolve.
    Cade …
    Cade …
    Cade …
     
     
    ****

 
    Summer 2003
    Age 16

Cade
    May 26 th , 2003
     
     
    It had been over a year since Mackenzie disappeared and I felt as tortured now as I had then.
    Nothing had changed for me.
    I still felt like I was living inside a sick and twisted nightmare.
    It was my birthday the other day – same day as her. I could only hope she turned sixteen like I did.
    Nobody understood the pain I was feeling – the burden of responsibility that hung heavy on my shoulders, weighing me