“Well, it’s not four hundred, it’s only four,” Pike tells me.

I situate myself back onto the floor with my hands bound above my head, and ask, “Since it’s my birthday, can I pick the game tonight?”

“Go for it.”

“Umm . . . how about food, but it has to be junk food,” I say. Pike and I play alphabet games with each other. One of us will pick a theme and whatever letter our words ends with has to be the beginning letter to the word the other person has to come up with. If you can’t think of a word, you lose. It was Pike’s idea to start playing these games. I used to just sit and cry when he would come to me at night, so this was his way of keeping my mind occupied.

“Okay, junk food,” he starts. “AirHeads.”

“Swedish Fish.”

“Happy Meal.”

“That’s not a food, Pike. It’s a meal,” I laugh.

He tries defending his play, saying, “Yeah, and what is a meal made of? Food.”

“But it’s not an actual food because you can choose what you want in it.”

“Yeah, but no matter what you choose, it’s still junk.”

Pike is nothing but serious in his argument, which makes me laugh. Our connection with one another is strong. He’s everything a brother should be: protective, caring, annoying, and everything else I could have imagined a sibling would be.

“Uh uh. You can’t use that as a game play,” I tell him.

I can hear the irritation in his sigh before he says, “Fine. Ho Hos.”

“Those are so good.”

With a chuckle, he agrees, “I know.”

We continue with the game, and eventually, I win, making sure I rub it in since he’s beaten me the last two times we’ve played.

After a while, Pike has to go back to his room and I’m alone once more. Resting my head back against the wall, I shut my eyes and try to relax enough to at least drift a little, if not actually fall asleep.

I startle awake when light hits me. Opening my eyes, I quickly clamp them back shut from the pain of being in the dark for the past three days. Who knew light could be so painful? But it is. It always takes a couple hours for my eyes to adjust.

I can smell Carl along with the stench of my urine, and I’m shocked when he starts to unlatch the leather belt he uses to bind me. He has holes poked all the way down so that he can fasten me tightly and not have to worry about me working my hands free. My arms are like noodles as they fall to my sides. Warmth slowly flows back into my hands, and the tingling begins to run through the length of my lifeless limbs.

“God, you smell like shit, kid,” he grumbles, and I crawl to my knees, squinting to find the bottle of bleach he keeps stored in the corner of the closet. It’s now routine, that as soon as I’m untied, I’m to clean the floor with bleach.

When I get upstairs, I head into the shower to wash myself. I didn’t think I’d be getting out until tomorrow, so I’m determined to stay quiet and invisible so that Carl doesn’t change his mind and toss me back into that black hole again.

After I’m cleaned up, I return to my bedroom to see Pike lying in my bed. He’s always here to comfort me when I get out of the closet. Walking over to him, I crawl into his arms and let him hold me.

“I have something for you,” he whispers, and when I lift my head from his chest, I ask, “What is it?”

“A birthday present.”

I let my head fall back down on him and sigh, “You shouldn’t have bothered.”

“Well, I did, so be polite and pretend you’re happy.”

Sitting up, I cross my legs as Pike quickly runs into his room and then returns with a plastic grocery sack. He hands it to me and sits back down on my bed. Inside is a doll with bright red hair made out of yarn. A smile finds its way to my lips, and he says, “Her hair reminded me of you.”

No doubt, Pike stole this from some store, but I don’t care. This will be the only gift I get this birthday, and I love him for giving it to me since there are very few things I can call my own.

“I love you, Pike,” I say, looking at him as he sits there with an almost worried expression when he asks, “You don’t think it’s stupid?”

“No. It’s perfect, and I love it.”

He reaches out to hug me, and I cuddle into his embrace with the doll pressed between us as he says, “I just didn’t want you to be sad today.”

“I’m sad every day, but it would be worse if I didn’t have you.”

“Pike!” we hear Carl yell from downstairs. “Get down here.”

My stomach twists when I see Pike’s face go to stone. He hates the man as much as I do.

“One sec.”

When Pike sits up, I ask, “Did you do something?” wondering why Carl sounds so pissed.

“Does he need a reason?” is all he says when he sulks out of my room, and I feel sick when I follow him out and stand at the top of the stairs as he walks down.

Carl grips the back of Pike’s neck and tugs him in close, saying, “Basement, you little shit.”

His head drops, and when Carl opens the door that leads to the basement, Pike descends down the stairs. I hate that he’s always down there. He told me that Carl takes him there to knock him around, and I hate that I can’t do anything to protect him. Every time he goes to the basement, I just sit and wait for him to return, and when he does, he won’t even look at me. It’s like he’s mad at me. I asked him once if he was, but he swore that he could never be upset with me. It’s so different with us, because when I’m let out of the closet, Pike is always there to hold me. But when Pike comes up from the basement, he wants nothing to do with me. He avoids me and hides in his room. It’s awful when all I want to do is hug him to make him feel better like he does for me, but he won’t let me.

I lie on my bed, slip on my headphones, and hold my new doll while I listen to music, trying to drown out the pain that fills my chest. Closing my eyes, I eventually grow tired and start to nod off when, suddenly, my doll is snatched out of my arms. Opening my eyes, I see Carl hovering over me. As I slip off my headphones, he snarls, “Get your ass in the basement.”

Too scared to even question him, I trail behind him as fear chills my body. When he opens the door to the basement, my legs shake beneath me as I step down the stairs. I’ve never been down here before, and the panic has never been so fierce when I see Pike standing in nothing but a pair of boxers, his clothes crumpled on the floor next to him.

The look on Pike’s face scares me. He’s never looked at me like this, like he’s scared too. But Pike is never scared. I stand a few feet away from him and nervously turn my head back and see a dirty mattress lying on the cement floor. Turning back to Pike, my eyes wide, my heart pounding, my tears pricking, I hear Carl ask, “How old are you today?”

I face him as he sits in a metal folding chair that sits in the corner.

In a weak voice that trembles, I answer, “Umm . . . t-ten.”

He doesn’t respond, only slowly nods his head and takes a long moment before adding, “You scared?”

I take a quick look at Pike, whose eyes are pinned to the floor, and then back at Carl and nod yes.

His next words changed my life forever. It was my tenth birthday, and I was old enough to know better than to believe in fairytales. I knew that Prince Charming, flying steeds, and talking caterpillars didn’t really exist, but what happened next made me realize that monsters did. And I just so happened to be living with one.

A

Real

Life

Monster.

With a low, stern voice, his demand comes. “Take your clothes off.”

My heart slams down into the pit of my stomach as my body shivers. I’m frozen. I can’t respond, so I just stand there. The air is still until Carl repeats harder, “Take your clothes off. All of them.”

I snap my head over to Pike, and he’s now looking straight at me. I know I should be terrified by the tears on his cheeks and the look of sorrow in his eyes. Without even blinking, I feel my own tears roll out effortlessly. Shaking my head in confusion, Pike gives me a nod that tells me I need to obey.