Heartland Junk (Part II): Sanctuary Read Online Free Page A

them chase her, then came back to get me. She still talked then. She asked me if I'd seen Alice and Sissy—those are her daughters—but I didn't know them. I wish I did, because she was being so nice to me and I wanted to help her, too, but I didn't know who they were.
                  "Ms. Abby cried a lot then. I asked her if I could stay with her and she cried even more and hugged me."
                  I watched Abby while the boy talked. She didn't react to any of the things Theo was saying, just stared straight ahead, barely blinking. Fuck, no wonder she was so messed up. I didn't have much family to miss, just a sister who never talked to me. I'd tried not to think about her over the past week, but I knew she was gone. She didn't use drugs. Didn't even drink. I missed her, but that was a feeling that went back years. To lose your kids, though...
                  "Ms. Abby made me keep taking my medicine," Theo was saying. "The doctor told my parents I needed help reading. In school, you know. So they gave me a pill every morning, and mommy took a little bottle of them for the field trip to the science museum in Lincoln. She was a shap-erone. I hated seeing Ms. Abby cry, so I told her I had pills that would make her feel better, and she gave me a funny look. I didn't know how to get home and all the other kids from my class was gone, and Ms. Abby was on vacation with Alice and Sissy, so we started walking, and that's how we found the bad place."
                  "Go on," Jennie urged when Theo stopped talking. He looked scared. "This is all I've heard," Jennie told us.
                  "We didn't know it was a bad place," Theo continued after a moment. "There were people there, and they told us to come in. There were a lot of people, and they were very happy. I told Ms. Abby they looked friendly, and she told me to stay close. But the people didn't let us stay together. A man took me with him. He was nice at first, but then he was mean. He gave me new medicine, even when I asked him to stop. I didn't like the new medicine, but he kept giving it to me. He gave me too much, and then he...he told me to take my clothes off."
                  "Jesus Christ," Jennie breathed, putting a hand over her mouth. Abby began to quiver softly, eyes still blank, staring.
                  "Ms. Abby found me a few days later. She came in at night and killed the mean man with a fork and helped me get dressed. She didn't talk after that. She put a finger in front of her mouth like this," Theo mimed the action, "to be quiet and took me away from the bad place. The bad men didn't want us to go, so they followed us, and Ms. Abby killed more of them. That's when she started talking to me. Not out loud. In here." The little boy tapped his forehead.
                  "Did they follow you here?" Rivet asked.
                  Theo shook his head. "Ms. Abby says they gave up. The ones following us ran out of..." he looked curiously at the woman. "That doesn't make sense, Ms. Abby. Okay, I'll tell them." He turned to us. "She says they ran out of 'math.' " Abby shuddered, and a tear leaked down her cheek. "Not math, she says. Meth? What's that, Ms. Abby?"
                  "It's okay," I told Theo gently. "Thank you for telling us that. And thank you, Abby." I nodded to the silent woman. I could only imagine what they'd done to her. Without thinking, I reached over and put my hand over hers on the table. The woman jerked it away and her eyes shot to mine, wide, bloodshot. Terrified. Something flashed into my mind, like a random memory that I couldn't get a fix on. It was gone just as quickly, but I'd caught a glimpse: Chains. Blood. Laughter.
                  "And after that, you helped Bugs Bunny escape from Azkaban," Rivet's sarcasm sliced through the vision. "Come on, guys. Are we really supposed to believe this act? Mystique and