A little bit at a time, Bethany scooted across the mattress. She eventually reached the edge and eased her bare feet to the wooden floor. When she went to stand, the blanket tangled around her legs, tripping her weight onto the wrong board. The wood creaked, and the sound was as loud as a scream to Bethany’s ears in the silent house. Fear turned her legs to ice, and she sucked down a breath, waiting.
When the man didn’t burst into her room by the time she counted to thirty, Bethany padded over to her discarded socks and slipped them on. Not so much because the wood floor was cold—even though it was—but because her mama had once told her that socks made footsteps quiet, and that was what Bethany needed to be right now. Quiet as a mouse. Or a burglar.
Socks on, she crept across the tiny room, choosing each step with care. She’d spent hours pushing her feet against each board to see which ones creaked, then she’d practiced walking while only touching the quiet spots enough times to memorize the path. It was kinda like the dance moves they’d had to practice over and over for a school musical last year.
Back then, though, she hadn’t thought to practice in the dark. Or when her heartbeat filled her ears, and her hands shook with fear. Her mama had taught her that.
“Practice when you’re happy and when you’re sad. Practice when you’re afraid and even when you’re mad.” Mama had taught her so many useful things in the short time they’d been together. “Be prepared for any situation at any given time, sweet girl. That’s what will help you be a superhero.”
Bethany touched her foot to the next board, relieved when nothing squeaked. The bad man had really good ears. Like superhero hearing.
She scrunched up her nose. No, not superhero hearing. Supervillain. Because Bethany was one-thousand-percent sure that anyone who kept her away from her mama was a bad guy. She just wished this particular bad guy wasn’t as sneaky as a cat. Sometimes, she’d turn around and scream because he’d be right there standing behind her, smiling his creepy smile while she almost peed her pants.
Bethany focused on her feet. Forward, forward, to the left, forward, to the right, to the right, forward, forward. When she reached the end, her hands shook so much that she almost turned around and crept back to the bed. This was too scary. What if the bad man caught her sneaking around?
The cramp in her stomach helped her swallow her fear. Once her hands stopped shaking, she reached for the doorknob and circled her fingers around the cold metal. Careful. She rotated to the left. A little more…a little more…there! The knob caught, but Bethany was ready, pushing the metal toward the door before it could make that loud screech.
After pressing her ear to the wood and waiting for a count of fifteen, Bethany eased the door open, just wide enough to squeeze her body through the crack. Any wider and the door would creak, and then the bad man with his supervillain hearing would appear like magic.
Bethany shivered as she slipped through the narrow sliver of space and chanted a reminder in her head. Be sneaky, like Catwoman.
Maybe the chant worked because Bethany didn’t make any noise when she entered the hallway. Wonder Woman was still her favorite hero, but she had super strength and a magic lasso, and Bethany didn’t have either of those things.
Neither did Catwoman, though. She mostly ran around wearing a tight black suit and broke into people’s houses to steal stuff, and for now, Bethany needed to be more like her. Not with the black outfit, but with the sneaking and stealing stuff part, because all the bad man had given her to wear were three sets of the same pink pajamas.
That sounded bad, but her mama told her that sometimes people had good reasons to steal. Bethany figured that her empty belly counted.
Plus, secretly, she was pretty sure that Katarina—oops, she meant Katrina—was more like Catwoman than Wonder Woman, and her mama was tough.
If Bethany wanted to eat, she needed to be tough too. A Catgirl.
She pressed her body close to the wall as she crept down the hallway, testing each board with her toes before placing her full weight on it. In the darkness, she could barely make out the painted pictures that lined the walls. Most were of a little boy and a lady with big, poofy hair, like in one of those old TV shows. There were Polaroids too, but they were stuck in the middle of fancy gold frames with swirly designs, which Bethany thought was weird.
Then again, everything about this house was weird. And creepy. Like the layer of dust that covered the glass and metal picture frames and the furniture, and the cobwebs that hung from every corner. Almost as if the house had been empty for a long time before the bad man dragged her here.
Just thinking of the dust tickled her nose, and a sneeze built in Bethany’s throat. Her eyes widened, and her lungs stopped working. Oh, no, not now! If she sneezed, the bad man would wake up.
Desperate, she shoved her fingers against her top lip and pressed hard. Another tip from her mama. The trick seemed too silly to work, so she was surprised when the need to sneeze disappeared after a few seconds.
Once her heart stopped drumming in her ears, Bethany began creeping down the hallway again. She passed an open doorway that led to the bathroom with its thin, ugly brown towels and even uglier brown-and-pink striped plastic shower curtain and didn’t stop until she stood just outside the hateful man’s bedroom.
In the dim light, her eyes took a couple
