If he were around, she would’ve expected some sort of reprisal, unless neglecting her and letting her die of thirst or starvation was it.

When she couldn’t bear to look at her surroundings any longer, she summoned the energy to get to her feet and dip her jacket in the toilet water so she could clean herself up. She wiped down the walls next. Being stranded in such a terrifying situation was difficult enough; she didn’t need to see those red droplets every time she opened her eyes, didn’t need to feel the blood drying on her face and arms.

Once both she and the walls were clean, she began to feel slightly better, despite the hunger pangs in her stomach, and used the plastic bowl that had once held oatmeal to scoop more water out of the toilet so she could rinse the floor. She pushed the blood, oatmeal and water mixture to the drain with her feet. Then she scrubbed the blood out of her blanket, rinsed out her jacket and used it to clean what she could of the mattress.

While she waited for everything to dry, she sat on the floor near the door and thought about her mother, father and only sibling. Her mother, who’d suffered from depression for years, had improved so much since Jasper had been caught. Her whole family had turned a corner and begun to heal, really heal, for the first time since Jasper attacked her more than two decades ago. She hated to imagine them hearing that she was missing again—hated what it would do to them.

Her sister was even more pregnant than she was, due any day. Evelyn had promised Brianne she’d fly home when Brianne had her baby and spend a couple of weeks, so everyone was expecting to see her soon.

As a family, they had so much to look forward to. New babies—her parents’ first grandchildren. A wedding. Although Brianne’s boyfriend had left her for someone else before either one of them knew about the baby and she’d been devastated by the rejection, she’d managed to rebound, slowly, over time. Until this happened, everything had been looking up. Now her family might get word of her abduction or, worse, her death—which also meant the death of her baby—in the same week or month they welcomed their first grandchild into the world.

She wished there were some way to leave them a message, to tell them that she wanted them to be happy eventually no matter what happened. She felt terrible knowing her choices had made things so hard for them, especially because she didn’t see where she could’ve handled her life any differently. If she hadn’t gone into psychiatry and focused on psychopathy, she would never have met Amarok. And it was him, as well as her knowledge and determination, who’d saved her from Jasper. Since she’d ultimately won that battle, maybe she’d bought herself some extra time she wouldn’t have had otherwise.

She hoped they’d be able to look at her life and death that way.