The Never List

what we came here for. I’m going to have a look around.”
    Tracy glared at her. “What’s the point? You clearly don’t understand what we’re dealing with.”
    I sat in my corner, studying each person. We were starting to turn on each other already. I saw the obvious fear on the surface, but I could also see that other being inside each of us, poised to strike, poised to live at any price. I forced the thought away, telling myself I was only projecting onto them my own gripping fear of being returned once again to my animal self.
    It was the place. It was being back in that house. I felt like a caged beast and once again felt I would do anything to escape. Anything. Just like before. I recognized it in a flash, the feeling that all my integrity, all my rational being, would be instantly displaced if it came down to it. Was everyone else like that? Or was I just a base person at heart, incapable of empathy for others, as Tracy thought? Could she have been right all along? And who would I sacrifice this time, to get out of here?

CHAPTER 34
    When at last I pulled myself out of my dark thoughts, I realized Adele was poking around in Jack’s desk.
    “I still think,” she was saying, her eyes focused on the contents of the top drawer as she rifled through it, “we can find something here to … help us. Maybe a key, or something.”
    She was beginning to look scared, and she was having trouble holding on to her otherwise extraordinary self-possession. Her movements were more frantic now, as she pushed aside pens and Post-it Notes to reach into the very back of the drawer.
    “What are you really looking for, Adele?” Tracy’s voice rose. Was she starting to feel panicked too? “Research papers? Do you think there’s something in there that will make your career? You know, Adele, in case you hadn’t noticed, you can’t exactly have a career when you’re dead in some house up in the mountains. Waita minute—maybe I’m wrong. I suppose you could type up something now and have it published posthumously.” She thought a second. “In fact, that’s probably your fastest road to fame and fortune. A book written while held captive in a psycho’s house.”
    She turned to me. “Sarah, why don’t you get going on one, too? All about how you saved us once by accident but by hook or crook managed to get us right back where we started.”
    Adele stopped rummaging through the drawer and looked up.
    “Wait a minute, Tracy. The way I understand it is, if it weren’t for Sarah, you’d still be Jack’s prisoner. And he’d be sitting at this desk right now instead of me.” With those words, she got up and quickly stepped away from it.
    I looked at her and thought I could sense a glimmer of feeling behind her eyes. Was she trying to help me here?
    “Actually, Adele,” Tracy replied, “in case you hadn’t noticed, I am still here, and that’s thanks to her, too. Back here anyway. So maybe the intervening ten years don’t add up to all that much. It looks like I have a very good chance of dying in this house after all.”
    I could feel the color draining from my face. I thought Tracy had been on the verge of forgiving me. That this search together was healing our old wounds. I had obviously been wrong. And now the stress of our situation seemed to be forcing her true feelings back to the surface.
    I knew Tracy thought I hadn’t sent help for them when I escaped. She had told the press at the time that if it hadn’t been for the police grilling, she was sure I would have left them there forever. Because I’d been upstairs for a while, as far as she knew, I’d been gone from the cellar for six days before they were saved. Six days during which Jack could have easily killed them to cover his tracks.
    She was wrong. I had sent for help.
    It would have been simple enough to explain what happened. But I had always been unable to talk about how I’d gotten out andhad never even attempted to defend myself against her accusations. I had never discussed it before with anyone, not my mother, not Jim, not Dr. Simmons. They didn’t know what happened, and anytime they had tried to get me to discuss it, I slipped into an almost catatonic state.
    I could feel the panic descending upon me, but I knew it would only hurt me in Tracy’s estimation if I let it show. Still the poor PTSD victim. Tracy had handled the past bravely, she had processed it and even used it for a purpose, shutting out the pain of the experience