The Message In The Middle Of The Little Black Book

Sasha? Sasha, please, if you’re there, please pick up the phone. I know we haven’t spoken in years, but… please, please, just pick up the phone.

Sasha pulled her knees to her chest. Her mother’s voice made her stomach turn, and she pulled the dark hood further over her stringy black hair. She hadn’t spoken to her parents since she stormed out of their country home four years ago, but she could always count on the ever-faithful voicemails on Christmas and her birthday. Voicemails from parents who still hoped, still waited, still loved.

These voicemails were strange. They were different. They were out of place. For one thing, it wasn’t a holiday, and for another, her mother’s voice was strained. Unlike the usual strain of the awkward, hesitant distance between them, now the strain that she heard came from pure terror.

Her parents were terrified.

The phone rang again, and Sasha squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to talk to them. She wanted nothing to do with them… but that fear. She knew it all too well. It was the fear that crept into someone’s voice when there was someone on the other side, making sure their wishes were obeyed.

It was the fear of the mob.

Sasha, please, I know you’re listening. If you’re there, please call us back. It’s Emily.

Sasha’s head snapped up, eyes wide and lips trembling.

She’s missing.

Her five year old — no, she would be nine now. Her nine year old sister, Emily. Sasha’s vision was flooded with memories of bouncing blonde pigtails and a grin missing the two front teeth. With memories of tears when she stormed away, armed with nothing more than her backpack, knowing that her little sister didn’t understand her rebellion. She didn’t understand why her big sister was leaving her, only that she would miss her.

Sasha clapped both hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut to block out the scenes, but the sound of her family calling her back kept echoing through to the heart she had so carefully hidden.

She went to the city with her class on a field trip… but when the bus – when they got back – but she didn’t. She wasn’t on the bus… she wasn’t on the bus, and she’s been missing for nineteen hours.

Sasha still couldn’t move, but the horror of what her parents were implying began to inch into her stomach, an acrid feeling overtaking her.

Whatever you’re involved in, whatever you’ve gotten yourself into in the big city, I think — I think they found Emily. They know she’s your sister. Please, please just – just pick up the…

Her mother’s voice broke, and as the voice dissolved into sobs, the recording ended. There was silence in Sasha’s little apartment, and she could almost hear the rot and mold growing in the walls around her. It seemed to sneak into the squalid apartment like an embodiment of death.

Death, Sasha thought. Everything I touch is dead. My relationship with my parents, my dreams for the future… what if Emily was next?

A knock at the door.

Sasha leapt, a small squeak of terror squeezed from her throat. She clapped a hand over her mouth and froze, wide eyes white against the heavy eyeliner that she hid behind. As she watched the crack under the door, she saw a shadow passed away, heavy footfalls descending the rickety stairs, and then all was quiet once more. The terrified teenager crawled forward, the rips in her jeans allowing dust and splinters from the floor to scrape against her knees. She put her head to the floor and peered out. The hallway was empty, but something small and dark was lying on the floor, just outside her door.

This wasn’t unusual. As a runner for the mob, there were plenty of times when she had heard the anonymous knock at the door and found a strange package waiting for her. There would always be coded instructions for her to follow, and the inevitable roll of bills would show up in its place a few days later, when her work was done. Somehow, this time felt different.

This time, Emily was missing.

She creaked open the door, letting it swing wide as she knelt in the thick dust and looked down.

It was a small black notebook.

Sasha picked it up between two fingers, like a dead rat, and opened the cover.

Blank.

Page after page was blank.

She flipped to the back, but the end was blank as well.

Mystified, she let the pages flip through her fingers, then started as a blur of pencil caught her eye. She stopped and thumbed to the center of the book. There, in a spidery scrawl, were words that nearly made her vomit.

WE HAVE YOUR SISTER. BRING THE MONEY. DROP POINT SEVEN, MIDNIGHT.

Sasha only froze for a moment before lurching to her feet and throwing the book on her bed. She only hesitated a heartbeat before picking up the phone and dialing the number she had nearly forgotten… and she only shed a single tear when she heard her mother’s voice on the other end.

“Sasha? Oh thank God, Sasha, you’re there. Are you okay, sweetie?”

The single tear became a torrent that Sasha tried to hide, a whelming wave that built up in her throat and pounded behind her eyes. Then her father’s voice joined her mother’s, and the torrent spilled out in silent rivers across her blotchy cheeks.

“Sasha, please, you have to help us find Emily. We need to know you’re both okay.”

The silence stretched between them, longer and darker by far than their years apart. When Sasha finally opened her mouth to speak, she felt a dusty, ancient catch in her throat. A mummy, a dead thing, a thousand years in the grave, trying to speak.

“I’ll find her,” she whispered, not even sure if the promise was audible.

Then she hung up, pulled her hood further over her face, and strode from the room.

She still felt the cold knot of dread in her stomach, weighed down like a lump of lead, but this was different. Now, she wasn’t just scared. Now, she was scared with a plan.

Because she knew who had taken the money, knew who had framed her for it, and she knew exactly where it was. That was one of the benefits of being a lowly runner for the mob. You went places and saw things that no one expected, and most people treated you like dirt. They didn’t remember what you looked like, what you sounded like, what your name was. They didn’t notice if you were watching them, observing them, remembering them.

Sasha watched.

Sasha observed.

Sasha remembered.

She remembered overhearing a rival mob member outline a plan to hijack a payment of $20,000 before it reached its destination, and she remembered seeing the place where he had showed his friend to hide it. She even remembered how to get there.

**~**~**~**~**

Midnight. Drop point seven: an old warehouse on the banks of the wide river, stinking of rotten fish and dead mice. Black briefcase in hand. Door open, moonlight spilling through, a stalwart silhouette.

Sasha stood like a wall, shoulders straight and head held high for what felt like the first time in her life. She could see a group of men and women inside, hidden in the shadows but with moonlight glinting in their eyes. At the far corner of the room, there was someone tiny sitting in a chair. Sasha could see the faint outline of her pigtails, and even from this distance, could see them tremble in fear.

“Step forward slowly,” came a deep voice, underlined by the sickening clicks of a thousand safety catches being released. “Put the briefcase on the floor.”

Sasha walked forward. Each step of her soft-soled sneakers seemed to boom like thunder through the room, the percussion a thrilling harmony with the rhythm of her beating heart. Five steps, ten steps, thirty steps. Further and further forward, until she stood in the center of the group. She knelt slowly, easing the briefcase onto the floor, moving carefully, with ears straining for a sound.

There! There it was, finally. In the distance, she heard sirens.

Somewhere in between finding the $20,000 and delivering it to the warehouse, Sasha had called her parents. The second time that day… the second time in four years. She had told them everything, but this time, there were no tears. There was no broken sobbing as she explained what she had become, where Emily was, and what she was going to do with the money she had found. This time, there was only honesty. Her parents had taken the information she shared and had gone to the police.

The cavalry had arrived.

With a sudden explosion of noise, light, and movement, the police invaded the warehouse. In a split second, what had begun as a silent deal in the shadows had become a war zone of muzzle flashes and screams.

Sasha leapt forward, launching herself at the child in the chair. As she wrapped her arms around the tiny figure and pulled them crashing to the ground, she could hear the wild gunshots ricocheting off the walls around her. She curled into a ball, the slight body of her sister safe inside her embrace. She could only just hear the child’s tearful whispers through the noise.

“Sasha? Is that you?”

Sasha squeezed her sister tighter, holding her against the wall, her body a barricade between thechild and the destruction that reigned around them.

“I’m sorry I left, little sister, but I’m here now. Don’t worry: I’ve got you.”

The world slowed.

The noise faded.

The bullets hit.

The shadows claimed her for their own.

Then she felt two pairs of arms, wrapped tightly around them both.

Her parents’ arms.

She felt them, strong and loving and supporting, could hear their voices, far away and echoing in the darkness.

“You’re safe, Sasha, You’re home. We love you.”