She'll be back soon

There was only one rule: don’t open the door.

Mama had left me in the van many times before, but it had never taken this long for her to return. "I just need to run out for a bit," she said, and so I waited. With the wind rustling through the trees outside, I was nervous that a storm might be coming, so I made up songs in my head and drew pictures to distract me. "She'll be back soon," I told my stuffed bear, holding on to him tightly and hoping what I was saying was true.

We had parked toward the back of the lot in a wooded area- we'd been staying there for a few days. She got a phone call and soon a man pulled up in a black sedan. She kissed me goodbye on my forehead and reminded me to stay out of sight and not to open the door to the van. "Who knows what they'd do if they found you here," mama said. And so I did what I was told.

It was hard to see into the van from the outside, but I had a pretty good view out the front windshield if I sat just right, and I got a good look at the man my mother left with. He was tall with dark hair and broad shoulders and had scars on his face like maybe he was a boxer or had been in a lot of fights. He looked around before grabbing mama by the neck with his large hands and quickly twisting her head. Looking in my direction, she fell to the ground. He tossed her in the back seat of the sedan and left.

"She'll be back soon," I repeated to my bear, and kept the doors locked.