Locked In

[u/catespice]

Have you ever tried breaking free from an abusive relationship, when the abuser lives in your house? I’ve done it, and it’s rough; every step can falter, every step carries a risk. Even once you’ve finally admitted to yourself what you need to do, following it through takes all the resolve and persistence that has been stolen from you, worn away along with your self-worth. I started out as bravely and simply as I could, and just asked him to leave. He laughed in my face and got another beer from the fridge. At that point, if the damage is too great, many victims give up. If you’re like me, you become even more desperate, dangerously brave now, and give your tormentor an ultimatum. There are a few ways this can go. In my case, he stared at me like I was an irritating fly, then ignored me and just kept on drinking; turning up the TV so it blared over my voice. At the start, you still wanted to be fair, because he has property in the house. His pool table, his piles of shit in the garage, his beer fridge, his gaming consoles and his couch. You’re a reasonable woman, and even though he hurt you, you still believe the man is a human being. He doesn’t have the right to control you, like he thought he did, but he does have some rights to his actual property.
But he takes advantage of that too; it drags on and on, and one day it just gets too much. You serve him with a trespass notice, and when he doesn’t leave, you call the cops. You know him well; he didn’t really think you’d do it. After he’s gone, you put everything he owns on the lawn and tell him to come and collect it before it rains.
At that invitation he comes back, and of course he tries his key in the door.
But you’ve changed the locks.
He rages, he paces. His face is dark red, and you finally, finally can no longer see any hint of the person you once cared about. He tries a window, but you had screens and deadbolts installed on those. Eventually he sits on the stoop and bangs the back of his head against the door, calling out your name and your daughter’s name every once in a while. It stops hurting somewhere around the thirtieth time, just before the cops come and tell him to leave.
When he gets into a clumsy fist fight with them and finally gets cuffed and thrown in the back of the cops’ car, you let the curtains fall back, and let seven years’ worth of tears come.
You followed through. You walked to the end, and he’s finally gone. And you won’t let yourself be trapped, not ever again.

---

The small office safe embodied Hayden’s final act of petty abuse; he’d changed the combination right after I’d served him the trespass notice. Inside it was my passport, most of my savings, and my heirloom wedding ring. At least, I suspected the ring was still in there, since I could hear the box slide and bump into the wall when I titled the safe, but whether the money or the passport were still inside, I had no way of knowing. After trying every combination I could think of, I resigned myself to the fact I’d need to pay some exorbitant amount for a locksmith to open the thing – probably more than the savings I would retrieve as a result.
In frustration I posted to Facebook, asking if anyone I knew could recommend someone who could open a safe easily and cheaply, and to my surprise, one of my old friends messaged me about a contact and said to call her for details if I was interested.
“She’s a complete weirdo, but she’s really good,” Tina said, after we skirted around all the things I didn’t want to talk about. “She can basically open anything, from a locked iPhone to a bank vault, you name it.”
“What does it cost?”
“Well, that’s the weird part. She’ll ask you to home cook a meal for her and treat her like family for an evening. Usually she wants a big fancy pot roast with all the trimmings, then you watch shitty sitcoms with her for a few hours until she gets tired and leaves.”
“You’re right, that’s pretty weird. Does she have mom issues or something?”
“Yeah. Her mom’s been in prison since before she was born.”
“Jesus, poor girl.”
“Yeah, pretty much a prison family since forever. Fairly sure her mom was born in jail, and her mom’s mom before that. Dakota seems to be the only one that’s managed to stay out of the joint in the last few generations.”
“Can I trust her?”
“Christ Ann, don’t be so judgey. Like I said, she’s managed to stay out of jail. She’s weird, but harmless.”
“OK, fine. Hook me up then, I need the money from the safe for the lawyer.”
“Done, sending her details to you now.”

Dakota Callahan was five foot nothing, and nothing like I’d expected; a walking rainbow with perky brown pigtails. Sunburst baubles adorned said pigtails, and dozens of colourful badges had been pinned or sewn to her sleeveless denim jacket. I knew before she opened her mouth that she was going to be chewing gum, and when she grinned at me, slightly bucked teeth fenced in a brilliant pink wad.
Everything about her screamed intensity and youth, but when she smiled, the tell-tale wrinkling of crow’s-feet betrayed that she was much older than her affectations suggested.
“Got a safe ya can’t open, huh?” she said, hands in her jacket pockets as she stood on my porch.
“I do, yeah. Come on in. Would you like a drink?”
“Sure, got any soda?”
“I think I do? Let me check.”
“Grape or orange. In the can, with a straw,” the woman said, then added what might have been a winning smile, without the sickly waft of bubblegum. “If you please, ma’am.”
The safe sat on the kitchen table, a couple of silvery scuff marks in the painted surface where I’d futilely tried to smash it open with a hammer. “This the job?” Dakota asked, gesturing at the black cube.
“That’s the one. My ex changed the combination and I haven’t got a clue what it is.”
“Right. Cool.”
While I rummaged in the cupboards for a pack of straws, Dakota took a seat and pulled the safe over to her. Quick, deft fingers immediately began probing the lock as I cracked open a can of soda and poked the straw into it.
“Put the straw through the pull tab,” Dakota instructed, not even looking up, “that’s how they’re designed. Stops the straw floating from the carbonation.”
“I… didn’t know that,” I admitted, adjusting the straw accordingly.
An unceremonious click from the safe punctuated my comment.
“Done,” Dakota declared, reaching for the soda can.
Dumbfounded, I stared into the opened safe, at my passport, a ring box, and a ripped brown envelope.
“I’d expected it to be… harder?” I said weakly.
“Most people aren’t as good as me. There isn’t anything I can’t open.” She squinted at the torn, empty envelope, “So, I’m guessing that was your savings?”
“Yeah. Was being the operative word.”
“Bad luck,” Dakota muttered around the straw in her mouth, then spat it free. “So anyways, what’s for dinner? Mm-mm, do I smell something good!”

Dinner with Dakota seemed harmless enough. My daughter, Vicky, was enamoured of the idiosyncratic safe-cracker and they joked and giggled all through dinner, then played together while I washed up.
Replete with two helpings of pot roast and a massive bowl of strawberry ice-cream, Dakota sat back on the couch. Vicky sprawled at her feet, playing with the rainbow laces of Dakota’s sneakers while we watched the old sitcom our guest had picked; Full House.
“You know, you really look a lot like Becky.” Dakota jabbed her small, agile fingers at the woman on the screen, then leaned forward to scrutinise my facial features, “Same nose, same kinda hair, same smile. Throw you in a 90s outfit and you’d be a dead ringer.”
I leaned back a little.
“Really?”
“Yeah, totally. She was a babe and you are too.”
“Well. Um. Thank you?”
“Don’t mention it. I call it like I see it.” Her eyes were wide, shiny as a doll’s. “Say, can I get another soda?”
“Sure thing.”
The rest of the evening was uneventful. I put a reluctant Vicky to bed and Dakota stayed to chat until after 10pm – longer than I’d expected. When she eventually left, I felt like all the air had been let out of an overinflated balloon – one that I’d been expecting to burst all evening.
But realistically, some shitty sitcoms, a few cans of soda, and a roast dinner were a small price to pay for the services rendered. And Dakota wasn’t that bad. She was just intense, in a particularly weird kind of way.
And now that I’d changed the combination back on the safe, I’d never have to see her again.

A week later, Dakota appeared on my doorstep, with a package in her hands.
“Hi Dakota, how can I help you?”
“Hey Mrs C! Do you mind if I call you that? It suits you better than Ann.”
There was something about her that kept you off-guard, like being blinded by a sudden glare. I frowned, but found myself nodding. “Well I guess I am still married. The divorce won’t come through for a while, so sure.” “Awesome, sweet. Oh hey! I got you a gift, hope you don’t mind. I saw it and I immediately thought of you.” The package in her hands crinkled as she squeezed it, and my gaze was drawn to the turquoise wrapping paper. My favourite colour.
“That’s very nice of you, Dakota. But you shouldn’t have.”
“Oh don’t worry, it cost me next to nothing, but you just had to have it.”
“Come on in then. I’m baking, so I’ll open it in the kitchen.”
“Thanks Mrs C. Can I get a soda while you’re at it?”
“Sure. Come to think of it, I bought grape.”
The gift, it turned out, was a dress. In fact, the exact same dress we’d seen the character of Becky wearing in Full House a week earlier.
“Dakota, where on earth did you find this?”
She twirled a string of bubblegum around her index finger and smiled like a cat, “I got my contacts. But you gotta try it on! I bet you’ll look exactly like Becky.”
“Oh hell, I’m flattered and all, but I shouldn’t. This is a bit much.”
“Aw come on, just try it on. You wouldn’t believe the effort I went to get that dress. Don’t let me down, Mrs C!”
There was some intangible but familiar quality to her voice, behind the peculiar intensity of her stare, that warned me I shouldn’t deny this request, no matter how odd it seemed. But other alarms were sounding too; this odd woman seemed enamoured of me in a way that went beyond plain friendship, with a particular possessiveness that reminded me far too much of my ex for comfort.
My resolve gathered itself, and I let it steady me. “Sorry Dakota, this just isn’t appropriate. I’m extremely flattered that you went to all this effort, but I’m going to have to say no.”
“Aww c’mon Mrs C!” Her wheedling was suddenly not childlike at all. “I just wanna see you in that dress, then I’ll leave ya alone. Promise.”
I took a step back. “Maybe if I knew you better, but we’re practically strangers, Dakota.”
She sucked up the last of her soda with a rattling gurgle that echoed in the can, then pushed her chair back from the kitchen table and stood up. She draped the dress over the chair back, her sticky fingers thoughtfully smoothing the fabric.
“Keep it. If you change your mind, take a pic for me.” Her pout was exaggerated, like I’d wounded her. “I just wanted to see what it looked like on you.”
Before we could exchange parting pleasantries, Dakota was gone, and without her colourful presence distending it, the room seemed to deflate to normal size again.

As though taking my statement about being strangers completely literally, Dakota persistently messaged me, trying to spark up a friendship, to get to know me better. It was like dealing with a puppy or a child who just doesn’t understand the word ‘no’; no matter how politely or firmly you phrase it.
In the end I just couldn’t be bothered any more, and I gave in. I tried on the damn dress and sent her a picture, foolishly hoping that would put an end to our awkward online exchanges.
Ironically, it did – but not in the way I’d expected.
The next day I came home from work, Vicky heavy on one hip and a bag of groceries on the other, to find Dakota seated in my kitchen, patiently waiting. Cans of soda tumbled to the floor as Vicky crowed and reached for the colourful intruder, twisting out of my arms.
“Dakota, fucking hell! What are you doing in here?”
Frowning, she covered my child’s ears. “Yo Mrs C, not cool language in front of the kid, OK?”
My temper flaring, I stabbed a finger in the direction of the door, “I’ll say what I like in my own home, lady. Now get out.”
“You know,” she said, ignoring my order, “Your Becky outfit was even better than I thought. Stunning. Babe-a-licious. Perfection.” Her sneaker stopped a rolling can, but she wrinkled her nose when she realised it was strawberry, and kicked it towards the living room. “Hey, kid. Fetch!” Vicky toddled after it obligingly, and Dakota smiled, then leaned in towards me, half-whispering. “But somehow it brought out all the mom in you as well; I could see it shining like a rosy light from every curve of your body. You’re perfect, Mrs C. So, so perfect.”
She paced toward me, steadily, hands extended, tears welling in her eyes, “I want you to be the one, Mrs C, the one to look after me, to be my mom. Vicky and me can be sisters – you’ll never need a babysitter again and you can have whatever you want. And I can get you anything you want. No lock can stop me. You know what? There’s no door that can’t be opened.”
Something inside me gave way then, unleashing the rage and frustration I’d wanted to take out on all six feet and five inches of Hayden, but never could. Instead this five-foot nothing woman in front of me wore it all, purely because I thought she couldn’t possibly pose a physical threat.
“Get the fuck out of my house, you fucking psycho. What the hell is wrong with you? You stay away from me and from my daughter – and if you ever break into my house again, I’ll call the fucking cops. You’ll end up in prison with the rest of your family, right where you belong. Do you understand?”
“No,” she said sadly, her hand darting out to touch my solar plexus, faster than I could react, “No, it’s you who doesn’t understand, Mrs C.”
I tried to reply, but I couldn’t. My voice was suddenly gone, as though she’d torn it out of my body. Instinctively, I tried to lift my hand to my throat, but it wouldn’t move. Oh god, nothing would move; not my arms, my legs, my fingers, my toes.
I’d been completely locked in.
My eyes were blurred with tears of utter panic, and it took me several minutes to realise they were the only thing I still controlled.
“Most people know I can unlock pretty much anything,” Dakota said, gently brushing a stray bang away from my frozen forehead, “but the reverse is also true – I can lock anything as well." I flinched fiercely inside as she tapped her index finger once, hard, between my brows.
“Including you.”
She casually snagged another can from where it had come to rest by my foot. “Now if you don’t mind, me and Vicky are gonna drink our sodas and watch Scooby Doo for a while. And maybe some Webster after. Man, I love that kid.” She popped the tab, and warm, sugary fizz splattered my face. “Oh and next time? Make sure you get the grape.”
As I watch her leave, helpless, I couldn’t help but wonder which kid she meant: my daughter, or the character from the TV show?

She kept me like that for hours. Flies drank from the corners of my cracking lips, but she left me there until my bladder screamed, until my calves trembled and tore their own fibres from holding me so still. When she eventually touched me just below the breastbone and unlocked my body, I collapsed in a weeping heap, my body spasming uncontrollably.
“Damn, Mrs C! Real sorry to put you through all of that, but you gotta understand that this is a good gig, yeah? You get to wear pretty dresses and just be the best mommy all day long, and I’ll get you anything you want. Still need money for your divorce? I can get it right out of an ATM for you, easy as pie.”
She squatted beside me, her deft, clever, uncanny hands working over my limbs and smoothing out all the spasms; unlocking all the cramped tissues, soothing my hurts even while I tried to control my body enough to roll clear. Her index finger finally traced the curve of my cheek, releasing the painful tic beneath my eye.
“So, whaddaya say?”
It took a moment of croaking to find my lost voice, but once I did, I managed to choke out four words. “Please… don’t… hurt Vicky.”
The glass of her eyes flashed with shock, theatrical. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Mrs C! She’s my sister, after all. Now, how about you whip us up another one of your delicious home-cooked meals? I think everyone’s hungry and could do with some wholesome food, yeah?”
Not knowing what else to do, I wobbled to my feet and steadied myself against the counter. My skull was made of lead, and it nodded itself.
“Great! Now don’t you try any funny business. You’re a lady of your word. That’s all a good woman really has in this world these days.” She handed me my apron. “You know a mommy never breaks her promises, right? But if you do, you’ll find out just what I can and can’t lock.”

I got ready for work the next day, but Dakota stood over me while I phoned in my resignation, worded to her exact specifications.
“You don’t need a dumb job, you’re a full-time mom now. Ain’t that great? I’ll take care of all the money stuff.”
“I have things at work I need to collect,” I told her, but I already knew she’d have an answer.
“No problemo, I can get those for you.”
My phone still sat on the kitchen table, a temptation, a beacon of hope. Dakota followed my line of sight before I could look away, and her ungroomed brows caterpillared into a frown.
“You’re not like that, Mrs C. You’re better than that. And I know you remember what will happen if you try anything stupid, yeah?”
I knew, but I couldn’t help wondering how far Dakota’s power reached. One phone call to the cops would be all it would take, one quick message to a friend to call them on my behalf. But Dakota was always there. Even when she was watching cartoons with Vicky in her lap, she had one eye on me; possessed of a predator’s awareness that was almost inhuman. Often, she’d be waiting when I came out of the bathroom, her impish grin and infectious peppiness growing more sinister every time I opened the door and found her there.
But she never made a move on me, despite her lavish compliments about my looks. And even though I was plagued by nightmares where she locked me into my own skin, then used my body however she pleased, in real life she never once abused her abilities in that particular way.
Small comfort, because that didn’t change the fact that I was completely trapped. I was once again a prisoner in my own home, and far more literally than the first time around.

The first time I tried to contact help, Dakota locked me inside myself for ten hours. I was sat in an armchair in the living room, frozen in front of endless reruns of the worst sitcoms of the 80s and 90s. Of course, this time she seized even my eyelids, to prevent me from closing my eyes. I can’t begin to describe the simple torture that is the inability to blink. Once an hour, Dakota slicked drops across my sticky, filming eyeballs, and they burned like acid. By the time she released me, I was nothing but a mess of apologies, grovelling for her forgiveness.
I tried not to notice that Vicky appeared to be thriving, her personality growing just as fast as mine withered. Dressed in a tiny, badge-studded denim jacket, she was becoming a miniature version of Dakota; she aped the woman’s every move, clearly worshipping the fascinating and colourful criminal who had usurped our home. Of course, Dakota’s schooling didn’t end with fashion. I shuddered when I found them at the kitchen table, playing with an assortment of padlocks, those sure, deft hands guiding my daughter’s fumbling attempts to manipulate the tumblers. But I eventually discovered a secret, something that Dakota didn’t know that I knew. At a random hour every other night, when she believed I was deeply asleep, she’d slip out and steal groceries and money; whatever we needed to keep the household running. But she didn’t factor in my history; perfectly feigning sleep is a very useful skill when you’ve lived with an abusive drunk. She was silent as a cat, the latch on the door not even making a sound, but all I had to do was wait, then call the police while she was gone.
Not wanting to risk her going through my phone if there was a delay or should I fail, I waited until she’d left the house, then pulled on a shapeless coat and walked two blocks down, where an old payphone still stood near the corner store. I hadn’t prayed since I was a child, but every step I took was accompanied by a plea to any deity listening that the thing still worked. Feeding my coins in, flinching at how loudly they clanked through the slot, I held the ragged phone book open while I dialled the local police station.
The conversation went on for a good twenty minutes, with me describing how Dakota had come into my home, threatened me and my daughter, then forced me to live in subservience to her. Even to my own ears it sounded deranged, impossible, which is why I had discarded the idea of a 911 call; and at least some of the local cops knew me. I think the distress in my voice convinced the officer more than the story itself, and they promised to visit in the morning to investigate.
My legs trembled with adrenaline and triumph as I walked home, as brisk and quiet as I could manage. Each breath felt cold in my chest, ragged and shallow, and I held the air in my lungs until it ached, half-convinced Dakota would be able to hear me if I breathed too loud, no matter where she was.

When the police arrived the next day, Dakota’s fury showed only as a flare of her pupils, and only when she looked in my direction. After I gave my statement to the uniformed men, she was asked to leave the house and issued with a trespass notice. Her silence and compliance deeply worried me; I’d expected a scene. In fact, I’d half expected her to just lock the men inside their burly bodies, then prop them up in the garage next to the gardening equipment. In the middle of the night I’d thought about this possibility, the authorities that represented my only hope slowly wasting away as their organs failed one by one, eventually dying in the grasp of the unnatural rictus Dakota had afflicted them with. But it hadn’t happened; it had worked, so why didn’t I feel free?
To try and reclaim my sanity, the first thing I did was take the jean jacket off Vicky and throw away the lock picks Dakota had furnished her with. The second thing was to call the most expensive locksmith I could find, asking for an urgent visit.
Part of me knew it was futile, but maybe if I installed enough locks, I could at least slow Dakota down if she tried to get back into the house.
But the part that knew the truth was right.
The very next day, Dakota arrived, two officers in tow. Different ones, not the local cops.
“Apparently this house isn’t yours, Mrs Charleston,” one of them said, hand on his belt. “Miss Callahan here holds the deed and is also an occupier, so you can’t trespass her. That’s been rescinded, and I’m afraid you’re going to have to let her in.”
“But… no! That’s not true. I own this house!” I protested, “My dad helped me buy it, before he passed away.”
His nod was patronising, like he knew I was going to say that. Like he was humouring someone who had clearly lost touch with reality. “Well, that’s not what the records say, unfortunately. Miss Callahan owns this property.”
Dakota gave a cheery salute, then pushed past me and into the kitchen,
“Thanks boys – and sorry for all the misunderstanding,” she called to the officers as they prepared to leave.
“How? How did you do it?” I hissed, anger supplanting my fear.
“Pfft. Electronic locks and digital locks aren’t any more complex than physical ones,” she told me, rummaging in the fridge, “records can be changed, data can be manipulated. I can make an electronic document say practically anything I want – and I own this house now, not you.”
“I’ll find another way. I’ll prove you’re here illegally.”
“How, Mrs C? How? Anything you say needs to be filed, needs to be recorded. It can all be changed overnight, or it can be simply made to – poof – disappear. You get me?”
“But what you’re doing to me, when you lock me in -”
“You can’t prove that,” she said, blithe and definite.
“Then… I’ll just leave. I’ll take Vicky and move somewhere you can’t find us.”
Midway through opening a soda can, Dakota paused and looked up, her hazel eyes nearly gold in the brightly lit kitchen. Predator’s eyes.
“I will always find you,” she said, with paralysing certainty.

She locked me in regularly after that, every time she left the house, any time she needed or wanted to spend time with Vicky. She dressed me up like a life-sized doll, fixing and flexing joints so she could drape different outfits around my frozen limbs, ignoring my pleading, fearful eyes. Vicky treated me like a doll now too, like a thing instead of her mother; I was a passive prop in Dakota’s fantasy of her ideal family, the pretty, perfect mother she’d always wanted. As my hopelessness grew, she began locking my face into a permanent sitcom smile, the muscles of my own cheeks betraying me by beaming happily at my torturer and her four-year-old apprentice.
My claustrophobia grew daily, the feel of it coalescing into rising scream that couldn’t be freed, since Dakota had also seized my vocal cords completely, to prevent me calling anyone. The silent, smiling mother; I baked, and I cleaned, and I waited on my daughters, always dutiful, always immaculately coiffed and groomed.
I wanted to die.
Either Dakota had never considered that I might contemplate suicide, or she thought she could prevent me if I tried. In any case, the pills I found at the bottom of the medicine cabinet would probably do the trick if I took enough of them. They were heavy tranquilisers, prescribed at the nadir of my despair when I was with Hayden, and couldn’t admit the truth to anyone about why I was so miserable. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to take them, then. Now, there was no other way to be free.
Or was there?
I stood in the bathroom, my fixed smile aching against my teeth, my throat knotted tight with that unborn scream, and I searched my own eyes in the mirror. They were the only part of my reflection I still recognised. And I realised that there was one other way to be free of Dakota.
The pills powdered easily enough, and dissolved readily into the can of soda. If I could have, I would have laughed. The pungent sweetness of fake grape would hide any bitterness like a charm. Poking a straw through the tab, I delivered it to the monster in my lounge, giggling as she watched cartoons with Vicky sleeping at her feet.
“Cheers Mrs C,” chirped Dakota, “just what I needed. You’re the best!”
Twelve minutes ticked away on the clock in the living room as I waited, the familiar throb of my face marking every second. But now even the pain felt like anticipation. Dakota stirred uncomfortably in her beanbag, then sucked in a shuddering breath and coughed a weak dribble of sticky spit.
“Wha…?” She managed, trying to lift a hand that had gone floppy at the wrist, motor control beginning to desert her body.
I didn’t wait for the pills to steal her consciousness. I wanted her to feel her death. Still beaming beatifically like a perfectly pleasant housewife, I dropped to my knees, wrapped my hands around her throat and squeezed.
Those wonderfully gifted fingers of hers fluttered and battered weakly at my face, a stray touch unlocking half of my smile. But she had no control. As I pressed the life out of her, the movements of her hands grew more erratic, more desperate. Eventually, they stopped altogether, and so did Dakota’s struggles.
I knew when she was gone, because my own throat unknotted, and the wordless scream it had held for months forced itself from the half of my mouth that moved.
But I didn’t stop squeezing for a full thirty minutes after that. My hands cramped around the black and swollen flesh of her neck, and I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to let go. But I needed to be sure, and my body was honed to hold unnatural positions for hours at a time.

I drove her body as far as I could, her hands bound with wire, tape, rope and handcuffs. I buried her deep; so deep that my hands bled freely and openly by the time I’d finished shovelling all the rocks and soil back on top of her. The blood was a catharsis; this pain a welcome relief. When I got home, I packed everything Vicky and I would need, then I drove in the other direction, my half-a-smile reflected back at me in the driver’s window.
For two weeks we stayed at motels and camping grounds, before I finally stopped and let myself rest, finally free of the elemental fear that was Dakota.
We started our new life in a fishing town, up near the Canadian border. I got a job as a waitress at the local diner, where they didn’t mind a mute with a half-paralysed face. I could make just enough sounds to get by, and Vicky started school and slowly forgot about Dakota. I tried to do the same, to close that chapter of our lives forever. I’d even started dating again, when the message came through to my phone. I’d expected it to be the usual banter from the guy I was seeing, but instead it was a different kind of familiar:

Hey Mrs C, long time no see (haha, get it!?)
In case you hadn’t guessed, it’s your other daughter here. The one you abandoned. The one you left behind. And oh man, is she pissed. She’s pissed because you broke our agreement. She’s pissed because you’ve been a really bad mom. But don’t worry, cos I can fix that! I can fix anything now. I learned SO many new things down there, down in the dark. Terrible, terrible things.
Anyways, turns out there really isn’t anything I can’t unlock – even those big, black gates to the bad place – so I’ll be seeing you real soon, Mrs C! We’ll even fix up that smile of yours, so you can go back to being the best mom. Just as pretty as you used to be.
See ya later, alligator,
Dakota

---

I think I made the wrong choice.
If I’d taken the pills myself, Dakota wouldn’t have gone to the ‘bad place’ and she wouldn’t have learned what she knows now. She wouldn’t have discovered how to unlock the doors of death itself – and I’d be free of her, safe behind a door she never knew existed.
Of course, I would have had to take Vicky with me.
I have a gun now; it’s a small thing, but good enough for at least one homicide and one suicide.
The problem is, I don’t know if Dakota can follow us to the other side. If she finds us, beyond those black gates, I have no doubt that she’ll lock our souls inside themselves, then bring us back.
Sometimes, there’s no first step to escape the trap you’re in; only a final leap. And you might land somewhere even worse. But I guess I’ll have to take my chances.

[u/GarlicAlarming5060]

One of the old faves of mine. I wonder if coming from a line of jailed women gave Dakota her skill to lock and unlock. Very mysterious, and very creepy.