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Photos from my recent DC trip – outside the condo building where the girls were held

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u/uptown_Run2654128 – 2 weeks ago

GNS’s wife posting a photo of her and her daughter; isn’t the daughter creepy? Nothing behind those eyes

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Felicity Keating and I agreed to meet at the school library during our free period on Thursday … but thirty seconds ago, the tardy bell rang, and they are now officially late. I’m not sure what I expected.

I’ve taken over a table behind the reference section, laptop propped open, as an older podcast prattles through my earbuds and I chew the inside of my cheek into an open sore. This podcast is tagged “nonfiction,” “podcast/audio,” “drama,” and “thinks Dad is hot.” An unfortunate number of items have that final tag.

Each victim was restrained and forced to listen to the same audio recording, detailing what lay ahead for her in the coming weeks: what she would be subjected to, the rules, and punishment for disobeying. Slaughter claimed to believe that this would help “break” them, and make them more compliant.

When she reads Dad’s speech, I mouth it along with her. Her cadence is off.

Before the trial, the advocate assigned to my case told me that nothing I told the investigators would ever get me in trouble. No matter how bad or scary the truth was, I would never be punished for telling it. And at ten years old, I was convinced she was full of shit. I saw the way my father was treated. I had no reason to believe I wouldn’t be treated the same.

Of course, I know better now. I’d never be charged for a crime I started committing in first grade. On the days I’ve considered speaking up—staring at my ceiling and working myself into a panicky spiral about correcting the record—that’s what I’ve told myself. It’s not like I’d be arrested and shuttled off to Alcatraz. So why don’t I do it?

Because if the world knew what I’d really done, could see all the blood that was really on my hands, I’m not sure I’d survive it.

It’s hard enough as it is.

Fifteen minutes into the free period, Felicity Keating—freshly bandaged and unbothered—finally strides across the library, dumps their charm-laden backpack onto the table between us, and drops unceremoniously into a chair.

“Could you make a little more noise?” I mutter as they dig through their bag for their school-issued laptop. A gaggle of freshmen actually using the free period for homework peek at us from their beanbag chairs. “Couldn’t tell you were here.”

Felicity shrugs. “I almost forgot, sue me. Give me your Instagram, we can message each other.”

“I don’t have an Instagram.”

“What?” Felicity says. “Your mom has, like, half a million followers.”

“I’m aware.”

That gets a huff. “Fine. Snapchat? Discord?”

“Text me like a normal person.”

Felicity eyes me—”Nobody texts anymore,” they say—but still goes hunting through their phone settings for their number, which they don’t remember off the top of their head. In the meantime, I skim their decorated backpack for scraps of information. A knife-emoji zipper pull, a TRUE CRIME JUNKIE patch on the shoulder strap, a button reading STAY CUTE AND DON‘T DIE.

Ugh. True crime is brain rot, if you ask me. Socially sanctioned voyeurism all the way down. There’s even a nonzero chance they’re proud of the injuries they’re sporting; the ripped-up ear and potential scars will get them some true crime street cred, especially considering who put them there.

Once Felicity digs out their number and I plug it into my contacts as FK, they place their phone on the table and open the voice-memo app again.

Jesus Christ.

“No,” I say, going to shove it away.

Felicity pulls the phone out of my reach. “DC is a single-party consent state,” they say, even though DC isn’t a state, and hits record anyway. That nervous smile flickers back to life. “Besides, if everything goes the way it should, I’ll be paraphrasing you. The actual recordings are just in case. It’s, uh, a contingency.”

A contingency. For if I break our promise.

“Right.” I tell myself this is no worse than the usual Washington, DC, surveillance, or the paranoia I’ve been operating under my entire life, but none of it seems to stick. “Fine. Can we get started, or …”

The best course of action, we decide, is to survey the information landscape, so to speak. Make sure we’re on the same page about everything—what we know, what we don’t.