Empathy by Steven Sheil

“What happens now?” said the girl.

“We wait,” Mickey told her. 

Francine had gone off to make the call to the mother, leaving Mickey alone with the girl for the first time since the kidnapping. She’d chosen a public callbox a good thirty miles away, just to cover herself—Francine was smart like that, Mickey thought, always planning ahead—so it was going to be a good hour or two before she was back.

“These are really painful,” said the girl, nodding down to where the zip-ties bound her hands, “Can’t you loosen them a bit?”

Francine had warned Mickey about this.

“The minute I’m gone, the very minute it’s just the two of you in there, that little bitch is going to try it on,” she’d said. “She’s going to see you as the weak link—because you are—and she’s going to try and get you to put your guard down and then she’s going to kick you in the throat or break your nose with her elbow and then she’s going to make a run for it.” 

At this point Francine had put her hands either side of Mickey’s face, holding him like sandwich meat. She’d looked him straight in the eyes, the way she always did when she was trying to get something to stick. “Don’t fall for it,” she’d told him.

“Nothing doing,” Mickey told the girl, “You’ll just have to put up with it.”

The girl let herself slump back against the wall. She was twelve years old and small for her age, but something about her face made her look older, as though Mickey could see in her bones the woman she might become. He had the same look about him when he was a kid—like childhood was just an ill-fitting coat you had to wear until you grew into it.

“She won’t pay,” the girl said. “I’m telling you. She doesn’t give a shit about me, never has. I’m just in the way.”

Mickey wanted to say something, to reassure the girl—it was just his natural instinct; Francine always said it was his best trait, empathy—but then he remembered Francine’s words, her hands on his face, so he kept his mouth shut.

The girl went on. “She only had a kid because she wanted a little doll to dress up and be like her. The second I started having my own opinion about things, it was like all the shine came off. I don’t even see her much anymore. It’s just tutors and nannies and housekeeping staff, and maybe on my birthday she gets her assistant to buy me something, like a phone or a Playstation or some jewelry I don’t ever wear. The only time we ever hang out is when they do a profile on her and the PR people tell her that she needs me to be in the photos. Apart from that, she doesn’t care that I’m alive.” 

She looked up, and Mickey could see that she was near to crying. “You know what that feels like? To know that you’re not wanted?” Her voice cracked on the last word and a sob came out of her. She put her bound hands up, hiding her face, but Mickey could see the heave and fall of her chest as she sobbed.
The thing was, he did know. He’d been fourth of seven, all boys, but even sitting in the middle he was still the runt. No good for farm work, he’d been relegated to helping out round the house–but even that was never good enough. He had the shit beaten out of him every week for six years until, at age fifteen, he met Francine and they left it all behind.

If Francine hadn’t found him that day at the grocery store, he didn’t know what he’d have done. So many nights he lay in bed after a beating and just wished he was dead. Then Francine came along and it was like the giant hand of God had reached down and plucked him out of his life and set him on another path.

Not everyone had a Francine.

The girl had stopped sobbing now, and was just staring straight ahead. Mickey recognised that look, had seen it before in the mirror. The look that said there was no point in hoping anymore. It was like he was seeing himself ten years ago, with all the pain and despair and desperation that entailed.

“Even if she does pay,” said the girl. “What kind of life am I going to go back to? She’ll blame me for all this, I know she will. She’ll tell me that I owe her, that I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life paying her back, that I’d have been better off if you’d kept me.” Her blue eyes, reddened, looked up at Mickey. “I’m going to be trapped with her forever, with no way out.”

A pang went through Mickey, reactivating an ache that had sat in his soul since he was nine years old. This girl had no Francine, but maybe he could be her hand of God.

He walked over to the bed, sat down beside her, “There’s always a way,” he said, and he reached up his hands and tenderly, but surely, gripped her throat.

*****

Francine came back an hour later. Mickey met her at the door. Her face was alive with anticipation, like she could smell success in the air.

“She’s gonna pay,” she said. “The whole amount, no haggling. All we need to do is show her proof of life.”

“Francine,” said Mickey, “We might have a little bit of a problem there.”

© 2025 Steven Sheil

About the author:
​Steven Sheil is a writer of crime, horror, and weird fiction. His work has previously been published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Black Static and The Ghastling. His short story The Art Of Cruel Embroidery was nominated for Best Short Story at the 2025 Edgar Awards. He lives in Nottingham, UK.