We sit in the steam for a moment, her back against my chest, the water lapping at the edges of the pool. Then she speaks again.
"You said something, more like mumbled it in your sleep. About being locked away. In a place where time moved differently."
My hands pause on her shoulders.
"What did that mean?"
What did that mean?
Such a simple question.
What does it mean to be chained in the dark for decades, alone with nothing but the constant grinding noise of your own perception, watching the lies your captors told themselves until you couldn't tell where their madness ended and yours began?
"Exactly what it sounds like," I say.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
My hands slide around to her ribs. I'm behind her, chest to her back, my mouth near her ear. She's tense. Waiting.
"I was imprisoned," I say. The words come out without permission. "A long time ago. By people who wanted me gone but couldn't figure out how to kill me."
"How long?"
"Long enough that I stopped counting."
She's quiet, and I can feel her thinking again. The silence stretches while I work soap down her spine, tracing each vertebra.
"Why didn't you escape?"
I pause.
That's the question, isn't it. Why didn't I escape. Why did I let them keep me in the dark for decades when I could have broken out at any time. Why did I sit there in the silence and let them think they'd won.
"I didn't care enough to try," I say. "I had nowhere to go. Nothing I wanted. They could keep me there forever and it wouldn't matter because nothing mattered."
Her breathing changes. Softer. Something in her body shifts against mine.
"What changed?"
"They decided to kill me." My hands are still moving—her stomach now, the soft give of flesh, the vulnerable hollow beneath her ribs. "I found out I wasn't ready to die after all. So I stopped letting them keep me."
"And then?"
"And then I killed everyone who knew what I was." Flat. Simple. "Found a half-dead child in the rubble afterward. Kept him."
"Renan."
"Renan."
She waits for more, but I don't offer it.
My hands move to her legs and I lift one from the water, soap sliding along her calf, her thigh. She's rigid.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"You asked."
