I’ve always hated the dark. Even as a child, I needed at least a sliver of light to feel safe, to keep the whispers at bay. In the basement with Carlo, there was never true darkness. The projector cast its gentle glow and there was always something to push back against the terrible emptiness that lives in absolute black.
Here, there’s nothing. Just an endless void that presses against my eyes like a weight, making shapes that aren’t there, summoning voices that speak in languages I don’t recognize. They’re getting louder as the hours pass, more insistent, more real.
But I need to be brave. I need to hold on to what matters.
Carlo loves me. He left me a note promising to come back for me. He said he loved me, and my wonderful husband would never lie about something so important. He’s probably making plans right now, gathering resources, assembling the kind of operation that will get me out of this nightmare.
Any minute now, he’s going to burst through that door and sweep me away from this place. Back to warmth and light and the kind of love that makes everything else bearable.
I just have to hold on a little longer.
The sound of footsteps in the corridor makes my heart leap with desperate hope. Heavy boots on concrete, getting closer.This is it. This has to be it. Carlo has come for me, just like I knew he would.
The slot in the door slides open with a metallic scrape, and I scramble to my feet despite the protests from my battered body.
“Carlo?” I whisper, my voice hoarse from hours of silence.
But it’s not Carlo’s face that appears in the small opening. It’s a prison guard I don’t recognize, middle-aged, with small eyes and a smile that makes my skin crawl.
“Oh dear,” he says, his voice carrying a tone I don’t like at all. “Look at the state of you.”
The door opens with a grinding of metal on metal, and he steps into my cell. The space immediately feels smaller, more dangerous. He’s not particularly tall, but he fills the room with a presence that makes every instinct I have scream danger.
He looks up at something in the corner near the ceiling, reaches up, and turns it toward the wall with a casual gesture that sends ice through my veins. The security camera. He’s just disabled the only thing that might have protected me.
“Cold in here, isn’t it?” he observes, his gaze traveling over my shivering form with obvious satisfaction. “Solitary’s no fun. Especially for someone like you. Someone soft.”
I wrap my arms around myself, trying to preserve what little warmth I have left. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Are you, though?” He takes a step closer, and I automatically back away until my shoulders hit the wall. “Because you look pretty miserable to me, pretty boy. Hurt and cold and all alone.”
The way he says ‘pretty boy’ makes my stomach turn. It’s not Carlo’s voice wrapping around those words with love and desire. It’s something ugly and predatory and completely wrong.
“I could help you out,” he continues, his voice dropping to what he probably thinks is a seductive purr. “Make things more comfortable. An extra blanket, maybe. Some real food instead of the slop they usually serve in solitary. Hell, I might even be ableto arrange a shower. Bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Getting clean again?”
Hope blooms in my chest. Perhaps I misjudged him. Maybe there are still good people in this place. Maybe not everyone sees me as just another criminal to be punished and forgotten.
“That would be wonderful,” I breathe. “Thank you. That’s so kind of you.”
His smile widens, showing teeth stained yellow from years of cigarettes. “Oh, I’m very kind. Very generous. But you know what they say about free lunches.”
The hope dies as quickly as it came, replaced by an understanding so terrible it makes me nauseous. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know what I mean.” He takes another step forward, and now I’m trapped between him and the wall with nowhere to run. “A pretty thing like you, all alone in here with no one to protect you. You’re going to need friends. Someone to look out for you.”
His hand reaches out toward my face, and I jerk back so violently that my head cracks against the concrete behind me.
“Don’t touch me,” I gasp.
“Now, now,” he chides, his voice taking on a patronizing tone that makes my skin crawl. “That’s no way to treat someone who’s trying to help you. I’m offering to make your stay here much more pleasant. All you have to do is be nice to me.”
The word ‘nice’ carries implications that make bile rise in my throat. I think of Carlo, of the way he touches me with reverence and desire and perfect love. The idea of this stranger putting his hands on me, demanding things that belong to my husband...
“You can’t,” I whisper. “My husband... he’s a dangerous man. Important. Connected. If you touch me, he’ll...”
The guard throws back his head and laughs, a sound so cruel and mocking that it echoes off the concrete walls like breaking glass.
“Your husband?” he wheezes. “Oh, that’s rich. What husband, little psycho? The imaginary one who was supposed to rescue you before you ended up in here?”
