“Ginni, what exactly are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Romeo and Juliet knew something about love that most people never understand.” His fingers tighten on mine, and his eyes are bright with unshed tears and something that looks dangerously like ecstasy. “Sometimes the most beautiful love stories end in tragedy. Sometimes dying together is the only way to stay together.”
The words hit me like ice water, shocking me into complete clarity about what I’m hearing. Ginni isn’t just worried about his parents returning. He’s planning what he sees as a romantic solution to an impossible problem.
A murder-suicide.
The casual way he’s including me in his fantasy, assuming I’ll be a willing participant in this grand tragic gesture, is more than a little alarming. But worse than that is the thought of beautiful, brilliant Ginni destroying himself rather than face another round of family rejection. The very idea makes me want to commit murders of my own.
“That’s not romantic,” I say firmly, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “That’s just wasteful. Two people throwing away their lives because other people are too stupid to understand what they have.”
“But if they separate us anyway...” Ginni’s voice breaks slightly, and I can see the scared boy underneath all the overly romantic delusions. “If they lock me away somewhere I can’t reach you, if they make sure we never see each other again...”
“Then we find another way,” I tell him, keeping my voice steady and reassuring even though I have no idea what another way might be. I’m saying what he needs to hear, buying time, trying to talk him down from the ledge he’s building in his mind. “We don’t give up. We don’t let them win by destroying ourselves.”
Playing into his delusions is probably a terrible thing to do, but right now I’m all out of options. I know damn well that my little menace doesn’t listen to reason. Telling him to let me go, is not going to work. The suggestion could unsettle him, make him even more unstable, and that’s the very last thing I need.
Ginni stares at me for a long moment, searching my face for something I’m not sure I can give him. Certainty, maybe. A promise that everything will work out despite the impossible odds stacked against us.
“You really think there’s another way?” he asks softly.
“I think you’re too smart and too stubborn to let anyone else write the ending to your story,” I reply, and I mean it. “Including me.”
The smile that breaks across his face is like sunrise after the longest night, but there’s still something fragile underneath it. Something that tells me this conversation isn’t over, just postponed.
For the rest of the morning, Ginni seems almost normal. He makes breakfast with his usual elaborate care, washes me with gentle efficiency, chatters about trivial things with determined brightness. But I can see the cracks in his performance, the way his hands shake when he thinks I’m not looking, the manic edge to his laughter when he finds something amusing.
He’s falling apart, and he’s trying to hide it behind the same cheerful facade he’s used to survive his family’s rejection for years. But this time, the pressure is too much. This time, the fantasy he’s built around us is colliding with reality in a way that threatens to destroy him.
When his parents return tomorrow night and find me here, one of several things will happen. Best case scenario, they’ll be angry but pragmatic, willing to find a discreet solution that protects the family’s reputation as well as mine. Worst case, they’ll see this as the final evidence that their youngest son is beyond help and needs to be permanently removed from their lives.
Either way, Ginni will be hurt. Either way, he’ll interpret their reaction as final proof that he’s unlovable, unwanted, fundamentally wrong. And in that moment of ultimate rejection, he might very well decide that death is preferable to another round of institutional torture disguised as treatment.
I can’t let that happen. My feelings for my captor, this beautiful and broken boy, might be fueled by Stockholm syndrome, but I can’t be responsible for his destruction. And I definitely can’t let him destroy me in some misguided gesture of romantic tragedy.
I need to get out of here. Not because I want to abandon Ginni, but because staying puts us both in danger. If his family finds me here, chained to his bed like some kind of perverted trophy, it will be the final nail in his coffin. The ultimate proof of his madness, his danger to himself and others.
But if I’m not here, everything will be fine. At least for long enough for me to find a way to get Ginni to safety. I can find the best institution money can buy. The kindest, most caring one. Or perhaps, even better, I can set Ginni up in a lovely house with a team of carers to look after him. Personalized care.
The point is, I can untangle this mess if I get out of here before his parents return.
The irony isn’t lost on me that I haven’t actually tried to escape in days. Not really tried. Those first few days, I was constantly testing the restraints, looking for weaknesses, planning different scenarios. But somewhere along the way, I stopped. Got comfortable. Let myself be lulled by Ginni’s devoted care and the strange peace of this basement paradise.
Now I’m forced to think tactically again, and I realize the situation has actually improved from an escape perspective. The restraints are looser now, the cuffs aren’t so tight, and there’s enough slack for me to sit up properly, to move my arms freely. When Ginni takes me to the bathroom, he keeps more distance with the cattle prod, relying on the weapon rather than close supervision. His guard has dropped as he’s started to trust that I won’t run.
It’s still going to be damn hard. The basement is very secure, the door upstairs is probably locked, and I have no idea what security measures might be in place. But the increased stakes of saving both our lives makes the risk worthwhile.
Whatever I try is going to be better than waiting around for Ginni to decide that we should die together rather than live apart.
There is also the question of how to get free without alerting him to what I’m planning. Ginni might be falling apart, but he’s not stupid. If he suspects I’m planning to leave, he might very well accelerate his timeline for our romantic tragedy.
I need to be smart about this. Patient. I need to wait for the right moment and then act decisively, without hesitation or second thoughts.
Because if I stay, we’re both going to die. And if I leave, we have a chance at surviving this beautiful madness.
I just hope that when this is all over, when Ginni is safe somewhere getting the help he needs, he’ll understand that leaving him was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
And that I did it because I care about him too much to let him destroy himself for a love story that was always too dangerous to survive.
