5
Chapter Five
REESE
The light is gone. There are no cracks or holes in these walls—only darkness. The howls from the wind are also gone—there is no sound at all, actually. Sin said we need to wait before opening the door, and I don't know why. "The worst of the storm must be over," I say into the darkness. "Don't you think?" I'd like to leave this basement now. That's whatIthink.
Silence.
He was standing beside me when the power went off, but he's not here now. I drop down to my knees, feeling around in front and behind me. I'm not familiar with this basement, and I don't know how large it is, so I haven't gone far. "Don't move," he finally says.
I stand back up, walking toward his voice, ignoring his demand. "Don't tell me what to do," I say quietly. Maybe I should be afraid of him.I'm not.
His hand catches my arm, and he squeezes tightly. A little too tightly. "I told you not to move." His touch and words make me freeze in place.Maybe I am a little afraid.
When his hand releases my arm, I take a couple of steps back, feeling the edge of the steps at my calves.I need to get out of here.I take slow, careful steps backwards—up the stairs until I run my hand over the metal bar on the door. I press on the edge, trying to push it to the side. Freedom feels almost close enough to touch; yet the feeling in my gut tells me I'm nowhere near escaping this nightmare. Mom always said, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." She was talking about my similarities to Dad, but I think I might be able to say the same about Sin and his father.
As the metal bar unhinges a smidge, I'm grabbed, dragged down the steps and pinned up against a wall. "Don't leave me," he says, breathing heavily against my lips.
His hands are heavy, pressed against my shoulders and the uneven stones on the wall behind me are knifing into my skin. "You're hurting me," I utter.
He immediately releases the pressure and rests his hands over me gently instead. "Why were you locked up?" I ask, wishing I could see his face, the look in his eyes, anything that might be an indication of who he is, who he was.
"Why wereyoulocked up?" he retorts.
"I don't know." I wish I knew. I think. Or, maybe not.
"I know why we were both locked up," he says.
My heart flutters and a squeezing pain bites around my gut. I clench my hands tightly, unsure if I'm capable of learning the reason for my three-year imprisonment. "But you won't tell me, will you?" I ask. That would be too easy after all of this time.
Sin's hand finds my face, and his thumb grazes back and forth from my ear to the corner of my eye. "It was my fault," he says gently. "I shouldn't have agreed to help my father."
"Help him do what?" I ask. "What did you do?"
"Reese," he whispers. "Do you remember me?" The question completely alarms me, makes my head hurt, and my body ache even more.Remember him.Where would I have seen him? I close my eyes, suddenly needing more darkness than what is already around me to recollect the memory of him.Remember him. Remember him. I went to an all-girls school. I had two friends who lived on the same street as I did, and I played soccer, but that was with all girls too. I have never met a man like him.
"No, I don't remember you. Should I?" I know I would remember him if I had known him. I wouldn't have forgotten his face. Those eyes. Although I suppose people can change in three years, as I imagine I have.
"You remember me," he begins. "You were standing in front of me when both of our lives changed. You looked right at my face. Your eyes were wide like you had seen a ghost. You hugged yourself tightly as someone dragged me away, and you followed me halfway down the hall until you were called back. You told the nurses not to hurt me. Don't you remember?"
Despite the barrage of memories flooding through my fragile mind, I have forgotten how to breathe in the past fifteen seconds. It's as if a vacuum has sucked all of the wind out of me, and it's becauseI do remember. The lost young man being taken away against his will is one of the last memories I have beforeIwas taken. I had forgotten that day entirely, partially because Snatcher knocked me out shortly after, and partly because I didn't want to remember anything leading up to the moment I was attacked. Now, I'm trying to remember everything, though.
With little flashes of memories from that day, I remember thinking Sin must have been only a couple of years older than I was. His hair was everywhere—a complete mess, and his eyes were sad and scared. I was scared for him, and yet, I didn't even know him or why he was there. They had him in a blue hospital gown with cuffs around his wrists. Those cuffs were tight—I recall studying the red rings around his wrists as they dragged him down the hall, wondering how much it must have hurt. They wouldn't even let him talk. They wouldn't hear me out either, but it was because I was a no one and shouldn't have been there in the first place. I only wanted to know what he did to make people so angry with him. I wanted to know why he was being dragged off against his will and where they were taking him. Those were questions I never got to ask. "I do remember you."
"Okay. Do you know what I was blamed for?" he asks, backing away, leaving me to feel lost again in the thick opaqueness of this room.
"No," I tell him, looking in every direction for a hint of where he might be. It's useless, though.
"Good," he whispers into my ear, startling me.
"I need some light. I just need a little light. Panic has been bubbling in my belly for what seems like an hour and I can't—I can't deal without the light."
"He might be out there, Reese. Leaving is not a good idea."
"We should at least try. He mightnotbe out there," I argue. "Are we in his basement? He could easily find us down here, couldn't he?"
"This is not his basement. He won't find us down here," he says firmly.
