“What’s love?”
“Love is—”Pain.“—caring about someone, keeping your promises. You never want them to be hurt or to feel bad, so you’ll do anything to make them better.”
His hand becomes lax in mine as he sleepily mumbles, “Like you do for me?”
“Yeah, Kid.” I trace his knuckles with my thumb. “I love you.”
The small LED light above the door flashes orange. I stare at it. It’s only ever turned white to signal it’s time to eat. Slowly sitting up, I check Kid is asleep as I place his hand on the bed.
Soft clicks sound.
I plant my feet as I straighten my spine to block anyone getting close to the bed.
But when the door opens, it’s Lennox who stands on the other side. His eyes dip down, his lips slowly lifting a fraction in the corners as he looks at Kid’s sleeping form.
“He’ll be safe,” he whispers. “You’ve been asked for.”
Kid told me the nights he’s given to Lennox, they play games and he has to jump on the bed until he’s tired. It doesn’t take a genius to understand why my uncle tells him to.
I still hesitate until he lifts his phone, showing me he’s disabled any other access for the locks.
“Little shadow,” he says in an attempt to get me to move. I walk forward but he gestures to my boots as he whispers, “Put them on here. Don’t wake him.”
Grabbing the boots, I follow him out into the hallway and watch him engage the locks on the door, then wait for them to click into place to put on the boots. As I stand on one leg to lace my boot, the hem of my pants pulls up, revealing the blood staining my sock. I shamefully brush my wrist against the hem so it rolls down without making it obvious.
When I switch legs, I catch Lennox staring at me.
He knows I’m weak.
He’s going to ask questions, making it clear I’m broken. Worst of all, a victim.
I hold my breath, waiting for it to be addressed as my skin becomes uncomfortable to be in. The longer the silence drags, the louder the little whisper in the back of my head grows, hoping it could change things if someone knows. It’s smothered in shame, stamped out, shouted over because the fear of losing control over my own body is greater than any hope I could have.
I don’t know whether to be grateful or disappointed when he grips my shoulder, squeezing once, but he doesn’t bring it up.
The hallway is weird as fuck. The smooth, polished concrete hides the way the floor tilts and the width of the walls alternate.It’s like a carnival attraction built with the singular purpose of causing confusion.
We reach another steel door bigger than the others, resembling a vault with the large circular handle in the middle of it. He passes me a pair of black gloves then puts on his own pair before he disengages the electronic lock. The putrid and thick smell coming out of the room turns my stomach as soon as he opens the door.
I bury my nose in my shoulder as we walk towards a small puddle of congealed liquid staining the concrete corner. When I turn to look at my uncle, it gets worse. The couple I brought here are chained to the wall. Naked.
They’ve been here for months with grime, dirt, and filth on them as their heads limply hang forward and a thick metal collar sits around their necks with chains feeding into the wall.
“What the fuck?” I breathe out, afraid of pulling the stench into my lungs.
Lennox turns without any reaction to our surroundings, he calmly says, “Not now. Hold his arm.” He gestures to the man.
I sheepishly go to the other side of the man, holding his bicep and forearm as Lennox does the same on the other side. Still no fucking reaction, but I ask, “Are they dead?”
“Unfortunately, they’re cursed with life,” he says, barely moving his lips.
I don’t have an issue with crime since it was the only thing I could do after leaving prison. The irony isn’t lost on me that being sentenced for a crime I didn’t commit made me into a criminal. It doesn’t mean I lack morals. There’s something deeply disturbing about restraining someone’s unconscious naked body to a wall.
The cuffs click into place around the man’s ankles and wrists, then Lennox feeds the chain through a hole in the wall so the collar pulls his head back. When he takes his phone from hispocket, I grab his wrist to stop him violating them any further. His eyes are even icier as he looks at my gloved hand then flicks back up to my face.
“Don’t,” I say. “They don’t need to have evidence of it.”
He clicks on something, opening the same scrambled lines he used at Helene’s. How much surveillance is too much? There has to be a limit, some semblance of privacy around these fuckers.
