“Tell me where the fuck I am.”
“Stop shouting,” he warns me again. “You’re only going to make things worse for yourself.”
“Are you working for him?”
Dominic swallows. “I have no choice.”
I watch as he walks away. A deep growl escapes me, and I slam my fists into the door over and over.
Time ticks by, and no one comes down to the basement. I slide down the wall in defeat and rest my head against the bricks. The sound of dripping in the corner of the room echoes in my ears, along with the cries from the prisoners next door. My eyes shut as everything becomes incredibly overwhelming.
All I can see in my mind is Evan. His broken-hearted face. Those tears that fell down his bruised skin. My breathing quickens as I try to push the images away, but they linger, taunting me just like my father will now that he has leverage.
I open my eyes as my head starts to pound. My chest rises and falls as I stare ahead at the wall. I made a promise to get myself out of here, and I don’t care how I do it. I’m not spending the rest of my life rotting in a cell. Even if it fucking destroys me.
55
CALEB
I’ve counted every brick in this cell more than one hundred times.
My brain feels like it’s crumbling, and my body is going to combust with every second that ticks by. Minutes feel like days. I haven’t seen sunlight for what feels like years.
I have no concept of time. It all blends into one.
Days. Weeks. Months.
The damage it’s doing to my mental capacity is torturous. I’ve lost a huge amount of weight as food is delivered at random times to make me disorientated and fatigued.
When I wake up, I try to be optimistic, but I’m slowly starting to lose faith in everything. No matter how hard I try to get out of this room, it’s useless. I can’t fight my way out of bricks and metal.
Some days, I dream with my eyes open. I don’t know what’s real and what’s fake anymore. I convinced myself I must be in the afterlife. I’m dead. I am inside. But the loud clang on the metal door tells me otherwise.
My head snaps up to the sound, my neck cracking in the process.
“Vella,” Wes, one of Ryker’s guards, alerts me. “Get up.”
I don’t even have the strength to push myself up from the floor, so he starts to drag me when I don’t oblige. He wraps my wrists in silver, but I’m too exhausted to even hiss at the pain.
“Today’s your lucky day.” He grins as he pulls me onto my feet.
My legs are unstable and wobbly, but I keep them engaged. We walk through the cells, but not once do I hear any screaming or shouting. Everyone is silent, and the eeriness has the hairs on the back of my neck standing.
All their mouths remain shut as they watch me being tugged through the middle, eyes hollow and expressions blank.
Wes stops in front of one of the cells and unlocks it with his keys before shoving me inside. I collide with the far wall and grit my teeth as the silver pushes further into my skin.
The door slams behind me as I slowly glance around the cell. There’s a woman and her child huddled in the corner. On the other side is an older man, his eyes fixed on the bricks, not blinking once.
My gaze flicks over the walls. The same nasty wet cell I was in before. Except now I have company.
I turn towards the woman in the corner with her child clinging onto her.
“What the hell is going on?” I croak, speaking for the first time in a while.
Her dark eyes widen as she shakes her head. “Shh.”
My knees quiver as I sink to the floor beside her, and tear the silver off my wrists with my teeth. I pant heavily at the uncomfortable ripples that hit my nervous system.
