“I’ll be done when he lets us out.”
She stared at me, face unreadable. I didn’t know what she was thinking. Didn’t care, I told myself.
I kept moving. The sound of each step bounced off the concrete, made the space feel smaller.
She sighed. She sounded so damn tired. “Why do you do this?”
My laugh was empty. “Why do you care?”
“Because I have to look at you all day.”
“Well, lucky you.”
The fight drained out of her face. “Go to hell.”
I almost smiled. “Already here.”
That was when the light cut out.
Not a flicker. Not a warning. Just instant, predatory dark.
A fist closed around my throat. My skin prickled. The world collapsed. Cage, concrete, the thin barrier of glass between us. It was erased in a matter of seconds. My body forgot how to breathe. The darkness pressed against my eyes like I’d never see again.
Somewhere on the other side of the glass, I heard her gasp. Her breath stuttered, high and shaky. “Caiden?”
I didn’t answer right away. I was too busy counting my heartbeats. They pounded so loud I was sure she could hear them.
The dark started to invent things. My brain tried to make sense of the nothing, tried to conjure shapes out of the thick black.
Corners became movement. Shadows became bodies. I could have sworn I felt someone in the cage with me, moving just out of arm’s reach.
I tasted old panic.
My father’s voice surfaced out of nowhere, low and amused, like smoke curling under a door.Look at you now.
I hated that. Hated how much of him was still under my skin, years after they put him in the ground. I hated that even trapped, even as a grown man, I couldn’t shake the memory of being small, of listening for footsteps, knowing they’d get closer, knowing there was nowhere to hide.
I tried to remember what the basement at home had smelled like. Booze. Sweat. Decay. This place was colder, cleaner, more precise. But the principle was the same: nowhere to run, nowhere to fight. Just endure.
Another voice cut through the black. “Are you there?”
I recognized the fear in her words. I’d heard it before, under bridges, in motel rooms, in places kids weren’t supposed to hide. The ache almost made me laugh.
“I’m here,” I said. My voice sounded too loud. Too human.
Something about her silence made my gut twist.
The darkness pulsed. My brain kept generating monsters, eyes and teeth in every angle. I braced against the wall, fingers digging into the cold concrete, willing myself not to lose it.
I wondered if she could hear my breathing. If she could sense, somehow, that I was just as scared as she was.
She whispered, “Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” The words came out before I could stop them. I hated the softness in my voice. Hated that even after everything, my first instinct was to keep her from falling apart.
“I can’t see anything,” she said, voice barely a thread.
“I know.” My hands flexed uselessly. “It’s just dark. That’s all.”
