He watched me simmer, let the moment drag. “You want to know what I think?” The knife drifted towards the lock, slow and deliberate. He ran the tip around the edge, tapping metal against metal.
“I think you both make a lot of noise, but at the end of the day, you’re just scared kids. That’s what you’ll always be. Scared and weak and waiting for someone to save you.”
He stood up, brushing dust from his knees. “I could let you out right now. Set the two of you loose. But then the fun would be over. Where’s the art in that?”
He paced in front of the cages, slicing the air with the knife, watching our eyes follow every movement. The bastard was getting off on it.
Amelia whimpered, soft, barely a sound at all.
He grinned. “She’s the one that would run,” he said to me. “Not you. You’re the one that stays and takes the punishment.”
“Try me,” I spat.
He pressed his face close to the bars, shadows eating the lines of his jaw. “You think pain scares me? I was born in it.” He tapped the knife against his temple. “Up here, you either learn to love the dark or the dark eats you alive.”
He stepped back, studied us with that blank, cold stare. “Sleep tight, pets.”
He left as silently as he’d come, footsteps fading into the ceiling, leaving a bruise of dread behind.
For a minute, the only sound was the hum of the basement light and our twin heartbeats battering the air.
Then, from the other side of the glass: “Caiden.”
I swallowed. “Yeah?”
Her voice trembled. “I don’t want to die here.”
I closed my eyes. A thousand memories crashed together. Every bruise, every scream, every time I’d failed to protect anything. But something was different now. The violence in my blood had a name and a purpose.
“You won’t.” My voice sounded alien. “I’ll get you out. I promise.”
Afraid to say the rest out loud: I would do anything. Anything. Break every bone in my body. Rip out his heart. Sell my own soul. I would burn the world to keep her breathing.
But that thought scared me almost as much as the knife.
I pressed my palm to the glass, watching her mirror me. We sat in our boxes, caged and broken, but not dead yet.
I wouldn’t let it end that way. Let him play his games. Let him turn the dark on and off. We’d find a way out.
Even if it killed me.
THE PAST
CAIDEN’S CONDITIONING
18 years old
I was halfway through senior year, and I was counting the days until graduation.
The day when I could maybe escape, the day when I could maybe be free. But freedom was an empty dream, and I knew the inevitable was suffering in the claws of my father.
Today, something was bubbling inside me. I could feel it the second I woke up. The heat in my blood, the sorrow in my heart, the loudness of my father.
My hatred for Amelia was blooming into something dark, possessing me like a fucking hungry beast.
But last night, I had a dream. No, a memory.
I dreamt of Amelia. Her innocence, her hair, her scent, how fucking adorable she was when we were kids.
