Then I’d heard my father’s truck on the road and the spell broke, and I’d gone home and swallowed the longing like it was poison.
Craving. I’d always had it. I’d just been trained to translate it into cruelty.
Now the translation was failing. Now I was stuck in a cage withher and the old hate didn’t fit anymore, and the guilt was too big to hold, and the fear was so constant it made my teeth ache.
I stared at my hands.
These hands had shoved her. Grabbed her. Hurt her. These hands had touched her sister. These hands wanted to touch Amelia now, not even in some pretty fantasy, but in that raw desperate way that meant I needed proof she was still alive.
I hated myself for it. I hated myself for everything.
Amelia was turned away now, back to the corner, back to staring at nothing.
And I hated myself again.
I sat back down against the wire, head tipped forward, and let the darkness in my head roll closer. Let it remind me of everything I’d done. Everything I’d ruined. Let it whisper that this cage was my punishment.
The worst part was that a piece of me agreed.
If there was any justice in the world, Amelia would not be trapped in here with me. And if there was any justice in the world, the craving I admitted would die in my throat before it ever got the chance to become something real.
Justice was a fairytale.
This was just a basement. A cage. A glass wall. Two people slowly being stripped down to whatever they really were beneath hate, beneath guilt, beneath fear.
I stared at the barrier until my eyes blurred.
Then I closed them, not to sleep, but to hold myself still.
If I let the storm out, I would become my father. If I became my father, Amelia would not survive me even if she survived this.
THE PRESENT
AMELIA
As the empty hours dragged on, I replayed every possible scenario in my head, contemplating all that could go wrong. Anything could happen, but I had to try.
Something deep in my gut told me we were running out of time. His demeanor had shifted lately, as if he anticipated something exciting on the horizon.
When it came time to decide who would receive food, he began giving us larger portions, as if fattening us up for slaughter.
A terrifying thought crept into my mind: he intended to cut us up and eat us. It made a twisted kind of sense.
Out here, in the middle of nowhere, he must have seized any opportunity for sustenance.
I peered at Caiden, the daylight streaming through the small window, illuminating his hunched figure in the corner. I inched closer to the barrier, placing my hand against the glass.
“Caiden.” I needed to ignite his adrenaline. He was lost in the dark lately, more so than I. We were both breaking, but he wrestled with something dark and disturbed within his mind.
No answer.
“Caiden.” I yelled louder, tapping on the glass.
He turned his head slightly. “What?” His voice was dull, devoid of vitality.
“I was just checking to see if you were still conscious. Youhaven’t said much.” Though my voice was weak, a tremor coursed through it as I fought to keep my tone steady.
“I’ve just been contemplating. Keeping to myself.”
