"There." His beam fixes on a door, propped open by a chunk of concrete stuck through with a length of rusted rebar.
We reach the door, and what I see illuminated by Silas's beam of light will haunt my dreams for all eternity. Brain matter has nothing on that fucking hallway. Freddy Krueger himself would have nightmares about that hallway.
"Fuck. Fuck no." I shuffle backward. "Rats and spiders? No, no, no."
Silas whirls. "We don't have time for that shit, woman. C'mon. For Jakob, right?" He grabs my wrist and slaps it onto his shoulder. "Don't move that hand. You move when I move. Got it?"
"Got it." My voice is small and shaky. "Don't let the rats eat me. Please."
"Just hold onto my shoulder and don't look anywhere but your feet."
I manage this for a few minutes, but then I hear a chittering behind me and can't help but crane my head around. "They're following us, Silas," I breathe. "The rats."
Silas swings around, and his beam illuminates a brief but horrifying tableau: a swarming huddle of rats—dozens of them, maybe even hundreds—crawling all over each other, following in our wake. As the light hits them, they scatter with a chorus of squeaking protests.
A shudder of revulsion shivers down my spine. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
We won't discuss the spiders.
Not the ones I see over Silas's shoulder, scuttling through the beam—if the rats are the size of dogs, then the spiders are the size of rats. I swear to god, I saw one that could moonlight as a Shelob impersonator.
We won't talk about the spiders that I feel crawling down my back, or the tick-tick-ticking of legs on my pant legs as they crawl up me. I keep one hand clawed into Silas's thick, hard shoulder, and with the other I brush constantly at my hair, my neck, my arms, my chest, my butt, my legs…I make contact multiple times, and I have to stifle a scream each time.
"It's for Jakob," I tell myself in a whisper. "It's for Jakob."
Why, though? I should have stayed up on that hill. Shit, I should have…I don't know. Done anything other than follow Nico into this horror movie labyrinth. Even for Jakob, this is…
Even for Jakob?
What does that mean?
I let my thoughts distract me as Silas creeps down the endless nightmare hallway.
Even Jakob?
He matters to me, I realize.
His eyes are sad. Lonely. It's only now, being apart from him with fresh memories riffling through my mind, that I understand. That I see the truth.
The control is armor. A weapon to keep the enemy at bay—and the enemy is…everyone. The whole world.
His mother died unexpectedly, and his father killed himself. That will leave life-long scars and trauma in its wake all on its own. But the last thing he said to me before he entered that house rings in my skull like a multiplying echo.I was a victim of sex trafficking and forced into prostitution as a teenager.
I can't imagine Jakob as a child, or even a teenage boy. I try to picture him gangly and lean and awkward, with his legs a little too long, skinny calves and wrists, and floppy black hair always in his eyes.
But then the image of gangly, teenage Jakob shifts, and I see him on a thin cot, waiting as someone enters. I see fear and resignation in his eyes as the shadow looms closer.
I know my imagination cannot come close to the horrors of his reality, but that alone is nauseating.
I can see how ultimate control over every aspect of his life would become paramount. Especially during sex.
I wonder what else he has endured that he hasn't told me about. I know he has more secrets—many of them. Dark ones.
If you were to know the truth of what manner of man I am, you would take your chances with the killers in there.
What does that mean? What could he have done that was so awful? My mind flips from one horrible act to another, but I can't see him doing any of them. Despite the hardness in his eyes, despite the control, there is a core of goodness to him. Perhaps buried deep, but I’ve seen it. He has shown it to me.
He has shown it to these men and women.
