This isn’t just any rod, I realize with mounting horror. It’s a brand. The kind ranchers use on their cattle. The kind used to burn a mark into flesh, to claim ownership.
Carrson isn’t an animal, but someone marked him like one.
I can see it now, the fire built high, the metal left in it until it burned red-hot, the minute it touched skin.
How much that must have hurt.
Did they hold him down? Did he fight? Didhe scream?
My vision blurs, tears stinging as the image becomes clear in my mind. His terror, his pain, so vivid it becomes mine.
I’m staring at the brand when I hear it.
A sound from above. Faint. Distant. The heavy thud of a door closing.
My whole body locks up.
No.
No, no, no.
Footsteps follow. Slow at first. Crossing the floor right above me.
Too soon.
He’s back too soon.
I’m still holding the metal rod, raised like a weapon. I almost consider it. Hitting Carrson on the head. Leaving him down here unconscious while I flee upstairs, butno, I don’t want to hurt him. I shove it back into the brazier, ash shifting as it scrapes against stone, the sound too loud,waytoo loud.
The footsteps stop.
I go motionless. The silence stretches.
Then, “Becky?”
His voice carries faintly through the house, distorted by distance but unmistakable.
He has no idea where I am. How easily I disobeyed him.
Guilt is an anchor in my chest, dragging me down.
He came home early. He’s out there, probably hoping to play a game like last night. To spend time with his house guest. The way any reasonable person would.
My heart lurches so hard it might actually stop.
I don’t answer. I can’t.
I turn in a circle, the beam of my flashlight shaking as I sweep it across the room again.
Stone walls, symbols, chains, the table.
No doors. No corners deep enough to hide in.
Nothing.
Another sound. Closer. A shift above me. A heavy scrape.
The door upstairs.
