Page 67 of Shattered In Darkness

The void laughs. Not an actual laugh. Not a sound. It’s the way the darkness answers when you beg it for mercy. It stays. It tightens. It makes you understand you’re alone.

I whisper, “Mom.”

My voice disappears as soon as it leaves my mouth. I swallow and taste metal. My throat burns. Like I’ve been screaming. Like I’ve been fighting. Like I’ve been calling for someone who never comes.

I blink and the darkness changes again. It ripples, and for a second it isn’t nothingness.It’s a face. Not my mother’s. A man’s face, half in shadow, eyes bright and flat like glass. Familiar in the way nightmares are familiar. In the way you can hate something and still know it by the shape of it.

Brody.

My heart kicks once, hard enough to hurt. His mouth moves, but no sound comes out. I try to step back but my feet won’t move.

The darkness grows hands again. Skeletal fingers curl around my wrists, my throat, my ribs. They don’t pull me under. They hold me in place. They force me to look.

Brody steps closer in the dark.

I want to hate him. I do hate him. The hatred lives in my chest like a second heart, beating harder than the first. But something else lives there too. Something that makes me want to reach for him even while I’m trying to spit in his face.

Brody’s eyes don’t blink. His hand comes up, cold fingers touching my cheek. I flinch as he leans in. I feel his breath against my mouth, and the cold turns into heat so fast it makes me sick. I hate that my body remembers. I hate that it responds.

His voice finally breaks through the void, low and clear, like he’s standing right next to my ear. “Wake up.”

My eyelids snap open. I suck in a breath and choke on it.

The air is different. Cold and stale. Like old wood and damp concrete. My lungs burn like they’ve been asleep too long.

My head pounds. My body feels wrong. Like I’m wading through wet cement.

I stare at a ceiling I don’t recognize. It’s low. Rough boards. One bare bulb hanging off-center. The light is off, but moonlight leaks in from somewhere, pale, carving a rectangle across the floor.

I don’t move for a second. I don’t even blink. My brain tries to place me, like if it can name the room, it can name the rules, and if it can name the rules, it can survive.

This isn’t my bedroom. This isn’t Marcus’s house. This isn’t Sophie’s. This is… nothing. A nowhere place. A place that doesn’t belong to anyone who lives a normal life.

My stomach turns. The room tilts slightly, then steadies. I push myself up on my elbows, and pain shoots behind my eyes. Nausea climbs my throat, thick and fast. I clamp my mouth shut and breathe through my nose until it passes.

My wrists ache. I look down; there’s a mark on my arm, like someone grabbed me too hard. My hand shakes when I touch it. My fingertips are cold, the skin under my nails looks pale.

I swing my gaze around. Concrete walls. Unfinished. Cracked in places. A few shelves with nothing useful. A thin mattress on the floor. A blanket that smells like dust. One small window near the ceiling. It’s the only opening. Frosted at the edges. Outside is pure snow and black tree shapes, and the moon hangs there like an eye.

No road. No house lights. No signs of anything. My pulse starts climbing.

No. No, no, no.

I scramble off the mattress and my legs almost fold. I catch myself on the wall, fingers digging into the cold concrete. My body lags behind my panic like it’s not fully mine yet. Someone drugged me. The word lands and my mouth fills with bile.

I stumble toward the stairs. There are only a few, leading up to a door. The door is thick. Old. There’s a heavy latch and a deadbolt that looks new. I grab the knob and twist. Nothing. I twist harder, my arm shaking. Still nothing.

I slam my palm against the door once, then again. The sound is loud in the basement, like I just hit a drum.

“Hello?” My voice cracks halfway through. I swallow and try again. “Hello!”

Silence. No footsteps. No voice answering. Nothing but the soft hum of the cold. My chest tightens as I press my forehead to the door and breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

Think. Lola. Think.

Where am I?

The last thing I remember is snow. A van. Hands grabbing me. My body going dead. Darkness swallowing me whole.