Chapter 45
Monsters In The Dark
“How many drinks have you consumed?” Karson asked after Ethan dragged Rodney outside to talk.
I looked out of the window into the dull of day. “Three.”
He frowned. “Are you sober enough to train?”
I was a little lightheaded, but he could drink an entire bottle of whiskey and not be affected, and I didn’t want to seem like a lightweight. “I’m fine.”
“Come.” He indicated with his fingers for me to follow. He walked to the top of the basement door and stopped in front of it.
Dread, thick and tight, balled in my chest. I shunted to a stop a few meters away. He must have taken in the look on my face, or maybe he heard my heart rate increase, because he said gently, “You need to face your fears.”
I folded my arms and shook my head, eyeing the door like it was about to jump out and bite me. “No one is going to take me to a basement.” Sarah did though, and it was terrifying. I didn’t die, however, even when it felt like I was going to.
“Perhaps, but if he or she locks you in a dark room or you find yourself unable to see, you’re going to have to learn to place your fear aside. You’re going to have to be able to think.”
He opened the door and flicked on the light. I edged closer and peered down—yellow swelled against the brick wall down the stairs. Below the light was a rectangle of black, like the walls were a coffin ready to seal me in. My body swayed, the same as if I’d looked down from a great height.
“Breathe, Amelia.”
I remembered to breathe.
This was the area where they’d locked Leon up and beaten him.
My breath uncurled from my dry mouth, my heart thudding in my ears as an image struck across my vision.
Hands on my arms and legs, dragging me down.
It wasn’t a memory, even though it felt like one.
It was a replay of a vivid nightmare. Not real, not real.
Karson didn’t say anything, he waited. It was my choice whether I went down or not.
I felt fear. I felt embarrassed.
I took the first step.
One.
Gray all around me swarming in my ears.
“Good.” His voice was steady, soothing, calm. He was beside me, would protect me. Not that I needed protecting. There was nothing down here but blood and wine.
Two, three, four, five.
“Hold her down,” the monster screeched. Cold hands on my ankles.
My legs stumbled; I shot out a hand against the wall. Not real, not real.
My chest became a brick. The walls pulsed as if they were alive. Light swayed against the darkness.
Six, seven, eight. I chanted the numbers of every step like a script that had to be read to ensure my absolution.
We stopped at the bottom of the stairs at the edge of the long, dark throat. Blood rushed through my veins, my head felt off center, and my legs were shaking. The door on our right was thick wood, the kind they locked people behind and they were never seen again. Fear curled through my body.
“I want to go back,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“What are you telling yourself is down here?” he asked, touching my arm. It was to reassure me, but it felt like shackles.
I couldn’t tell him it was monsters. That would be a fast trip to a psych ward. I shook my head.
“Breathe. I’m here. There is no one down here but us. I would hear anyone, Amelia, you are safe.”
He would keep me safe. This was his home. I was safe.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
He reached across and opened a thick old wooden door. My heart took off again, terror crushing my chest, blood pounding against the walls of my head. The darkness, cold and musty, rushed out and swallowed me. In an instant, everything went black.
My whole body spun, tilted. Somehow I was flat on my back, the cement cold as ice beneath me. I swear I heard a chain rattle. Seconds flew with the sound of my terrified heart. Then from corners I saw them, swelling toward me, rushing like streaks. Cloaked shadows. Monsters.
“Please don’t,” I begged, my voice coming out like a terrified child.
I must have blocked moments out again, or maybe it was my mind flipping scripts?
Nothing made sense. There were just fragments colliding together.
There was a rough, calloused hand digging into my thigh.
I wanted to get up. I was screaming in my head, Get up, Amy, get up.
But my muscles were paralyzed with fear, and I was pinned to the ground.
A sharp pain in my wrist, a glint of silver made me cry out.
The room tilted, and the darkness smothered me like a thick blanket.
Warm liquid rushed over my face. I couldn’t breathe.
My mouth opened, gasping for air. Liquid swelled down my throat.
It was thick and sweet and coppery. I was choking, drowning on … blood.
The wind howled, screeched, chanted.
There was a screeching sound, a terrible clash of metal.
My eyes blinked open. I was in the car, hanging upside down. I tasted blood in my mouth. My ears were ringing, my head pounded, and cold air rushed over my body.
“Amelia,” my mother breathed. I turned my throbbing head. She was hanging upside down beside me, blood rushing down her face. She looked at me, her eyes wide and terrified.
“Uhn,” she gasped, blood splattering from her lips. The light caught the crimson beads on the glass shards. I found myself thinking how could something so devastating be so beautiful. Her voice tinged with fear and panic as she desperately urged, “Amelia, run.”
The next moment I was in the basement on my feet and running, pounding toward the steps. The lights went out—pitch black crashed over my vision. My foot slapped against a step and I fell. I heard a crack like an axe into wood.
Pain shot through my forehead, stinging like a swarm of wasps.
A hand slapped around my mouth, dragging me back. I smelled pine, I smelled smoke, I smelled blood. I tried to scream, but it was lost in the thick of his palm. Wild with terror, I struggled and fought, scratching at his face, my fingernails ripping through his skin.
Whack!
The sound of the punch landed in my stomach and curled my guts in half. I folded like a half-shut pocketknife. I couldn’t draw a breath, I gasped and heaved, tears spilling down my face.
Why would he do that, why would he do that?
I died inside in that moment. Pieces of me shattered by pain I knew I would never recover from.
“Bad girls deserve to be punished,” his voice sounded distorted, not like Karson at all. But it was him. He was the only one down here. My terror transcended the horror of what was happening. My power exploded from my raised palms. I heard another hard crack as his body hit the wall.
Heart pounding, legs shaking, I scrambled for the stairs. Toward the light. Toward Ethan standing at the top, staring down, his body blurred against the tears in my eyes.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ethan shouted.
I rushed past him onto the top floor into the light, blinking at the burst of brightness.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” Ethan snarled.
Karson flashed up and stopped in front of me, his eyes wide, his breathing rapid. “I was trying to get her to face her fears.”
My chest was so tight, I kept trying to suck air, but it was like sucking it through a straw. Black dots raided my vision.
Ethan threw Karson against the wall. He hit so hard the bones of the house quivered.
Ethan charged again. Karson snapped out his hand, but Ethan ducked and his shoulder slammed into Karson’s chest. Karson’s face twisted with pain.
He grunted as he reached down and grabbed hold of Ethan’s arm, then flung him like a rag doll into the wall.
Plaster buckled and crumbled. He rushed after him.
Their two faces, their eyes, black with rage, inches apart.
Kenneth grabbed onto the back of Karson’s shirt and reefed him off. He slammed into the staircase, cracking the timber. Karson bounced to his feet and they faced one another, their bodies stiff, their eyes glued to each other like two caged fighting dogs.
Kenneth moved between them, one hand up in each direction. “If you want to fight you have to get through me.”
Rodney leaned against the wall, his arms folded, watching it all casually. Monique stood beside me, looking between us all, surprise and confusion on her features.
“I was trying to help her,” Karson’s growl rumbled through the room.
“Help her!” Ethan’s snarl rivaled Karson’s. “You stupid fuck. Would you throw a child in the water to teach them to swim?”
“Why did you hold me down?” My voice was so weak and broken it was barely audible.
They all turned in unison to look at me.
My lips trembled and tears streaked down my face. “Why did you say that? Why would you do that? Why did you hit me?”
Karson’s anger crashed and now he looked confused. Then his face paled. “I would never hit you, Amelia, I would never. I did not …” his voice trailed off, and he moved in a blur to stand in front of me.
“Who?” he whispered, his face a mixture of agony and barely contained fury. “Who hurt you?”
Time stopped. A clock that wouldn’t move.
There was silence for seconds, minutes, hours, as everyone stared at me.
I had been abused in a basement. People had hurt me in the worst ways possible, and I had blocked it out, buried it—until today.
The blood drained from my head and my legs lost power. I heard a whine falling from my mouth.
My mother … “Run.” Was it true? Did she say that, or was it a confused mixture of my imagination?
A drop of blood fell from my nose like an allegorical shedding of horrors long buried surfacing for the whole world to see, and it landed on the floor in slow motion. Profound and pulverizing.
The room walls spun, the floor shifted under my feet, and everything went black again.