11. Jayson
JAYSON
T he front door slams behind us—oak and iron shaking the frame like it wants to splinter under the rage riding my pulse.
Keira’s struggling, one hand fisted in the collar of my hoodie, but her ankle’s shot and her weight is nothing in my arms. Gravel still clings to the soles of my boots; it scatters across the foyer as I cross the threshold.
Nina’s cane taps once—twice—across hardwood. She glides from the corridor, sharp as a guillotine’s edge, silver hair coiled severe.
Her gaze spears the girl first—mud-smeared face, torn sweatpants, blood on her socks—then lifts to me. “You found your little runaway.”
“Didn’t have to look far.” I tighten my grip when Keira tries to twist free. “She made it thirty meters into the pines.”
Nina’s mouth thins. “And you let her jump from a second-floor window on that ankle?”
“Wasn’t my idea.” My voice sounds like gravel. “She wanted freedom. Gravity gave her the receipt.”
Keira hisses something vile under her breath. I ignore it. Nina doesn’t .
“Child,” Nina says, cane tip angling toward Keira like a bayonet, “you won’t outpace him while you bleed. Save your strength for battles you can win.”
Keira stares—pride and fear at war in her eyes—but she quiets.
Nina turns to me. “You going to keep patching holes after she tears them, or will you secure the seam?”
The words land heavy—loose thread, again. “I’m taking her downstairs.”
“Then take advice with you,” she says, voice low but lethal. “Pain bends faster than kindness, but kindness holds longer once you’ve bent the mind.” Her cane cracks once on the hardwood. “Don’t break what you still need.”
The warning sours in my gut. I nod—too slight to be respect, too obvious to be defiance—then shoulder past her, carrying Keira toward the old service stairs.
She goes rigid when we hit the first landing. “Put me down.”
“Not happening.”
“You’re hurting me.”
“You abuse my kindness, so you get chained again, Keira.” I descend, every step echoing with her ragged breathing and my father’s ghost laughing in the rafters.
Witnesses aren’t people. Remove problems. I tighten my hold until my biceps ache—because if I listen to that voice now, I’ll snap her neck before we reach the basement.
The cellar door yawns open—damp air, the tang of bleach from earlier promises. I set her on her feet; she staggers, catches the wall. I flick on the bare bulb. It buzzes like an angry hive.
She backs toward the bench. “What now?”
“You tell me, Keira.” I lock the cell door—metal grinding into metal. “Try that window trick again and I’ll board it shut.”
Her jaw trembles but she doesn’t break. “What if I need the bathroom? ”
“You get ten minutes every six hours. Scream if it’s urgent—I’ll decide how urgent.” I turn to leave, pause with my hand on the knob. “And Bishop?”
She meets my eyes—defiant, terrified.
“Don’t tempt me. I’m more than happy to tie you up to a chair.”
I kill the light, shut the door, twist both locks. Her silence on the other side feels like a live wire humming in the dark.
Back up the stairwell, heartbeat still a hammer. Nina’s silhouette waits at the top—unmoving.
“You going to chain her?” she asks.
“Only if she makes me.”
“She already has,” Nina says, tapping her cane twice before turning away. “You just haven’t felt the weight yet.”
Her steps fade into the corridor; the house settles, creaking like an old lung filling with dusk. I lean against the wall—sweat cooling, muscles shaking—and finally feel it:
The chain’s already looped around my throat.
And I cinched it myself.