Chapter Three
Kenneth tells me about that night in broken fragments, switching between rushed rambling and moments of quiet that I never thought would end.
He relives how he was woken by police pounding on the door that morning, informing him that his cousin had been killed in a heist gone wrong.
It was so out of character, he tells me, and Kenneth didn’t get the answers he was seeking until the court hearings.
He attended every single one, listening to Clayton’s confession.
Clay took the entire blame, no doubt to protect his mom from the gang he was trying to join.
I can’t imagine they’d take kindly to him snitching.
At last, I’m thankful for the dark. Tears roll down my cheeks, a bittersweet smile trembling at the corners of my mouth. That’s Clayton, forever noble, even when I’m sure he wasn’t to blame. He was a kid. They all were.
Kenneth’s voice turns cold as he relays how the loss of his cousin triggered his uncle’s suicide two weeks later, leaving him to be bounced into care and beaten by other kids until being accepted into Waversea.
The academy he only applied to when news broke that Clay had been accepted.
His revenge became his purpose, and Kenneth has been tricking and hacking his way closer to Clayton ever since.
My chest aches for them both. The kid who lost a cousin and the boy who’s been living with guilt for years.
They’re both victims, but in Kenneth’s eyes, Clayton was the weak link. He’s to blame.
Despite the fact he’s my captor, despite the fact I should be running blindly until I find a way out, I can’t help the tenderness that rises.
Ignoring the screaming in my head telling me to do anything else, I move closer and lean into him, letting his grief press against my shoulder until his arms curl around me and his face finds the hollow of my neck.
Tears pool in my collarbone beneath the hoodie, both his and my own, as I succumb to the losses we’ve both had to endure.
There’s no competition of larger or lesser pain, no comparison of stories.
Just a shared, roiling emptiness that squeezes the air from my lungs.
I think about how close I came to letting revenge swallow me after my parents were killed.
If the drunk on the other side of the crash had survived, I can’t say I’d have done differently.
I, too, would have hunted for someone to blame, somewhere to direct my devastation.
Whether through luck or misfortune, there was nothing left to hate, and I wasn’t willing to lose myself in order to find it.
But I understand how far one can slip whilst trying to stitch their life back together.
Kenneth’s story doesn’t excuse what he’s done to me, but I can’t stop the pity or the small, dangerous thread of sympathy that knots itself to my ribs.
“For what it’s worth,” Kenneth’s muffled voice sounds against the microphone long after his tears have dried, “I am sorry. I just wanted to hurt him. You weren’t originally part of that plan. I mean to say that, I didn’t intend to involve you.”
I nod slowly, if only to keep the peace. I don’t tell him it’s okay or that he has my forgiveness, but he apologized. That’s a start. A remorseful kidnapper is one who will let me walk out of here. Finally, I’m starting to sense a trace of the old Kenneth back. I just need to lean into his guilt.
“Please don’t leave me in the dark again,” I whisper, pressing a hand to my chest. It still confuses me to feel how solid his pecks are, but I push down the difference.
“I can’t describe what it’s like missing two of my senses.
I can’t talk to myself for company, I can hardly breathe against the isolation. ”
The words hang in the dim glow of the phone light, but it’s not dim enough to hide the shift in Kenneth’s expression.
Hesitating, he rises slowly, his shadow stretching long across the slanted walls.
I see now that it is an attic, a floor hatch vaguely outlined over the far side.
I stand too, refusing to cower, though my legs tremble with the effort.
“Harper,” he breathes, picking up his phone and holding it upwards to flood himself in light.
His head is bowed, his shoulders slumped.
For a moment, he looks so human, so wrecked, that my brain stutters trying to align that image with the man who drugged and kidnapped me.
There have been so many moments I could’ve lunged for his phone, smashed it and run, but the fight drains out of me every time I see that look on his face.
The one that says he’s already lost everything he loves.
Despite myself, I reach out and grab his hand, letting my eyes plead what I can’t bring myself to say out loud. Praying silently that he won’t leave me in here, but he pulls away as his jaw tightens.
“I can’t,” Kenneth murmurs. I start to respond, telling him that he can.
Just let me go, let me follow him out, but whatever kindness I so recently saw is gone.
With the straightening of his shoulders and a ripple down his spine, all that remains is a cold shell of a man I don’t know.
“I’m not the one calling the shots anymore.
” My heart stutters, the chill in my bones turning ice cold.
“What…what do you mean?” I ask, the question barely leaving my lips before the world fractures.
The light switches off, and the faint blue of the mic dies.
In an instant, I’m swallowed by nothing, plunged into darkness and silence.
I move forward on instinct and meet the force of two palms pushing against my shoulders.
Gravity grips me, tossing me back onto the mattress where my head hits the wall.
Pain detonates at the base of my skull, white stars bursting behind my eyelids.
Disoriented, I gasp, reaching for the ground that won’t stay still, my stomach lurching as I struggle to find the right way up.
“Kenneth,” I cry, hands sweeping the air.
I stumble forward onto my knees, feeling my way across the room as I crawl blindly, fingertips sweeping through dust and splinters.
My head throbs with each heartbeat, my sense of direction skewed.
I can’t tell if I’m moving straight or in circles.
It takes far too long to find the groove of the floor hatch, and when I do, it’s locked tight.
Regardless, I scramble to pry at it until my nails break.
“Kenneth! Please don’t leave me here, I hate being—” alone.
Oh, the bitter irony. Being isolated is a skill I’m well practiced in, opting to live in my own silence rather than join the real world.
But that’s when I had free will. When it was my choice.
I bite down hard on the panic clawing its way up my chest, but it’s useless.
The silence presses in, heavy and absolute, louder than any scream, so thick that it feels alive.
Dropping back onto my ass, I force out a shaky breath. I’m living one of my worst nightmares. The world is pitch-black and muted, stripped of sight and sound, leaving me stranded inside my own head. My pulse thrashes against my throat, the only thing keeping me grounded in this void.
For a fleeting second whilst comforting him, I’d forgotten that we’re kidnapper and captive. Not two friends sharing grief. Not the boy who used to keep me company in his dorm when my heart was breaking for Clay. I’d let myself believe the lie that maybe he still cared.
I swallow the lump in my throat, pushing past my own misery. I’m not the only one hurting here, and I’m never one to give up on someone. There’s no such thing as a lost cause, only a misunderstood one.
“If you can still hear me, I’m sorry for what happened to Antonio,” I say into the dark, unable to hear if my words are clear.
“And I want you to know, I get it. Loss can twist you into something unrecognizable. I’m not fighting you, Kenneth.
You helped me once, and I want to help you now.
Just let me out… please. Let’s deal with this together.
” Only the silence answers back, dense and final. A fresh set of tears swims in my eyes.
A fresh wave of dizziness surges, and I press a palm to the back of my skull.
My fingertips come away tacky and warm. The nausea curls deep in my gut, threatening to drag me under.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the darkness, and it makes no difference.
It’s everywhere. Inside me. Around me. Crawling through the spaces between each heartbeat.
Somehow, I manage to find my way back to the mattress.
The sheets have come loose, pooling in the center where I collapse.
Even on my side, I feel like I’m tilting sideways.
A jagged spring bites into my shoulder, the pain a pleasant distraction from where my mind goes, inventing things that aren’t really there.
Shapes shifting in the corners, the walls pressing in, a shadow passing before me, a breath that doesn’t belong to me stirring the air.
I suck in a breath, waiting for the cold clutches of dread to pass. They don’t.
“Stop it,” I whisper to myself, though the words exist only in my head.
It’s a feeble attempt to pull myself together that has no chance of working right now.
Not when the tears spill over, not when a fresh shiver claims my spine.
I curl in on myself, clutching my throbbing skull, willing the world to steady, willing myself to be brave.
But the more I try, the more the darkness presses against me like hands, like Kenneth’s hands, and I can’t tell what’s real anymore. I simply succumb to the fear.