Chapter Seven #2
“Can we have a microphone?” I ask, feeling the scrape of my throat and the shift of my lips, but I hear nothing.
Kenneth, who is yet to touch his food, raises his hands to clumsily sign that he needs the practice.
I withhold my frustration, biting back the groan that wants to surface.
This isn’t the time for Kenneth to learn a new skill, it’s the time for answers.
Painting a smile on my face, I lean my elbows on the table.
“That’s a great idea. We should start with finger spelling.” Looking over the tablecloth, I settle on something simple. “How did you sleep last night?”
‘G-o-o-d.’ Kenneth spells out slowly. I nod, focusing on keeping my breathing even.
“Me too,” I lie. “I figured you’d be there when I woke up.” Kenneth’s shoulders stiffen, an almost imperceptible tightening of muscle beneath his T-shirt.
‘Space,’ he signs this time. Kenneth wants to give me space in a house he’s trapped me in.
I smile at the irony but pass it off as a friendly response.
Clearing my throat, I work to keep my voice even, despite the way my pulse is racing.
“It would be helpful if I knew what to expect today. If maybe…you could tell me what you wanted. What can I do to help you?”
Reaching out, I gently take one of Kenneth’s hands and notice that there’s a slight tremble to it. His gaze flickers down, the briefest droop of his eyes before he shrugs. It’s not an answer, but not a denial either.
“Kenneth, please. I want to help. Let me…be your friend.” The words feel risky on my tongue, a bridge I am not entirely sure I want him to cross.
Kenneth doesn’t react, and it unnerves me.
He chooses now to stop talking? Or is that why he won’t give me my hearing back, because he doesn’t trust himself not to overshare?
The tension between us feels fragile, as if it might snap if I push too hard.
But I can’t pull back now. I need answers.
“This house belongs to someone, and I don’t think it’s you.” Kenneth’s reaction is tiny, a blink too quick, a single tremor in his hand, but I caught it. That’s okay, I’m practiced in reading micro expressions. In seeing what others miss. I can play this game.
I let a beat of silence pass, watching him the way he watches me.
Resting his other hand on the table, his fingers twitch once before he curls them into his palm as if he can trap the truth inside his own skin.
I speak again, not asking, simply letting the weight of my words sink into him until his body tells me what his mouth and hands will not.
“This house belongs to a woman named Della Rae Taylor.” Right there.
Another flicker behind his gaze. His lashes lower, his jaw shifting out of sync with the rest of his face for a single heartbeat.
“You know this woman,” I continue, keeping my tone light and conversational, as though we are simply chatting over breakfast. This time, Kenneth has no reaction.
Not a single twitch as a cold mask falls over his face.
Okay, he doesn’t know Della, but somehow, we’ve ended up in her house. Licking my lips, I reevaluate.
“Is she the one who told you to bring me here?” I ask, ignoring the anxiety clawing within my chest. This time, Kenneth gives the smallest of shakes of his head.
Every assumption I make only curates more confusion, my mind feeling as if it’s stuffed with cotton so that none of the threads can quite match up.
“Okay. Let’s go back a step. Someone has leverage over you. Can you tell me what it is?”
Kenneth swallows hard. His hand slips from mine.
Not in rejection, but more like reflex. He pushes his thumb into the space between his thumb and forefinger, applying enough pressure to turn his skin red.
I let him calculate what he wants to say, how much he wants to let me in.
Finally, at long last, he produces a microphone clip from his pocket and attaches it to his T-shirt collar.
“It was only meant to be about revenge. I just wanted to hurt him the way he hurt me, by taking away someone he cares about.”
“And you thought that was me? I barely knew him when all this started.” I raise my brow, trying to rein in the accusation that is punching to be free. It takes everything in me to grasp to the calm I’m exuding. Kenneth winces anyway.
“I tried…I…started with his mom. I’d go to visit her on weekends and during the holidays.
I don’t know what I was planning, but the more I got to know her, the more I knew I couldn’t use her.
She loves her boys. I think, if given enough time, she would have started to love me too.
” He passes a clammy hand over his orange curls and lets it settle on his nape.
“I know how it sounds, but I haven’t had a mom in so long.
I kept visiting, and I’m sure she’s starting to remember me. ”
“You care for her,” I smile gently. “You’re human, no one can fault you for that. But I can blame you for turning your attention onto me.” As my tone shifts, so does the dynamic. Kenneth’s cheeks become twinged with a red blush, his attention fixed upon his untouched plate.
“Everything up to Clayton’s locker was all part of getting my revenge. He’d left, I’d won, and to my surprise, we started becoming closer. I would talk to you for hours whilst you read, oblivious to my confessions. To my explanations.”
“Whilst wearing his clothes,” I interject before I can stop myself. Thinking back on those few weeks, I remember how I clung to Kenneth’s presence, believing we were experiencing the same loss. Dropping his hand from his nape, Kenneth shifts his shoulders, regaining some composure.
“I’ll admit, things became clouded. Once he’d gone, the pain stayed. I had my revenge, and it didn’t do a damn thing to help. I became…lost all over again. But then he returned and—,” Kenneth breathes shallowly, that tremble returning to his fingers.
“Things spiraled out of control. You went back to ignoring me, I got jealous, and… the voices. God, the voices just never, ever stop. I didn’t know what I was doing half the time.
After the, um,” Kenneth clears his throat, “the webcam recording, I was found out. There was so much leverage hanging over my head, and the threat of exposure quickly became a leash around my neck.”
I’ve never heard Kenneth speak so clearly.
He’s hesitant, sure, but there’s not a trace of babble or stuttering passing through his lips.
Tilting my head, I track his face for the micro expressions he can’t hide.
He’s scared, yet strangely confident in his posture and seemingly comfortable in this house he claims to have no tie to.
At least now I have a timeline. Of course, it was impossible to track down the culprit of our taunts. There were multiple people involved. But maybe now I can pull apart the acts from the instigator. I can start mapping out who is pulling the strings now.
“Okay, so what’s the order?” I demand now, pushing my plate away. Kenneth’s throat works, his knee bouncing beneath the table as he decides to once again go silent. I’m not able to let him withdraw, not when we’ve made some progress. “Kenneth? What’s the latest order? Keep me here until what?”
A distinct hardness falls over Kenneth’s muddy gaze, blocking me from seeing through him as easily. His hands still, his entire body going stiff as if he’s been frozen.
“Until they take the bait.”
“Wh…what?” I gasp quietly, the fragile control I had slipping out from beneath me.
The room tilts slightly, my mind reworking those five words in the hopes of finding a new meaning.
Yet, it’s hopeless. As hopeless as asking who ‘they’ are.
I grasp onto the fact that Kenneth has intel I don’t, and he seems to think Clayton and Rhys will be looking for me.
Maybe they already are. Ignoring the whirlwind of other emotions that rise, I cling to the notion that I can’t let them be lured in. I can’t let them succeed.
“So…it’s a trap,” I reiterate, wanting Kenneth to admit it. I want to hear those words, I need to understand the endgame. To scare, to punish, to harm?
He remains still, leaving the words to hang between us.
I try to steady my breathing, grappling with the implications of what he’s just revealed.
For a moment, neither of us moves, the tension in the room thickening like fog.
I study Kenneth’s expression, searching for any hint of remorse or uncertainty, but he’s locked down tight, his resolve impenetrable.
Then, all of a sudden, he moves so quickly that I jolt back into my chair.
“Breakfast is over,” he states, removing the plates and cutlery before carrying them into the kitchen.
I don’t have time to chastise myself for not grabbing the butter knife faster as he returns with a box in his hand.
He drops it onto the table with a thud that echoes through the mic and judders my skull.
“It’s game time. Scrabble has always been my favorite, but there’s also Monopoly, Jenga and a whole bunch of strategy games from the eighties back there.
Cool, huh? We can cycle through all of them before dinner, and this evening, I can make hot cocoa.
” A glint of life returns to Kenneth’s eyes, his smile sloppy and words picking up their pace.
I stare at him, at the grin stretched too wide across his face, at the familiarity which he directs at me.
The version of Kenneth standing before me now is the same one who used to ramble until he lost his breath, whose hands fluttered and fidgeted as if he didn’t know where they belonged, whose stutter tangled his sentences like he was constantly tripping over his own thoughts.
Except now it feels like I’m watching someone wearing his skin, sliding back into old habits like a costume.
He lifts the box’s lid, shaking the plastic game tiles in the velvet bag with an enthusiasm that jars against my inner ears.
Humming under his breath, I watch him set out the game board, bobbing his head to the tune he’s invented.
I recognise the cadence and the familiar oddness, but none of it sits right anymore, not after hearing him speak so sharply minutes ago.
Not after the confession that slipped out like a heavily guarded secret.
“Kenneth,” I say, interrupting his flow. His muddy brown eyes flick to mine, his brows pulling together ever so slightly.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Kenneth asks so innocently, I find myself at a loss.
Part of me wants to shove the table into him and run for the nearest door, but another part screams that Kenneth needs help too, that deep down, he’s scared too, and currently, I might be the only person in the world who recognises that.
“You know I can’t just sit here,” I admit evenly. Kenneth’s brows crease further, but before he becomes angry, I weakly add, “I’ve never been the damsel in distress type.”
“Feel free to try and leave at any time,” Kenneth shrugs off his frown and continues setting up the game. “The doors and windows are bolted, and if you become hysterical, I have permission to use this.”
Reaching into the back of his jeans, Kenneth pulls out a sleek, black handheld device and sets it on the table with a soft thud.
For one wild heartbeat, I think it’s a real gun, that this is the moment everything detonates, but the shape is wrong.
It’s too thick, too weighty in the middle with many safety switches underneath.
“Kenneth, what is that?” I scarcely breathe. Picking his Scrabble tiles from the bag, he sets them into a perfectly straight row on the holder.
“A tranquilizer gun, like the ones they use in zoos,” he replies without a trace of emotion. My stomach drops through the floor, my throat becoming so dry that I can hardly squeak. “It was waiting here when we arrived, like a gift I suppose.
“You’re kidding, right?” I manage. My fingers twitch toward the underside of the chair, gripping it tightly to stay grounded.
Although whilst staring down the barrel end of the gun, it’s hard to think straight.
He has permission to use it. The man who drugged my coffee and took photos of me passed out.
What if this time, he does more than take photos?
What if the lure of being alone is too much?
The fear I’d managed to convince myself wasn’t necessary returns with a vengeance.
I have every right to fear Kenneth. He’s not my friend, he’s a wild card.
I’m not sure even he knows what he’s capable of.
So as much as I want to fight, flee, flip the damn table, do something, I stay stone-still, rooted by the dread growing in my gut.
“I don’t make the rules,” Kenneth hums softly. “I just follow them. Pick your tiles. I’ll let you go first.” Tossing the velvet bag in my direction, he grins wide like a madman. With a shaky hand, I take the bag and slide it towards my side of the game board.
Inside, my thoughts are on rapid-fire. Stay calm, don’t provoke him.
You can’t outfight a dart gun, just play along.
Breathe normally. I don’t trust my face not to crack, so I lower my gaze to the table, to the stupid little plastic tiles I’ve arranged like we’re about to have a cozy family game night instead of… whatever this is.
Kenneth pockets the gun, taking the threat off the table, but the tremor in his hand betrays him.
He’s trying so hard to mask it, to sell this bizarre performance, yet the fear rolls off him in hot waves, as loud as any sound I can’t hear.
“He said it’ll only knock you out for thirty minutes or so.
Just to take the edge off if you, y’know… get overwhelmed.”
Overwhelmed. Right. I bite down a hysterical laugh that tastes bitter in my mouth.
But unknown to Kenneth, he’s just revealed another breadcrumb clue.
The person running this charade is a man.
So I’ll keep playing, keep sitting here in the hopes that more clues leak through, and when I’m back in the solace of my room, I’ll piece together what I’ve discovered to try and make sense of it all.
I just hope wherever Clay and Rhys are, they’re not too close, for their sakes.