Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BELLATRIX
The natural chill of outside always felt different from anything regulated and run through a metal vent.
It nipped at your spine and curled your toes.
The stillness of this air confirmed I was indoors, though, while the smell—damp, earthy, old—was an odd mix of the two.
And when I opened my eyes and saw nothing but shades of black and gray, mostly black with those little white stars that formed when your eyes were trying too hard to focus, I knew why.
I was underground.
I pushed up from the creaky mattress, leaning on my elbows as I tried to blink the sedative out of my system.
It didn’t matter. Without some sort of light source, I couldn’t see past the nose on my face.
Couldn’t really see that either. It was more like my mind knew it was there and populated an image in my head.
This was true blackness. Not the kind you were used to when you woke up in a dark room with mirrors and windows and furniture to absorb and reflect light. Everything here was dense, besides the mattress, and there were no visible openings that would allow me to make out shapes.
So I lowered one boot to the ground. Solid.
Holding on to the bedframe as I leaned forward to brush my fingertips across the flat surface.
Cold like rock. Probably cement. No way to dig yourself out.
I pushed to my feet, gripping on to a metal post to keep myself upright.
It wasn’t just the drugs that had me disoriented.
It was the sensory deprivation. Your brain relied on your eyes for a lot more than seeing.
It was how your body determined which way was up and which was down.
How to keep itself from tipping over. Constantly taking in your surroundings, making internal calculations, and spitting information back out.
Even if it was only making an educated guess.
I shuffled forward. Large steps would have me losing my balance on my swollen ankle even if there was nothing in front of me.
One arm stretched out and the other wrapped around my torso.
A grounding effect. Your body also needed some sort of tactility to remind it that it wasn’t falling.
It was why you could step on a painted image and still get the sense that you were about to tumble into a black hole.
Maybe the Roadrunner really was on to something.
I stopped when my fingertips finally met a wall. Textured stone. I followed it around, counting each of the corners so that I knew when I’d made a full lap. Skimming over a metal door along the way. No openings or windows at chest level—I wasn’t expecting any.
I would have to do a few more laps, using other parts of my body for scale, before I could determine that for sure.
But there were cracks. Letting me know that the room was old and that whatever was on top of here had been there for years, causing the stone to sink and disperse its weight over time.
Didn’t mean these walls were coming down easier.
If you wanted something to last, you built it so that it had a little give, so that it flexed instead of crumbled.
I took a deep breath. I needed to think. I needed to keep my body from shutting down.
My hand instinctively went to the back of my opposite arm.
I already knew my pump was trashed again.
I had a few extra syringes prepped and taped to my ankle.
They would buy me some time. It was cold enough down here to keep them from losing potency, and even if I couldn’t check my sugar level, I could feel when it was starting to take a dip.
I was okay right now. Another long, slow breath.
The dizziness was likely due to whatever that fucker shot me up with wearing off.
The sweat from the natural adrenaline spike of waking up in a dark room.
I held out an arm in front of me. I didn’t feel it trembling, any more so than usual.
And I was cognizant enough to notice it and everything else.
I fished around in my pocket until my fingers brushed my keychain, the back-and-forth rubbing motion helping to steady my heartbeat. My bag and supplies were gone but I still had this. Along with the knife weighing down my boot and the razorblade sewn into my waistband.
Whoever’d put me in here—and I was assuming I already knew who it was—hadn’t patted me down first.
Dumb on their part. But I was grateful for it. If for no other reason than I took comfort in having something familiar on me.
Once again, none of it would help me get out of a tiny eight-by-eight cell.
I shuffled back until my knees hit the underside of the bedframe and plopped down.
The rusty springs had little give anymore.
But they weren’t nearly as old as this room.
Which told me it was being somewhat maintained.
For whatever creepy shit grown-ass men did in their secret basement bunkers.
Women were usually a little more imaginative than this. More sadistic too.
I know I was. And so was Vee.
I grabbed on to the metal lip beneath me, my feet spread flat on the floor, and bounced on the springs again.
Listening to the way the sound echoed off the walls.
It had been a good while since I needed to rely on my hearing this much, but not so long that I didn’t remember what to listen for.
The room wasn’t completely solid. There was a gap somewhere by the door, and there was definitely something standing on the other side. Something dense and soft. A body.
Motherfucker was watching me.
Metal scraped against metal before a sliver of light peeked its way inside the room. Followed by a plastic tray. It landed in front of me with a muffled thud before a pair of eyes appeared through the square-shaped slit in the door. Blue eyes.
“Eat up, myshka. Wouldn’t want ya to pass out on me again.”