Epilogue
Sage
Iblink, eyes stinging as they adjust to the dark.
I'm somewhere gloomy. No windows. No way to know how time is passing.
The room that I'm in is cold. Much like the cellar I was once kept in.
It is small, quiet and wet. Another basement.
Designed to keep me low, away from the light.
Which successfully keeps my spirits down.
A lone tear runs down my cheek, and then down the other.
Until I can't help it, I'm crying and once again I'm not making a single noise.
I think of many things as I sit in the dark.
Of everything I've lost in pursuit of this stupid plan.
Of how badly I wish things were different.
My mind keeps seeing Freddie fall to the floor in agony. The look on Alexei's face when I stabbed him and he slumped out of the chair.
I can't take another loss.
I almost allow myself to sob, when the door creaks and swings open and Chet steps through. My back presses against the brick wall in a gasp, surprising myself with how quickly all the familiar fear comes back.
Everything I've been dreaming about in my nightmares has come back to life for me to relive.
Chet flicks open a lighter, letting the shadows cross his face and highlight his ruinous smirk. He's never looked scary in build. But in how presents himself he is terrifying. With his sinister smile, blond hair and the scar through his brow. I gave him that scar. With my nails when I was nine.
It's a look alone that's enough to make your skin crawl.
The rest is instinct. There is something not quite right with him.
Something that says he'd do anything to get what he wants, no matter how callous or cruel it is.
That kind of thing shows on a person. You can see it behind their eyes.
It's a feeling in your belly that warns you away even if you can't quite verbally reason it.
A look like that. It's evil.
"Little Sage. How do you settle in?" Chet says, closing the gate to my cell behind him. He enters this cage with me willingly, which already shows me he isn't afraid. He doesn't think much of me and never has, even though I've done far more than anybody expected of me so far.
"Stay the fuck away from me," I say, standing up and wiping the tears from my eyes.
He smiles and it makes my blood crawl. The scars on my back sting in anticipation of his closeness. I was nine the last time he took me. I am older and there are worse things he can do to me now.
"Oh but Sage," Chet says, his voice sickly sweet. "It's just you and me now. We're all alone together." There's a hiss in his voice that makes his every threat so much worse.
My breathing starts to quicken.
"So many things we can do together now, little Sage," he says. His words are slow and sinister and with each one he takes another step towards me.
"Nobody is coming to find you now. Now, you're mine," he says, and he smiles with all his teeth.
I lick my lips and take a deep breath. Hoping he's wrong.
All I have to do is make it through. Make it to the point where someone finds me.
I'll never get through this if I don't believe against all odds that someone will find me.
I can be strong for this. I can be strong for now.
I can take whatever assault he has coming for me because I know I have people on my side.
People who won't stop until they find me.
"You're wrong," I say, breathing deep. And even though I feel these words down into my bones, my voice still wobbles as it comes out. "Alexei is going to find us. He's going to find me. He's going to find you."
"Oh yeah?" Chet says, like this, too, amuses him.
"And then, I'm going to kill you."
Chet smiles, though his eyes do flicker with curiosity.
He pulls out a black rose and presents it to me with a sinister smile. "Promise?"
I take the rose gently from his hands, and then harden my face as I violently rip the petals off and crush the stem under my feet. There will be no promises. No truces. No honor in this fighting. Only death, and only war.
I grit my teeth and spit at him, smirk on my lips. "This time, not even a promise could save you."
Chet doesn't know it yet, but he is here, right now, because I planned it all along.
TO BE CONTINUED
Sage and Alexei's story continues in 'Dangerous Deceptions'.