Chapter 38 The Present
THE PRESENT
AMELIA
Sunlight, fractured and weak, filtered through a grimy window high in the wall, yet the basement remained stubbornly dim. This half-light illuminated our surroundings with chilling clarity: we were ensnared in a wire cage, its tall, barred metal door firmly shut.
The cage sat in a damp, unfinished basement; I could just make out the worn concrete steps of a staircase leading upwards toward a shadowy abyss at the far end of the room.
Since our encounter with the kidnapper, a dreadful silence had settled over us.
Caiden, slumped against the opposite wall, sat rigid with silent fury, his face a mask of shock and barely contained rage.
We were both too stunned to speak.
I thought I heard the skittering of a rat’s claws across the concrete floor. It was a tiny, unsettling sound in the stillness.
In the half-darkness, my mind wandered into the darkest depths. Everything had led me to this desolate place, to this cage, and to this hopeless situation.
Trapped here with Caiden, I replayed a vision of the man slaughtering us. We would bleed out in the darkness, our slow, agonizing deaths mirroring our bleeding souls.
Shadows danced in the periphery of my vision, twisting into monstrous shapes.
Paranoia, icy and insidious, coiled through my veins like a venomous snake. My head throbbed with immense pressure, as if it might explode.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to count my breaths, to regain some sense of control.
We were alone. We were going to die. The crushing weight of that reality settled upon me.
My stomach growled in protest. A small plate of food sat untouched on the floor near the cage.
But even the possibility of food was tainted by fear. Could it be poisoned? Was it safe to eat?
The gnawing hunger in my stomach was a constant, painful reminder of our last meal, hours ago. Far too long. A desperate urge overcame me.
Maybe it would not be so bad to eat this mysterious food.
I pulled the plate closer, picking up a piece of bread. The meat beside it remained unidentified, its origin a disturbing unknown.
“What are you doing?” Caiden’s voice cut through the tense silence, startling me.
“I’m hungry,” I mumbled, the pathetic weakness of my confession echoing in the quiet room. I knew that consuming this food was playing into his hands, feeding his perverse game of control.
“Eating that food is doing what he wants,” Caiden pressed. “We need to show him that he cannot control us.”
His logic was undeniably rational, but the overwhelming feeling of hunger eclipsed any reasoned argument.
I bit into the stale bread, relishing the taste of real food despite its bitter flavor.
“Dammit, Amelia. You never listen to me.”
“I don’t care what you think, Caiden. I’m starving.”
“You’re so weak. Did you ever stop to think that maybe that food is drugged?” Caiden insisted, voicing what I had already anxiously considered.
“I thought about it. But at this point, we’re going to die, so I can’t care about that.”
My words emerged as a melancholic song, filling the air and wrapping around me with its tune.
“We are not going to die. If the military and living with my father taught me one thing, it’s that I survive,” he paused, eyeing me carefully. “It’s kill or be killed.”
“You keep bringing up your father, but how am I supposed to understand if you never explain it further?”
He sat there, defenses built around him, but I pushed to break through them, to unravel his heart and dissect it.
Caiden fell quiet for a few minutes. I didn’t think he would respond. The sound of breathing filled the chilled air.
A ‘drip’ echoed every few seconds from somewhere in the deepened shadows. I had to remind myself that I was still here. I was alive.
“My father was a cruel man, Amelia. If it wasn’t for him, I would’ve never learned to loathe you.” His voice emerged slowly, tinged with sadness.
Through the darkness, I could see his pain. His head hung low, his eyes searching the floor as if rummaging through memories. His broad appearance seemed sunken and small.
Like me, he had lost an unfortunate amount of weight.
In the dim light, I saw him exposed, and it hurt.
“What do you mean by that? When you say, ‘learned to loathe me’?” He had given me snippets of his father’s cruelty but never the whole story. I wanted to understand. If I did, perhaps I could set aside my anger, and we could work together. We could survive.
Caiden heaved a sigh, deep from his soul. “Fuck. I really don’t want to go into his torture. But I probably should.” His voice drifted off, and I waited. I wouldn’t push him, not now. He was battling with his demons, torn between two sides of a bitter conflict.
“My father had controlled me since my mother left. He would beat me, degrade me, and isolate me. If I didn’t obey, he would become furious.
He told me that if I wanted to live in his home, I had to make you my enemy, since you’re Judy’s daughter, and in his drunk and deluded mind it seemed to matter to him,” he paused, the tension in his shoulders tightening as he squeezed his eyes shut.
He was tormented.
“At first, I only complied to make him happy. So, I could go for a day or two without being bruised. But then, I learned to hate you, and it became a sick part of me.”
“I’m sorry, Caiden. That’s awful.”
In that moment, I knew I meant it. No matter what Caiden had done to me, he was just a child, bearing the weight of his father’s rage. He had done what he thought was best at the time. How could I blame him?
I should have. I wanted to. But still, even after all the trauma, my heart held softness.
He didn’t say anything, so I kept talking.
“You did what you had to do to survive. Though, knowing that doesn’t take away my anger from your torment,” I paused, contemplating my next question. “Do you still hate me? Your father isn’t here, so could it be something that’s undoable without his presence?”
His reply was instant. A harsh, anguished tone cutting through the silence, his demeanor stormy as the chaotic sea. “My father haunts me, Amelia. He’s in my blood. His ghost follows me every fucking day. Even now, I’m fighting the urge to torture you. It’s all I know.”
“Well, I hope a day comes when he no longer haunts you. I say that because I am still haunted by my sister and my mother. For different reasons, but they follow me like a shadow.”
“I hope so too.”
We were plunged back into a bleak silence.
That silence endured until the creak of a door opened, and footsteps began thumping down the stairs. The beat of my heart immediately quickened, and panic barged its way into the small area once more.
“I see my pets are bonding.” His voice, like a creeping beast in the night, wove through the atmosphere and struck me like lightning.
I glanced at Caiden; he glared at the mystery man.
“Whatever you’re planning on doing to us, you better do it now. Otherwise, you’re a dead man,” Caiden warned, his tone gravelly and dark.
A shiver spiked throughout my spine. The vision of Caiden murdering the mystery man was a terrifying thought. I had witnessed my father hit my mother, and that was scary enough.
I couldn’t imagine witnessing a murder.
“Watch your mouth, young man. I’m the boss around here. Don’t worry; you have some time before your time is up. I like to play with my pets before I slaughter them. It’s more fun.”
He chuckled, a low, rough sound. The glint in his eye, however, held no amusement; it was the cold gleam of a predator sizing up its prey.
I was struck with dread. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t cry. All I could do was sit and contemplate his words.
My insides swarmed.
Each second stretched into an eternity. His words echoed in the hollow chambers of my mind, a chilling symphony of impending doom.
I tried to swallow, but my throat felt constricted. Escape seemed impossible, a cruel joke in this macabre game of cat and mouse.
“Now, where were we? Ah yes, your contribution to the fun.”
“Fuck you, you sick fucker,” Caiden shouted, jumping up from where he stood.
Before he could storm over to my side of the cage, right next to where the mystery man stood outside, a glass barrier descended from above.
Caiden was trapped on the other side; we were now divided.
A cruel, demonic laugh tore from the man’s throat. “Did you think I would let my pets roam freely without a plan? No. I built this cage with the intention of dividing it. To fill my subjects with fear.”
I looked up to where his eyes went. The barrier had come from above. It had been built into the ceiling, a clever mechanical device that could be lowered and lifted. But how?
I glanced back at the man. He stood close to the cage from the outside, and I could see a device in his hands, a button.
Of course.
My stomach sank a little more. He had thought of everything.
The cage felt smaller. Claustrophobic. The walls closed in, and each breath became a struggle.
“Dammit!” Caiden bellowed with furious intensity. His foot ascended and kicked the barrier, but it was pointless. It may have been transparent, but it was thick.
He kicked it again. And again, screaming a string of curses at the man.
A pleasurable tint filled the man’s eyes as he watched, a slow smile playing on his lips. The realization hit me like a physical blow, a sickening feeling that twisted my stomach and clouded my mind.
He enjoyed this. He found a perverse pleasure in our agony; the sounds of our choked breaths and desperate cries were a symphony to his ears.
“Caiden, stop! You’re giving him what he wants. Look at him! He’s enjoying this.” The thoughts reeling through my head tumbled out in a torrent of words. Watching Caiden tear himself apart, the raw agony in his eyes was unbearable.
Caiden heard my desperation. Thankfully, the barrier wasn’t soundproof. He halted his destruction but stood defiantly, a murderous expression filling his dark eyes.
“Now, sit and be a good pet. I want to be able to play with my female pet, but I can’t have you rushing at me like a bull.”
Oh god.
A sickening feeling washed over me. He wanted to play with me. I wanted to pretend I didn’t know what he meant, but the horrors of my experiences knew exactly what he intended. I slid to the edge of the cage, pressing against the barrier.
The door opened, but I was frozen in place. Caiden’s voice rang out, urging me to run. But I couldn’t. My eyesight clouded, and I felt heavily sedated.
Then, the answer struck me, the food. Caiden’s accusation of it being drugged. His plan was to drug me so I couldn't resist him when he came to assault me.
His shadowy figure towered over me, a coldness sweeping through the air. He was smiling deviously, and I felt as if I were in a nightmare.
I cowered on the ground, my hands curled around my knees, helpless to fight.
Caiden was banging his hands against the glass, screaming words, but I couldn’t focus on what they were.
With a slow, deliberate movement, the mystery man bent down, his eyes intense. I felt his hands on me, a physical and unsettling sensation. The texture was rough, the temperature cold, much like a glacier’s icy surface.
A blurred dream was all that came after. A chaotic jumble of half-remembered sensations, like a fading echo.
A blackness, thick and suffocating, descended, pressing down on me as my mind drifted to a distant, unknown place. My muscles coiled tight, each fiber screaming in protest, on the verge of shattering.
I longed to escape into the boundless cerulean sky, its azure expanse a tempting invitation, so I closed my eyes and imagined soaring among the clouds.
I grasped at anything to shift my focus away from the distressing violation taking place.