Chapter 45 The Present
THE PRESENT
CAIDEN
The basement made me raw. As if it were splitting me open and dissecting my deepest, darkest depths.
A few days in and I started understanding the rules without him having to say them out loud.
The light stayed on because darkness made people too honest. The food came when he felt like it because hunger made people obedient.
The glass stayed between Amelia and me because distance made us resent each other in new ways.
He was building us into exactly what he wanted.
I hated him for it. I hated myself for falling into the pattern anyway.
Amelia sat on her side of the barrier, legs pulled in, arms wrapped around her knees.
Watching her do that made something in my chest go hot. Protective wasn’t a word I wanted. It sounded too noble. Too soft. What I felt was possessive, almost.
Like the thought of anyone touching her wrong made my hands itch.
I sat with my back against the wire, head tipped forward, staring at the concrete. I tried not to watch her.
Tried.
The basement was silent except for the bulb buzzing overhead and the slow drip of water somewhere behind the wall. Each drop landed with a soft, wet click. It sounded like time leaking away.
Amelia shifted, and the scrape of her shirt against the concrete made my jaw tighten. She sucked in a breath, then another, like her lungs were forgetting their job.
Panic.
I could see it on her skin. In the way her shoulders climbed toward her ears. In the way her gaze darted to the stairs even though nothing had moved.
I hated panic. I hated it because it was loud and contagious and it made people do stupid things.
I hated it because it reminded me of myself.
“Breathe,” I said, low.
She didn’t look at me. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
I clenched my jaw. “Fine. Don’t breathe.”
Her head snapped up, eyes flashing. “You’re such an asshole.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “And you’re still alive. Keep it that way.”
She stared at me through the glass like she wanted to throw herself at it just to prove she could. Like she wanted to hit me because she couldn’t hit him.
Then her gaze dropped. The light in her eyes dimmed again.
The old hate wanted to rise. It wanted to take control because hate was easy. Hate had a script. Hate didn’t ask me to be careful with my words.
But something else kept pushing through the cracks. Something that made me notice her shaking, that made me hate the way the bruises looked on her skin. Something that made me want to climb through the glass like an animal and rip his throat out with my teeth if he came near her again.
It pissed me off because none of it made sense. She was Amelia. The girl I’d sworn I hated. The girl I’d spent years turning into the villain because my father needed one. Now my body kept betraying me, leaning toward her like she was warmth in a cold world.
I rubbed my palms together, trying to ground myself. My hands were rough, scabbed, dirty. I looked like a man who belonged in cages.
Her voice came out small, hoarse. “How long do you think it’s been?”
Since what? Since sunlight? Since the last time we heard a step on the stairs? Or since anyone gave a fuck that we were alive?
I flexed my fingers, feeling pins and needles up my arm. “I stopped counting.”
Lie. I always counted.
She picked at a splinter in the wood, eyes jumping to the far wall, anywhere but me. “You think he’s coming back?”
I snorted. “Bet on it.”
She made a sound, almost a laugh, but not really. It was too watery, too thin. “You’re optimistic.”
“Just realistic. Guys like him don’t leave things unfinished.” I let my head knock back against the wall, the jolt echoing in my jaw. “He likes the game too much.”
Her jaw tightened.
I could see her throat working, the way she swallowed hard, like maybe the words hurt. She wrapped her arms tighter. Shaking.
I watched. Couldn’t look away. Even when I wanted to. It was like a sickness.
The awful part? I wanted to cross to her, pull her over to my side of the glass, tell her it wouldn’t happen again. That was the lie I’d want to tell. But if I was over there, I might hurt her. I was always better at hurting. My father made sure I was good at it.
So I leaned back and let the meanness run the show.
“Figured you’d be used to this kind of thing by now,” I said. “You were always good at being pathetic.”
Her head snapped up. For a second, the fear was gone, replaced by that old fire. The hate she had for me, the one thing that tied us together.
She bared her teeth like a cornered animal. “If I’m so pathetic, why are you stuck here too?” Her voice wavered, but she went on. “Not so tough now, are you?”
I grinned, all teeth. “Tough enough to not cry about it.”
Her lips pressed together. I’d hit a nerve.
Good.
She looked away, shoulders curled forward, breathing slow and deliberate. Counting, maybe. Trying to regain control.
I stretched my legs again, this time pressing the heel of my boot into the edge of the glass barrier between us. It thudded, cold and hollow. I liked the sound. I liked the way it made her flinch.
“Do you ever…” She hesitated. “Never mind.”
I cocked my head. “Say it.”
She glared, but it was weak. “Do you ever think about… what happens next?”
I shrugged, lazy. “Doesn’t matter. We get out or we don’t.”
She was quiet for a long time. The kind of quiet that might’ve meant something if we weren’t half-dead in a basement.
Finally, she muttered, “You really don’t care, do you?”
I wanted to laugh. Or scream. I wanted to bash my head against the wall until the feeling went away.
Instead, I said, “I care enough to keep talking to you.”
It was almost true.
She didn’t reply. Her feet shifted again.
I grinned, splitting the silence. “You cold?”
She gritted her teeth, slow nod. “What’s it to you?”
“Nothing.” I rolled my neck. “Just curious how long you’ll last.”
This time, there was no comeback. Just a deep breath, air shivering in and out through her cracked lips.
But she didn’t give in. She never did. Not even when it would have been easier.
The hopeless part? I respected her for it.
And if I respected her—if I cared, at all—it would kill us both. Or maybe just me.
I heard a creak above, floorboards settling. My pulse kicked up. A jolt, then nothing. The darkness pressed closer, the glass a slippery, funhouse reflection of my own face, bloodshot eyes and a smear of stubble. Just a fucked-up animal in a box.
So I talked, just to keep my teeth from chattering. “You ever think about high school?”
She blinked. Stunned. Didn’t expect that.
“No,” she whispered. “Why would I?”
I shrugged. “Easy to forget when things were simple.”
Her face twisted. Bitter. “Simple? We hated each other.”
I almost said, did we? I didn’t. I caught the instinct, crushed it.
“Some things never change,” I said.
And for a moment, that was it. The world shrunk down to the drip of water, the ache in my temple, and her breathing, ragged and stubborn, across the glass.
I closed my eyes, counting the seconds between each sound. Easier than watching her come apart in slow motion.
Easier than watching myself do the same.
I stayed awake, teeth clenched, and let the hunger eat me alive.
The dark was a beast with a hundred teeth.
Sometimes it bit you slow. Sometimes it clamped down hard, straight through flesh and bone. That’s what it felt like as the minutes crawled by.
We were stilled in our corners, caught in the glue of exhaustion. I thought maybe she’d finally drifted off, but then—
A sound.
I jerked upright, all nerves. At first, I thought it was her. A breath snagged, a throat catching, something weak and breakable in the dark. I almost called her name, but then the sound grew, and my blood iced over.
Crying. Sobbing. Deep, stuttering, horrible. The kind that made your skin crawl. It was a woman’s voice, warping in the echo of the basement, all the syllables slurred and overlapping.
Amelia snapped to, eyes wide. She glanced at me, panic splayed raw over her face.
“Do you hear that?” she whispered, barely moving her lips.
No way she didn’t hear it. The crying saturated the space, filled up every crack, made the glass between us vibrate. It was everywhere at once. Like the sound was trapped under our skin.
I went still, ears straining. It got louder, a fever pitch, then dipped again, breathless, desperate. My hands curled. Instinct. I wanted a weapon. I wanted a reason to kill something.
Her voice trembled. “Is there someone else down here?”
I shook my head, slow. “Doesn’t sound… right.”
Because it didn’t. The sound didn’t change when we talked. Didn’t change with the room. It looped. Broken, mechanical, just a second off.
She cringed, clutching her knees. “Make it stop, make it stop…”
I almost snapped at her, just to drown it out. But I was too locked in, pulse slamming, every muscle tensed. I scanned the blackness, body humming, but there was nothing. No footsteps. No doors. Just that endless, pitiful sobbing.
Then I got it. The bile crawled up my throat.
He was fucking with us. The psycho. He’d run wiring through the guts of this place, let the ghosts haunt us when he didn’t want to come down himself.
A recording. A trick.
Rage firebombed through me. I slammed my palm into the barrier. The echo thundered back, but the crying kept going.
“Fuck you!” I roared at the walls, voice shredded. “You think this is going to break us?”
Nothing. Just the noise, skipping, on and on.
Amelia flinched with every outburst, her nails digging into her elbows so deep I thought she’d draw blood.
“He wants us to lose it,” I growled, but my voice sounded thin, even to me. “It’s all a goddamn show.”
Her head jerked. “Why?”
I snorted. “Because he can. Because he likes it.”
Her breathing came shallow, dizzy fast. I could see her shaking.
And I wanted to punch the wall until my fists caved in.
But I didn’t. I just watched the way the sound hollowed out her eyes and turned her into something brittle, the kind of break that never heals right.
The sobbing trailed off, slow at first, then cut. The silence after was sharp enough to bleed.
We sat in it. Hours, maybe. Or just a handful of minutes stretched into torture.
It got worse after the crying stopped.
Not the echo, no, the echo lingered, haunted every scrap of silence, but the real horror was the way time folded in on itself. An hour could’ve been a day, or a minute. The dark didn’t care. All it wanted was for us to forget what shape we were supposed to be.
I tried to nurse my anger, wrap it up like a shield, but the truth was transparent: every time she looked small, I felt like a piece of shit.
Reminded me of those days after school, when my father would dish out his lessons and I’d run to the creek and punch rocks until my knuckles bled. Reminded me of the last time I saw her cry and how much easier it had been to hurt her than admit what it did to me.
She startled me, voice a soft, bruised thing. “Why do you do that?”
I blinked, picking up a splinter from the floor. “Do what?”
She rolled her eyes, but it was weak. “Act like you hate me every time you do something… nice.”
“Nothing about this is nice,” I said, voice flat.
She set her jaw. “You know what I mean.”
I did. Fuck, I did.
But I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t tell her hate was the only rope I had, and if I let go, I’d drown. So I spit it out.
“It’s easier than listening to you talk.”
She flinched, just a flicker. But she didn’t look away.
I kept going, because I didn’t know how to stop.
The silence that followed was suffocating. The only sound was the drip—drip—drip—and her breathing, fast and tight.
But in my head, everything screamed.
Easier than wanting you and remembering I used to want you before my father made me believe wanting was weakness. Easier than admitting I’m protective of you and I don’t know why. Easier than looking at you now and seeing what I did to you. What I could do if I let myself care.
The dark got thicker. Amelia pulled her knees up, chin locked between them, and I watched her, couldn’t not watch. Every time her breath skipped, my heart went with it. Every time she shut her eyes, I wanted to make sure she opened them again.
The world was a tunnel, narrowing down to us, the glass, and the sound of water seeping from pipe or ceiling. For a while, nothing moved.
I stayed awake.
Sleep was ambush, sleep was death. I needed to be ready, in case psycho decided to come back. I needed to be awake for her.
If she slept, she didn’t have to see me. If she slept, she was safer.
I let my own eyes close, but only for a second at a time. When I opened them, I scanned for her, make sure she was where I left her, make sure she was breathing still.
I didn’t need to like her. Didn’t need her to forgive me. All I needed was to know she’d wake up in the morning, shake out her hair, glare at me, and keep fighting.
Maybe that was the sickness. Maybe that was my cage.
She slipped under, at last, sleep dragging her down. She looked breakable, glass doll on the other side of the wall.
I wanted to reach through. I wanted to smash my fist through the barrier and pull her in.
But all I did was sit. And watch. And promise myself: no matter what, she’d see daylight again. The water dripped. The dark pressed in. And I stayed awake. Just to keep her safe.
Hating her had always been easy. This was the hard part.