Chapter 51 The Present
THE PRESENT
AMELIA
As the empty hours dragged on, I replayed every possible scenario in my head, contemplating all that could go wrong. Anything could happen, but I had to try.
Something deep in my gut told me we were running out of time. His demeanor had shifted lately, as if he anticipated something exciting on the horizon.
When it came time to decide who would receive food, he began giving us larger portions, as if fattening us up for slaughter.
A terrifying thought crept into my mind: he intended to cut us up and eat us. It made a twisted kind of sense.
Out here, in the middle of nowhere, he must have seized any opportunity for sustenance.
I peered at Caiden, the daylight streaming through the small window, illuminating his hunched figure in the corner. I inched closer to the barrier, placing my hand against the glass.
“Caiden.” I needed to ignite his adrenaline. He was lost in the dark lately, more so than I. We were both breaking, but he wrestled with something dark and disturbed within his mind.
No answer.
“Caiden.” I yelled louder, tapping on the glass.
He turned his head slightly. “What?” His voice was dull, devoid of vitality.
“I was just checking to see if you were still conscious. You haven’t said much.” Though my voice was weak, a tremor coursed through it as I fought to keep my tone steady.
“I’ve just been contemplating. Keeping to myself.”
“I can see that,” I breathed out, wondering how to break through him.
Silence enveloped us again. A sigh escaped my lips. He could scarcely look at me. I wasn’t surprised; I knew he felt a kind of second-hand shame every time the man came down to “play with me,” as he put it.
I was grateful for the drugged food, numbing my senses as he intruded upon my body.
“Please say something,” I pleaded, desperate to see that fire in his eyes again. The brokenness that cloaked him was disheartening. All my life, he had been strong and tough, never backing down.
But now, he was a shell of who he used to be.
Now, more than ever, I needed that fierce and angry Caiden.
“What do you want me to say? There’s nothing left. I’m done,” he spoke dully, a monotone rasp barely audible.
“Come on, Caiden. I need you to wake the hell up,” I snapped at him fiercely.
“You kept telling me that I shouldn’t give up, so I’m doing the same for you.
We have to cling to whatever tiny bit of sanity and clarity we have left, for our own sakes.
I have a bad feeling that our time is running out. ”
“You’re probably right.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything more.
“And? What will you do about it? If there’s any tiny bit of humanity left in you, then be a man for once in your life and work with me here.”
My words aimed to push him, and they did.
“I am a fucking man. I’ve survived a lot of tough shit. My father, the military, being kicked out of my home because my girlfriend didn’t want anything to do with my drunk ass anymore,” he yelled, angry, though I could see that he was angrier with himself.
Surprise washed over me. He had a girlfriend? That must have been what he and Shane talked about when Shane asked if he needed a place to stay.
The thought of Caiden being loving and affectionate was disturbing, almost surreal, a complete contradiction to his usual demeanor.
A sliver of doubt remained; I couldn’t fully grasp that he was capable of such a thing. But my mind didn’t linger on that topic for long.
“Exactly. You’re stronger than you know.
So, get angry. Get energized. Take all that frustration about how hard life has been and let it fuel you.
That’s what I’m trying to do. But I can’t do it by myself.
” I took a breath and poured out my next sentence.
“You owe me this. After everything you’ve put me through.
After impregnating my sister, leading to her suicide, you owe me. ”
His head snapped upwards, nostrils flaring, eyes burning.
That was the Caiden I remembered.
“That was not my fault. Yeah, I had sex with her, but I was fucking depressed that night and needed somebody. I didn’t push her to kill herself. But you know what the sickest thing about that was?”
His voice was stone and flames.
I remained silent.
He continued.
“I wanted it to be you. I had a passing thought while I was with her. She looked so much like you in the face, and that tiny part of me that craved you? I wished it had been you instead,” he screamed, his eyes wide and bloodshot, a snarl twisting his lips.
“Don’t say such things.”
His words crashed down on me, and I could only whisper back, feeling utterly helpless and small.
I should have felt flattered by the praise, but instead, a hollow feeling resided deep within. The ache in my heart intensified, a dull throb mirroring the emptiness I felt.
“I can’t keep holding all this in, dammit.
It’s eating me from the inside out. I never meant to impregnate her.
When you told me about it, I wanted to push it aside and pretend it didn’t happen.
I’m a fucking coward, Amelia. It’s all I will be because of my alcoholic father.
He molded me into who I am, and I wish I could strangle him for it.
” His words tumbled out in a torrent, cascading over me like a waterfall.
He paced within his small cage, fists clenched, his shouts echoing off the cold walls. He was a furious madman coming undone.
Perhaps I had pushed him too far.
His confession of “craving me” hung in the air still, threaded with lament and shock.
I was overwhelmed by a rush of memories, each encounter replaying in my mind like a movie. His hatred was a venomous snake, his words poisoned arrows, his anger a roaring inferno. I knew he had told me he loathed me completely. He even reveled in being cruel.
But the awareness of a hidden, deep part of him that yearned for me sent shivers down my spine, pulling me into a dizzying spiral of emotions.
I could only sit and watch as he unraveled. It was as if he were a volcano erupting, years of suppressed feelings exploding outward.
“Fuck! I fucking hate myself.” He slammed his palm against the glass, acting like an enraged beast.
The sound reverberated through the space, deafening in contrast to the sudden silence that followed.
He slumped against the wall, the fury draining from him, leaving behind a hollow shell. Tears welled in his eyes, tracing silent paths down his cheeks, mirroring the rivers of regret carving their way through his soul.
The rage had spent itself, leaving only the raw, exposed wound of his self-loathing. For a long moment ragged breaths filled the space, an aftermath to the emotional cyclone that had just passed.
Then, a choked sob escaped his lips, followed by another, and another, until the sound became a relentless, heart-wrenching wail.
In that moment, the man I had known, the monster he had become, seemed to vanish, leaving only a broken, vulnerable boy clinging to the shattered remnants of his past.
Seeing him so broken, a cold dread washed over me, shattering my composure.
This was Caiden, but he was no longer my enemy; he was my parallel. Something deep within shifted, and I leaned against the glass, pressing my palm against the barrier.
“Caiden. It’s okay.”
My voice, soft as a gentle blanket, aimed to wrap around him and soothe his pain.
“No. It’s not. I’ve done horrible things, Amelia. This is my punishment.” As he spoke, his voice came out as a trembling choke.
I shook my head. “This is not your punishment. This is your redemption. Prove to me that you can do the right thing.”
His eyes burned into mine, a silent scream in their depths as his rage subsided, leaving only a simmering ember of fury.
“Fine. I still don’t know how I should feel.
I’m being torn in both directions, and I don’t fucking know what the right or wrong thing is.
But I want to survive. I know that. It’s all I know how to do, survive.
” His gaze softened for only a second. “Thank you for reminding me of that.”
A wave of complex emotions washed over me as I nodded, my heart pounding a rhythm of anticipation and anxiety.
His words struck a chord; the sensation of being pulled between two opposing forces mirrored my own inner turmoil, a painful tug-of-war within my soul.
Caiden, the architect of my suffering and Lillian's demise.
But I also saw a broken, damaged man, his eyes haunted, his shoulders slumped from a life of being brainwashed and abused.
The silent battle between anger and pity was a tempest of conflicting emotions, a furious storm versus a gentle rain. The question of our future after the escape hung heavily. Would we return to the old ways, or would this adventure forge a new era for us? The taste of uncertainty filled the air.
We would either be pulled apart or pulled together, and I wasn’t sure which outcome I wanted.