Chapter 28 Cal
Cal
Location: Underground Detention Site — Lower Tier
Time: Unknown
The dark isn’t the worst part.
It’s the quiet.
No footsteps. No voices. No screams anymore.
That’s how I know time has passed.
I’m shackled to the wall at shoulder height, wrists spread wide, iron cuffs gnawed raw into skin that never gets a chance to heal. My legs are chained too, just enough slack to kneel if I’m lucky. Most days, I’m not.
They moved me weeks ago. Months maybe.
Different cell. Same stone. Same stink of damp and despair.
They do that sometimes—relocate us so we stop hoping someone might be close. So we stop listening.
Because listening is dangerous.
They told me Ronan Pierce was dead on my third interrogation.
Didn’t shout it. Didn’t gloat.
Just slid a photo across the table.
A mountain. Fire. Twisted wreckage.
“He died trying to be a hero,” the man had said calmly. “So did the woman.”
Lena, she was Ronan’s one true love.
I remember her eyes. Sharp. Unafraid. The kind of woman who never belonged in the background.
That broke something in me.
Not because I doubted Ronan, I know he did everything he could to keep them both safe.
But if he didn’t make it out…
None of us were ever meant to.
After that, they stopped asking questions.
That’s when the punishment changed.
The Warden likes silence.
He believes men unravel faster when left alone with their thoughts.
He visits sometimes—not to speak, but to observe. To stand just outside the light and let you feel watched.
I haven’t seen him today.
But I feel him.
The air changes when he’s near. Guards straighten. Breathing slows.
Then—something else.
A sound that doesn’t belong.
A crackle.
Faint. Almost imagined.
I freeze, every nerve screaming at me to stay still.
There it is again.
“…—line… do you read…”
My pulse slams so hard it makes me dizzy.
No.
No, I don’t do this to myself. I don’t hallucinate. That’s how they win.
I hold my breath.
Listen harder.
“…repeat… Ghostline…”
My vision blurs.
Ronan. So I wasn’t hallucinating? I shake my head. I don’t know what to think.
Ghostline was never a myth to us. That was Ronan Pierce. Calm in chaos. Precision in hell.
They told me he was dead.
They lied.
My mouth opens before I can stop it. “Ronan?”
The word scrapes out like broken glass.
Nothing answers.
But the silence feels… thinner now.
Footsteps thunder suddenly.
Too fast.
Too many.
Guards flood the corridor, weapons raised, voices sharp with urgency.
One of them snarls into a radio, “We have interference—possible breach—lower tiers—now!”
Cold fear slides down my spine.
Not for me.
For whoever sent that signal.
The Warden won’t like this.
The slot in my door slams open.
Light burns my eyes.
A guard steps close, baton raised. “You heard something.”
It’s not a question.
I lift my chin.
Pain flares as the chain bites deeper into my wrists.
“I hear nothing,” I rasp.
The baton strikes.
Once.
Twice.
White explodes behind my eyes.
But I don’t scream.
Because now I know.
We were never forgotten.
And somewhere above ground—somewhere in the open air and sunlight—
Ronan Pierce is alive.
Which means this place?
This dungeon?
This is no longer a tomb.
It’s a countdown.