Chapter 20
I didn’t take my meds that night, even though Anna had told me to wait for my appointment with the psychiatrist. I already knew he’d try to talk me out of it. But I needed the memories. I needed to remember more.
I’d already scrolled through my phone and watched half a sitcom and the start of a true crime doc. None of it made me tired. It just passed the time.
Daniel slept beside me, breathing deep and steady, his chest rising and falling like he didn’t have a care in the world. He had no reason to suspect I was awake. I hadn’t told him that I might stop the meds. They usually knocked me out cold.
Mochi was sleeping soundly in the cage.
My hand clenched my phone as I slipped out of bed and stepped into the hallway. The air was cooler out here. The floor felt cold under my bare feet. Moonlight poured through the tall windows, casting silver light across the floor and turning the walls into something soft and unreal.
Before I knew it, I was on the stairs, moving slowly and carefully so I didn’t trip.
That tiny bit of doubt about the woman in the basement—I could finally put it to rest. If the opening in the stone wall was missing like it had been when the cop came, then that would mean the meds were working. That I really was psychotic that day.
But if the door was back? If it opened again? I could record it. Record her. And tomorrow morning, I’d show it to Daniel.
I passed the kitchen, then paused. I thought about grabbing a knife, but how would that look? Me walking in with a knife again? If she wanted me dead, she’d already had plenty of chances.
I kept going, pushing the wooden connector door to the basement.
Then I stopped like I’d hit a wall.
The yellow door.
It had more locks now, stacked up like someone wanted to make damn sure no one got through. But that wasn’t the part that made me freeze.
All of them—even the new ones—were unlocked.
Slowly and quietly, I reached for the handle. The yellow door swung open as if it were any other door.
The basement string lights were on.
I stood at the top of the stairs, staring down, confused. My ears strained for sound, for movement. Nothing. Just the soft hum of the lights and my own breath.
One step, then another. Every second stair gave a familiar groan under my weight, the same pattern as before. The sound echoed faintly through the basement, bouncing off stone walls.
At the bottom, the air felt moist and thick. No one was in sight. No movement whatsoever.
The hallway stretched ahead, darker than I remembered. My arms prickled from the cold.
At the fork, a woman’s scream—sharp and raw—ripped through the air. It was followed by the crash of glass.
Without thinking, I bolted into the darkness of the right tunnel and ran. The soft glow faded behind me until the dark had swallowed everything.
I pressed myself against the stone, my breath shallow, my heart thudding so hard that it pulsed in my throat. Up ahead, something moved—just a flicker of a shadow at the far end of the other tunnel, right where the woman’s door had been.
And then I saw it.
The glow.
Same as before.
That warm light spilling from an opening in the stone wall, like the entrance to a place no one was meant to find.
It was too far away for me to make out details, but I saw a figure step out of it. The figure had broad shoulders and made slow, steady movements.
It might have been Hudson.
Hard to say, but it wasn’t a wild guess.
The figure moved through the tunnel, then turned at the fork and headed down the hallway lined with those dim bulbs.
Pressed against the wall, I stayed still, listening for any hint of sound. Then the lights flicked off.
Pitch black wrapped around me like a heavy blanket. Only the faint glow from the woman’s doorway still pulsed, weak and distant, at the far end of the corridor—and even that started to shrink.
She was closing the door.
A flash of panic thundered through my chest. What if I got locked down here? What if no one came for days? Weeks? I could die of dehydration in this goddamn maze.
“Wait!” The word tore out of me as I sprinted toward the fading light. “Please wait!”
Something caught under my foot. I hit the floor hard, my palms scraping against the cold stone. But I didn’t stop. I got up and kept running.
The glow narrowed into a sliver, a sharp line of light slicing through the black. I reached it just before it disappeared.
“Stop!” I yelled through the crack.
The glow stilled. Then, slowly, the door opened.
There she was: the woman with the long white hair. She looked curious but not surprised.
“That was stupid,” she said as I slipped past her.
I turned to the stone door that she closed behind us. It blended into the wall like a bookshelf hiding a secret room. We walked into her living room.
“What if I didn’t hear you?” she said, glancing back at me. “You could’ve been trapped. The rock doesn’t let sound through. I wouldn’t have heard your screams.”
“I could’ve knocked on the yellow basement door,” I said defensively.
“That connector room is soundproof too,” she said flatly. “Nobody would’ve heard your knocking. Or your sobs.”
“Oh. Well, thanks for not leaving me out there.”
She didn’t answer, just walked past me into the kitchen like she hadn’t heard. My stomach twisted as it all sank in. I was back in this woman’s home.
Was someone keeping her here? Or was I losing my mind?
“Are you . . . real?” I asked.
She grabbed a dustpan from a cabinet and crouched by the coffee table, picking up broken glass. Her hair spilled over her shoulders like liquid silver.
“What kind of question is that? Are you crazy?”
She wasn’t joking. She was genuinely asking if I was mentally unwell.
“I don’t know anymore, to be honest,” I confessed.
She stopped moving. Her gaze locked on mine. It was sharp and steady, as if she were a hawk spotting something twitching in the high grass.
“Well, that’s pathetic,” she said. “So far gone you don’t even know.”
I let that sink in. Anna had tried so hard to make me feel okay, and this woman had shattered those efforts with a single remark.
The woman seemed to notice the shift in me.
“Sit,” she said, pointing at the couch near the coffee table.
In the space around us, everything was clean and high-end. Stainless steel appliances gleamed, and the massive flat-screen TV mounted to the wall looked untouched, like no one really watched it.
I kept her in my line of sight as I crossed the room and lowered myself stiffly onto the edge of the couch. Quickly, I unlocked my phone with my thumb and tapped the record button.
The woman paid me no mind as she continued sweeping the glass from the floor. The faint crunch of shards under the broom filled the silence.
Last time I was down here, I’d asked her who was keeping her trapped.
Our conversation had ended with her screaming the word “monster.” She also hadn’t helped when the police were here.
She could have opened that rock door—though if this place was soundproof, had she even heard us when the police came?
“You live down here?” I asked.
She shot me an irritated look and kept sweeping.
Obviously, she did.
I had to be smarter. Whoever she was, she didn’t seem like the type to tolerate small talk. She believed something or someone was keeping her here. A monster.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Cynthia,” she said without looking at me. Her hand froze briefly around the dustpan, like she was waiting for my reaction.
My breath caught.
Cynthia.
How was that possible?
When I didn’t say anything, she continued cleaning.
My eyes drifted around the room, searching for something—anything—that made sense.
Cynthia. How the hell was her name Cynthia?
My gaze caught on the open door leading into what looked like her bedroom.
The bedspread was rumpled. On top of it, I spotted the silky pink pajamas that I’d seen upstairs—in Daniel’s parents’ room, right before I’d passed out.
Beside them had been a folded pair of striped men’s pajamas.
And on the nightstand . . . goddamn pig figurines.
I leaned forward, my heart knocking against my ribs.
What the hell was going on here?
“I knew a Cynthia once,” I said. It wasn’t just the name. I could have ignored that. But the pigs . . .
She walked to the trash bin and emptied the dustpan with a soft clatter. “Of course you did,” she said. “It’s a common name.”
I nodded slowly. “It is. Strange thing, though. She also collected pig figures.”
Still unfazed, Cynthia returned the dustpan and broom to a narrow pantry cabinet. “Hmm. Did she also fight monsters, that Cynthia of yours?”
Cynthia’s torn, wide eyes flashed in front of me—empty and stretched with horror, her mouth frozen open in a silent scream as her brains scattered on the floor.
“She did.” My voice came out low. “But a monster killed her.”
That got Cynthia’s attention. She turned toward me. “That’s what they do.” Her voice softened, becoming almost gentle. It was like she was offering her own version of “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I hesitated, choosing my next words with care. “Do I . . . do I have to be afraid of the monster here?”
Her eyes narrowed. She was trying to read me.
“I saw what they can do,” I added quickly. “How dangerous they are.”
“Yes. Very dangerous.”
Cynthia turned and walked to the sink. Beside it, the dishwasher beeped faintly as she opened it. She began unloading dishes, placing them one by one into upper and lower cabinets, her movements smooth and practiced.
“They hurt people,” she continued. “Even kill them.” She picked up a pot, dried it with a dish towel, and stacked it below the counter. “The monster here at the Breakers is no different. But as long as I’m here, he won’t hurt you.”
That wasn’t exactly comforting. First of all, she was locked in a basement. Second, she didn’t seem any more stable than I was.
“And the police?” I asked. “They can’t help?”