I don’t know why I have these violent thoughts, so I quickly make my way to a faucet and rinse it off as best as I can. The blood stinks so badly that bile rises up, and I puke. When my body has cleansed itself of its demons, I wash my face too and wipe everything off.
The blood still stains my skin, even if it’s less than before. I can still smell his scent on me. I can still hear the gurgling sounds in my head, and I want them to stop.
I wish everything would stop, but my head just keeps spinning, and my heart is beating out of control.
You’re not alone.
Cage.
Cage is still locked up in his prison. All by himself.
I have to let him know I’m okay. I have to find him and take him home.
I rush through the building, through the unknown corridors of which I have a vague memory of from the last time, and through the open doors. No one’s in the dark room with the red lights this time … it’s completely empty as if that girl was never there.
So I run up the stairs and through the doors and hallways until I get to the familiar elevator room again. The same room with that door … behind which Cage is being kept.
I sprint toward it and bang the doors. “Cage?”
“Ella!” Hearing his voice makes my heart skip a beat.
“I’m here!” I yell.
“You’re safe.”
“Yes,” I reply. “Are you okay?”
“No, but I manage.”
I swallow. “Hold on; I’ll get you out of there.”
I jerk the door with everything I got, putting all my strength into it, but it won’t budge.
“I can’t open it,” I shout.
“The code,” he says.
Right. There’s a box right next to the door, and when I open the lid, there are nine numbers I can press. But which ones and how many? I never got the code from Graham. I couldn’t open my eyes when he was wheeling me out because then he’d know I was awake.
And now he’s dying, if not already dead.
What if, by killing Graham, I sealed his fate to be stuck in this prison forever?
A horrifying shiver runs up and down my spine, but I ignore it and focus on my ability to think.
“Cage, did Graham have any special dates?”
“Dates?”
I push my ears against the door, trying to hear him better while shouting back. “Birthdays, deaths, marriage.”
“No … Marriage?”
I sigh. Of course, he doesn’t know what that is. “Never mind that. Did he ever mention any specific date?”
“No,” he says again.
“Anything that involves numbers? Did he ever mention anything?”
“No …”
The more he says no, the harder it becomes to swallow.
Tears fill my eyes, but I blink them away because I just remembered something. “I’ll go check his office and see if I can find the code there. Okay?”
“Go,” he says, and I immediately rush off.
Back to the small office. I can hardly remember where it is, but when I find it, I immediately start searching.
I literally open all the drawers, pull out all the notes, and throw everything off that’s not what I’m looking for. In one of the drawers, I find more pictures of the girls he once took, so I grasp them and find a bag to tuck them into. A blue duffel bag will do, so I chuck out all the contents and throw the pictures inside. I add a flashlight I found along with a bunch of keys. I don’t know what they open, but any keys will do if I want to get out of here.
But no matter how hard I search, I can’t find a code anywhere. Nothing that looks like a lock combination. Nothing.
The longer I comb through his stuff, the more I come to realize that I won’t find anything, no matter how hard I try. My pulse begins to race, and my breathing becomes ragged as I make my way back to the room where Cage is.
I bang on the door. “I can’t find the code, Cage!”
It’s silent for a while, and I worry something might’ve happened to him while I was gone.
“Go,” he suddenly says.
I suck in a breath as I hear the word over and over in my head.
“No!” I shout, my eyes filling with tears. “I am not leaving you here.”
“Escape, remember?” he yells back.
Of course, he’d say that. Tempt me with my memories and my desire to be back home.
But I don’t want to go back without him.
I don’t want to be home knowing he’s still stuck in this hellhole.
How could I?
“No, I can’t!” I scream, trying to rip open the door, smashing any numbers on the keypad, but nothing I do works. “Please … no.”
“Ella.” His stern voice breaks my panic. Breaks my heart into pieces.
“Go!” he barks. “Be free!”
I shake my head and yell back, “No!”