Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly 1)

Once the seed is planted, I can’t uproot it. I pace the length of the cell. Back and forth. Trying to tear the thought out of my head, or tire myself out.

Maybe I never made it out of my father’s basement. Maybe I’ve lived an entire lifetime inside a delusion, and in reality, he’s had me trapped in that dank prison all this time.

“Fuck this.” I crouch in the corner and wrap my arms around my legs. I can wait him out. He can’t just keep me here. I have to eat. I have to use the bathroom. With a sudden flash of fear, I recall spotting something on the other side of the cell.

I crawl my way there, feeling my hands out before me, until I find it. I circle my hands around the rim. A bucket. “Oh, my God.”

I bound to my feet and scream. I yell until my lungs catch fire and my stomach aches from overuse of muscles. I shout through the angry tears, and when my voice cracks and gives, I curse Grayson with heated whispers.

He has no answers.

The silence builds until my ears ring from the loss of sound.

I change positions. I pace. I do my routine exercise to alleviate the tenderness in my back. I try not to take the other half of the pill. I fail and take it anyway. Then I take the second one. I try to sleep, and I try to count. I sip at the one water bottle he left me. I hold my bladder, refusing to use the fucking bucket.

I do these things repeatedly. I change the order, doing them at random, trying to trigger something…a change.

How far is Grayson going to dispose of the car? An hour…a day…days? The silence grows thick and heavy, weighing on me in the

dark. I’m becoming disoriented. My senses confused. With what’s left of the light, I try to see my hands. A cold wetness covers them—that same sensation I felt that day. I remember the thick red…how it coated my flesh, seeped into every crevice of my skin. Blood stains down to the bone.

Wiping my hands through my hair, I attempt to clean them. Get rid of the feeling. The image comes to me too clearly now. The girl in the mirror with blood-streaked hair and dirt-caked clothes. I throw the water bottle at the image, waiting to hear the glass shatter.

But the only sound to follow the thud of the bottle hitting the ground is the crash of thunder. I whip my head around. The light is gone.

“Damn this to hell.”

I jump and reach for the top bars. My fingers skim them, and I come down with a lancing pain to my back. Doubled over, I take in measured breaths, mentally steeling myself. Then I try again. With a groan, I grab hold of the bars. My arms burn, but I cling and start to swing my legs. Building momentum, I rock back and forth, talking myself into it, before I slam my bare feet into the cell door.

Pain webs through my body. I hit the floor, breath knocked from my lungs. Acute nausea grips me before I can cry out, and I hurl myself onto my side. I try for the bucket, but it’s too far. I lose my stomach right here on the floor.

I wretch until my stomach is as empty as the room, and there’s nothing left but bile. Flames lick my throat, and I mentally curse myself for throwing the water. When I roll onto my back, the pain is a living, breathing demon within me. It rages, working its way to my shoulder blades. My breath saws in and out. I blink back tears against the sudden flickering that covers my vision.

The flashes intensify, and I can’t be sure if it’s from the pain or the storm. A roll of thunder booms in time with each flip of the light. Light and dark. My heart picks up the beat, my blood pulsing painfully in rhythm, syncing with the flickering. Like an 8mm film reel, scratchy images bleed through the haze of pain. My mind is losing the battle.

Rain hammers our tin roof. The plinks come faster, harder, creating a sonogram of vibrations against my eyelids. I try to drift away, but the storm outside won’t let me go. It reminds me that he’ll be home soon.

The creek of pines whispers from my past. Voices float through the thin branches to taunt me. You know.

I shake my head against the floor. The motion tips my body over a cliff, and I’m spiraling down, nowhere to land, nothing to catch me. “Stop.”

The creek grows louder. It’s no longer coming from the trees. I see his boots come down the steps, his weight bowing the boards. I hear the clink of the key entering the lock, then the squeak of the door opening.

She’s panicking. Asking me what to do. What are we going to do?

I look to the girl beside me. “Be good girls.”

My eyes open with a start.

No. no, no, no.

I crawl away from the memory, toward that sliver of light. Where is it? God—where the fuck is it?

The fall jarred something inside me. One of the sealed doors came off the hinges.

I hear Sadie’s voice: once you break the locks, there’s no going back.

How far down does the rabbit hole go?