AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He rests his chin on my head and sighs. “You want a hot chocolate?”
“Yes, please. Can we drink it down by the water?”
He nods. “It’s cold out. Grab one of my hoodies and a pair of sweatpants. I don’t want you to get sick.”
“Okay.” I climb off his lap, which is when I realize he’s in sweats and a hoodie himself. He must have gotten up to do some work in his office while I slept.
He presses a kiss on my forehead and heads downstairs, leaving me to get dressed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Then
The days pass agonizingly slow in here, but as much as I want to claw at the cement walls to get myself out, I know trouble still waits for me outside. Nothing has been magically resolved in this fight. The players have just been sent back to their corners to regroup.
Still, I’d be free and safer out there, even if safety is an illusion. What’s going on in here is inescapable.
I break into a cold sweat thinking about it—about the feel of hands on me. Hands holding me down, hands pushing me to my knees, hands touching me, manipulating responses from my body for their sick satisfaction.
I thought I was strong, at least emotionally. Taller than my peers and with a world-wary expression in my eyes, people assume I’m older than I am. They have zero regrets about treating me like an adult, even if that means exposing me to things I shouldn’t be exposed to. I justified it in my head. I knew it wasn’t okay, but I could handle it. What doesn’t kill us makesus stronger. But everyone has their limits. I thought I’d met mine, and that’s how I ended up here in the first place. I had no idea just how fucking naïve I’d been.
I stretch my body, feeling it protest from the beating I received earlier. Being touched by darkness is completely different than being submerged in it and having some sick fuck hold you under the surface until it all but consumes you.
My thoughts turn to her, like they always do. The numbness I’d wrapped around me since returning to my room cracks under the force of my anger, anger born from helplessness. If there was ever a case of someone having it worse than me, it was her. I don’t know why she is singled out as much as she is. Maybe she doesn’t have the big family name outside of this building like the rest of us do. Or maybe it’s because, despite the thousand tiny cracks covering her body like arid soil during a drought, they haven’t broken her.
As soon as I hear the faint sound of crying, I know it’s time. The pillow is already arranged under my blanket as I remove the grate and climb through the vent, ignoring the protest in my ribs. The crawl to her room is agony, but it gives me something to focus on rather than worry over the condition I might find her in.
I’ve made this journey dozens of times since that first night. There is no hesitation in my actions now. Being with her is the only thing that gets me through the day. I might be weak, but when she needs me, I’m strong enough to hold her together.
I make the vow to myself that I’ve made a thousand times since I’ve been here. One day, I won’t be weak. One day, I’ll come back here and burn this place to the ground and make all the people who tainted these halls with their brand of evil die with the memories of this place.
Lifting the cover when I reach her room, I ease myself through the vent and down onto her bed. I lie down on thefloor, even though it hurts like a motherfucker, and lay my arm out, my fingertips pointing toward her, my palm face up. The hesitation is still there, and maybe it always will be, but she fights it back every single time. When her small hand slips into mine, I feel like a fucking king.
“Hi, Boo,” I murmur.
“Why do you call me that?”
I jolt at the sound of her soft voice. She rarely speaks on nights like this.
“Because you remind me of a ghost.”
She sighs and wiggles a little closer. I turn to look at her and bite my lip to stop myself from reacting to the ring of bruises around her throat and the faint red mark on her cheek.
“I haunt these halls, so I guess it’s fitting,” she says without inflection.
I roll toward her, keeping her close but not touching beyond our hands. “You okay?”
“No,” she answers, and neither of us has anything to say after that. Sometimes, the truth is far harder to deal with than the lie.
“One day, Boo. One day, they’ll pay for what they did to you.”
She flinches, but she doesn’t pull away like she used to. I release her hand and shift closer, closing the distance between us until I’m right beside her.
“Make them pay for what they did to you instead. I’m nobody. I don’t matter.”
“The fuck you don’t. You matter. You matter to me.”
She looks up at me, tears swimming in her bloodshot eyes.
