Splinters snag my skin. The pain sharpens my senses.
He can’t let me die.
But I’ve watched his videos. I’ve witnessed the lengths Grayson has gone to in order to deliver his punishments.
Dread rises within me, and I bang against the wood, desperate to taste fresh air. “Help!”
A creak from the above sends dirt into my mouth and eyes. I wipe at my face, and my elbows knock the sides of the crate. I sense the sides closing in. The box is shrinking, swallowing me.
Shit.
I push harder against the lid, my forearms burning from the strain.
More dirt rains down. I taste the grit between my teeth and turn my head to spit. Between each desperate breath, I hear the sound of things crawling alongside the box. Moving through the loose dirt, trying to find a way in. Waiting for their food to rot.
Oh, god. I can’t die like this.
The burden of an unfinished life is a dense weight pressing down on my chest. The compression grows unbearable, winding tighter and tighter until I’m hyperventilating.
Each rapid, labored breath is drawn with the awareness that it could be my last. Every gasp is laced with less and less of the vital air my lungs crave.
Calm down.
I chant this in my head as I hold a breath, forcing myself to relax—to still every muscle and organ clamoring for air.
Breathe.
I release a shallow breath. Then another—slow and steady, over and over, past trembling lips.Tears slip from the corners of my eyes. My body tingles, adrenaline flooding my system. After a while, the lightheadedness gives way to a strange, floating calm.
I linger like this for an unmeasurable stretch of time, listening to the rhythm of my slow breaths. The blackness presses in, a cloying, disembodying nightmare. A gauzy fog webs my mind, feeling detached, as I drift between two states. Panic and docile acceptance.
As my thoughts drift further, all the things I’ve put off rise to the surface. Unfulfilled goals. Abandoned dreams. The fragile ache of happiness.
A weak laugh slips free.
I spent years coaching my patients not to chase something as flimsy, as meaningless, as happiness—it’s an idea, not a goal. And yet here I am, staring down death, wishing I’d allowed myself to be a little more frivolous…happy.
But there was never an answer to that question, either—the one everyone asks themselves: What will make me happy?
A husband? A child?
I scoff at myself. I don’t regret either, not really. I never could have given myself to something as demanding as motherhood. Not fully.
Still, the fact that the chance is being stolen from me crashes through my chest, a vicious reminder that I chose Grayson.
I chose this fate.
I draw in a breath, filling my lungs against the weight of it as I blink into the darkness.
Regret is weakness.
And I can’t afford to be weak.
Besides, there are more terrifying realities to contend with than my shallow regrets.
The buried bodies in the backyard—on land in my name. Bodies I always planned to move, to dispose of… and now that choice, too, has been taken from me.
My father’s victims will be found.
