Page 80 of Split You Open

“We’re taking her back to the fucking cabin!” I snap. “Call Rhett and tell him to warm up the wood chipper. I want to hear this bitch scream.”

Wes chuckles darkly. He crouches down in front of the woman so that he can look her in the eye while he tells me, “Let’s use the older one. The pieces are rusted and not as sharp. It’ll hurt more.”

Nineteen

Ledger

Iwake to the sound of footsteps.

When my eyes open, it’s still dark. The footsteps are in the main part of the basement but coming closer. Though the sound is soft, the footsteps seem loud in the silence that surrounds me.

My ears strain, trying to focus on that and not my racing thoughts.

That has to be the worst part of this infernal confinement. I can’t escape my own mind. It’s like every mistake that I’ve made is determined to play on repeat until I’m driven to madness. Well… further into madness.

I’m no longer in denial about the state of my mind.

I’ve fucking lost it.

I wish I could blame Blair but that wouldn’t be fair. I let my madness get the best of me. It clouded my judgement and made me so singularly focused that I didn’t consider that anything could possibly go wrong.

But, wrong it went.

So now, awake, I suffer with regret. Asleep, I’m plagued by nightmares of witnessing Blair dying over and over again because I let all of this get out of hand.

The thing is, I could get out of this cage.

There’s a key hidden within it for this very situation. Even with my hands cuffed behind me, I could reach it and get out of here. Yet doing so would only dig me further into trouble with the others.

I’ll play good hostage for as long as I need to.

Maybe then they’ll give me a chance to explain.

Forcing myself to sit up, I use the physical discomfort to distract me from my mental one. The motion sensor lights flicker on as I right myself. My shoulders scream in protest from the hours of having my wrists cuffed behind me. The rest of my body aches from days on the move from chasing down Blair and to laying here on this stiff metal bedframe. Fuck, does this suck. What’s more, the corners of my mouth are cracked and bleeding thanks to this damn gag no one thought to remove. Even my wrists are swollen and raw due to how tight the cuffs have been slapped on.

My stomach growls.

How fucking long has it been? Time means nothing. It’s not marked by when meals arrive because they don’t. I’m not graced with water either. What little I have in my body is expelled into a bucket in the corner of this infernal cage.

I’m guessing it’s been at least two days.

It’s not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things. Somehow, though, these past forty-eight hours have felt like a fucking eternity.

I can hear the shuffling of feet and the sound of voices speaking quickly and with irritation. A moment later, the door opens. My friends, my family, file into the room one by one.

Wes.

Rhett.

Santi.

And finally, Blair.

Her eyes snag on the wall full of photographs of her. Rather than comment on the collage, Blair simply shakes her head and moves to lower herself onto the metal chair I’d tortured a man in for her just weeks ago.

I drink the sight of her in. As I do, my heart begins hammering against my ribs. The thundering of it is so loud that it’s almost astonishing how no one else seems to be able to hear it.

Behind Blair, Rhett walks over to the metal table to lean his back against it before crossing his arms over his chest. Santi comes up to stand behind Blair, his hands coming to rest on the top of the back rest. His familiar smile is nowhere to be seen.