Page 216 of These Tears

Breath leaves me in another sharp gasp as I snap upright, duvet sliding from my shoulders like dead weight.

I don’t move for a full intake of air.

The passport is tucked in my trousers. The snowmobile sleeps outside.

I could still leave – and that thought should still feel like justice.

So why does it feel like losing something instead?

The camera swings against my chest as I straighten. My eyes land on the hatchet beside the hearth, sitting like an invitation atop a mound of kindling.

The house blurs around me.

The thought of leaving doesn’t even finish forming before my hand closes around the hatchet.

This time, when I pick it up, it’s not to escape him.

Within the next heartbeat, I’m in front of the door that had swallowed him.

Two slide bolts. One chain. One old keyhole black with age.

There’s no patience left in me for locks, keys or another bloody puzzle.

I raise the blade and swing.

The first blow rattles up my arms and into my teeth. The second makes a split through the panel beside the lock. By the third, the blade bites deep enough that old wood screams and splinters across my slippers.

I keep swinging until there is a jagged hole large enough to force my arm through. A shard slices the side of my hand, but I barely feel it as I push my arm through the opening and start clicking the locks open.

When the door gives, I stumble inside.

Darkness greets me. Airless. Sour with rust and sweat.

I don’t see a bed. No blankets. No window. Only bare boards, a low stool in a corner where a few half-melted candles sit.

My gaze snags on an iron plate fixed into the wall. Chains spill from it across the floor. My gaze follows them across—

Something moves.

My breath leaves me.

With ankles and wrists locked in iron, Elias lounges against the far corner. The chain from his left wrist runs through the wall plate before joining the others, short enough to keep him folded there. The key lies on the floor just barely within his reach.

Sweat gleams over him in the thin light from the mangled door. One blood-dark sleeve is twisted uselessly around his arm. There’s no more blood than there was earlier, so the wound isn’t deep – a small reprieve if anything.

Every muscle on him is locked as if he is still fighting something only he can see.

When his eyes lift to mine, fury flashes in them and his limbs gather to protect his modesty.

All plans of escape vaporise from my mind.

‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ he growls, so hoarse it fragments the thick atmosphere.

His jaw sets and the chains snap taut with one violent movement, then fall slack when he reels himself in. His eyes cut from me to the iron around his wrists.

My heart is wedged high in my breastbone, swelling so large I can’t speak at first.

The camera swings from my neck as my fingers lose their grip on the hatchet and it hits the wooden floor with a dull thud. It echoes too loudly in this quiet, godforsaken room built for punishment.