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Deep down, I know. Know that somewhere, deep inside me a darkness lives. I don't know why I have it in me or where it comes from. All I know is that I just unleashed it on Tim.
I wanted to hurt him.
Wanted to make him pay.
Take his mind and devour it, I had thought.
And I did.
I just don’t know how.
I inhale shakily. “I didn’t do this—”
Tina shoves me back so hard I slam into the wall. "You did!" she shouts as she storms for the stairway. "I'm calling the police. You're going to jail where sinners like you belong."
“But I didn’t do anything!” I cry out, rushing up the stairs after her.
When she reaches the top of the stairway, she slams the door in my face and locks me in. Locks me in the darkness again. Only this time I’m not haunted by the quietness. No, I have Tim’s rambling to fill up the silence.
Sinking down onto the stairs, I lower my head into my hands and try to remember what happened. But my memories become hazy after Tim tied up my wrists with his belt. I have no idea how I got out of that and if he touched me or not. And I have no idea what led up to Tim being under the stairs, rambling to himself in some sort of different language. But I have a feeling that when the police show up, I’ll get blamed for this. Not that it’ll be official. With Mia, there was only speculation that turned into rumors around town.
What if this time, though, they find a way to blame this on me? Then what, Haven?
I swallow hard, wondering what waits for me when the police show up, what Tina will tell them I did. She’s a good liar, and I worry she’ll come up with quite the story that makes me look extremely guilty. And unlike the incident with Mia, I’m seventeen years old now, not legally an adult, but close enough that I might get in trouble. Although, I’m not sure what I’ll get in trouble for. Tim’s condition is… well, really weird, but very similar to Mia’s condition. What if they put two and two together and figure out just how much of a freak I am? That I have these strange abilities connected to darkness?
Maybe I can just tell the police about what Tim does to me in the darkness of this basement. Then again, in the past, whenever I’ve tried telling someone that my foster parents were hurting me, no one believed me.
What if they don’t believe me now?
What if I’m going to jail?
What’s going to happen to me?
Those thoughts haunt my mind until the sounds of sirens overlap Tim’s mumbling. A few minutes later, the basement door opens up. Tina appears in the doorway along with two uniformed officers.
“She’s the one who did it,” she tells one of the officers as she points a finger at me. “She… broke my husband.”
I stand up and shake my head. “I didn’t do anything. I swear I didn’t… He just… He went crazy.”
“Liar!” Tina shouts, her face red. “She hurt my Tim. She’s the reason he…” She doesn’t finish her sentence, standing there with a dumbstruck look on her face.
Her accusation is enough for one of the officers to haul me out of the house. When we get outside, he puts me in the back of his vehicle, arresting me for… Well, whatever the hell happened to Tim.
Haven
Okay, apparently just because you get put in the back of a police car, doesn’t mean you’re actually being arrested, something I learn after the officer returns and lets me out of the back of his vehicle.
An ambulance has arrived by then, and neighbors are crowding around the yard. As I stand near the police vehicle, trying to ignore the stares, the officer informs me that the paramedics believe Tim is suffering from a mental breakdown. He asks me a bunch of questions, like why we were in the basement to begin with, and what events took place that led up to Tim mentally breaking.
Part of me wants to tell him the truth, tell him about all the times I’ve been locked in that basement. Tell him how Tim would come down there and tie me up, then touch me against my will. But just the thought of saying all this aloud sends fear and self-disgust coursing my body.
I hate that I feel this way. So weak.
I’ve always been so weak.
Instead, I end up telling the officer that when I walked into the basement to do some laundry, I found Tim in the condition he’s in now. The officer doesn’t seem very satisfied by my answer, but when I insist several times that I’m telling the truth, he gives up and goes over to talk to Tina, who’s sobbing beside the stretcher Tim is being wheeled out on.
When the paramedics put Tim in the back, he starts screaming words that make no sense. Tina sobs harder as she moves to duck into the back with him. Right before she gets in, though, she glances at me.
