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“You never had to stay here,” I remind him, my voice raspy and uneven. “If you were so desperate to not be alone, you could’ve just left.”
“My daughters were born and raised here. I served years upon years manning the beacon. I dedicated my whole life to being here. Why would I just throw that away?”
“Because it drove you insane,” I reason. “You don’t have to live like this.”
He stays silent while his hands clench and unclench. I’ve no idea what he’s thinking, but it doesn’t even matter. He’s not going to leave, and he’s not going to let me go. That much, I’m sure of.
And who I thought might be willing to help is only a broken soul that has been tortured and possibly brainwashed. I know there’s one side of her that wants to be free—the same side that left the bookshelf open for us to find and desperately tried to get our attention—but there’s another side of her that feels just as hopeless as I do in this very moment, and doesn’t want to be alone, either.
“I think I’ll be happy here with my two girls,” Sylvester says finally. “Your friend is no more anyhow, I’ve already disposed of him. You have no family, no friends. And from the sounds of it, you’ve found yerself in a lotta trouble. I’m doing you a favor by keepin’ you here.”
“What did you do to him?” I bite out through gritted teeth, panic beginning to overwhelm my senses.
There’s no blood, is there? My vision is tunneling as I frantically search around for it. He can’t be dead. I refuse to believe it.
“He ain’t dead yet,” Sylvester says. “But he will be.”
I shake my head, tears beginning to well in my eyes as the hopelessness deepens.
It’s reminiscent of being back in that house with Kev, forced to endure a situation I could see no way out of. My words and cries for help were only being screamed into a void. There was no one to save me—except me. The day I took my life back was the same day it was no longer mine to live. I had to let it slip through my fingers in order to survive.
And for the second time in my life, I’m asking myself yet again—do you want to survive? Or do you want to waste away?
But what is surviving without living, and what is death without pain?
It’s an empty, cracked shell where a soul has been born and where that soul will die.
I no longer want to be that shell. I don’t want to just survive anymore—I want tolive.And I won’t waste away, spending my days as a hollow being that awaits death like an old dog sitting on a doorstep, waiting for the day someone opens the door and invites him inside to stay.
So, I do the only thing I can think to do. I kick Sylvester right in the dick. A puff of air bursts from his throat, followed by a resounding shout of pain. Assuming Kacey is too stunned to react, I bolt toward the kitchen, screaming Enzo’s name and nearly tripping over the rug beneath the broken bits of the dining room table.
He can’t be far. I’m positive Sylvester wouldn’t have had time to hurt him and hide him outside somewhere, so he must still be in the lighthouse.
“Enzo!” I scream, hoping to God he’ll answer. But he doesn’t.
Sylvester shouts something at Kacey, but I’m already gunning for the knives in the kitchen. Ripping open the drawer, I quickly grab a knife, slicing my hand on another in the process. The pain hardly registers, especially when a rotten-mouthed girl calmly walks toward me, her chin tipped low and a wicked glare spearing me from beneath her brows.
I hold out the knife, my hand trembling violently. The adrenaline is oversaturating my system, and I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on a definitive plan.
“Enzo!” I scream again. Desperately, I sweep my gaze across the room, confused about where the hell he could be. There’s no way Sylvester could overpower Enzo. Which means he had to have taken him by surprise somehow.
Kacey closes in, and I turn my attention back to her.
“Don’t come closer, Kacey. I told you we would help you. You don’t owe loyalty to the person who has abused and tortured you.”
She pauses, staring at me with an emotion I’m too frantic to place.
“Get ’er!” Sylvester shouts, his face purple with pain and fury, while he struggles to get back to his feet with his wooden leg. Curses are spilling from his lips, spit flying and sticking to his beard, but Kacey isn’t listening.
“Kacey, please,” I beg, voice hoarse. “He’s kept you trapped here and hurt you in many ways. He doesn’t love you; he just wants to possess you.”
Her eyes become glassy, but Sylvester is back on his feet and charging toward her, his wooden peg against the floor echoing with his wrath.
“Useless fuckin’—” he cuts himself off and fists her hair, whipping her behind him and tossing her to the ground. She lands with a thump, but he’s already on his warpath toward me.
Admittedly, I freeze for a moment. The terror is a parasite, injecting its venom directly into my bloodstream and paralyzing my muscles.
But the moment his fist cocks back, rage contorting his face, it’s like time slows. My body unlocks, and I move on instinct, ducking below his punch and straightening just as he closes in. He grabs my throat, squeezing tightly, but my hand is already pressed firmly into his stomach, blood spurting, and I loosen my grip on the knife handle.
