Ella

“He … ran away from me and never came back,” Graham says, but I can’t focus on anything he says.

My ears are ringing. Voices in my head screaming at the top of their lungs.

“After he killed a little girl too,” Graham mumbles.

Little girl.

My sister.

“Well, I assume he was the one who killed her. I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there. I just saw the ad in the newspaper asking for tips on the killer along with a sketch of him. But I know in my heart he never meant to kill her. He was always just looking for someone to talk to. Like a pet.”

He puts the picture away, but I can’t stop staring at it.

Can’t stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks without my permission.

Can’t stop feeling like my world just came to an end.

“I still don’t understand why he refused to listen when I told him talking to people on the outside wasn’t a good idea. And look what happened. All it takes is one little girl who actually talks back to him without fear, and then he took her. He just wanted a friend. He was never the killing type.” He clears his throat. “Not that it matters. He’s long gone, and I learned from my mistake. Cage isn’t going anywhere, and neither are you. I’ve got him chipped, and you’re pregnant as can be.” He smiles at me. “See? Works out perfectly.”

He rolls my way again and places a hand on my leg, squeezing. “Oh … I just remembered something … wasn’t that girl your sister?”

My eyes widen, and he cocks his head to see my reaction.

But I can’t. I can’t respond to this. Can’t describe what I’m feeling right now.

Can’t feel anything … but rage.

The look on his face changes from curiosity to pure malevolence as he squeezes harder and leans in toward me. “That’s right. She was your sister. That girl is the reason I started following you. You lost your voice because she died, didn’t you?” he says, grinning. “Maybe that’s why I took you … because you’re so quiet, and you’ve been a perfect victim from the start.”

My breath hitches in my throat.

No matter how badly I want to breathe right now, I can’t. I can’t breathe.

“So actually, I’m glad he killed your sister. Because it allowed me to keep an eye out for you … watch you grow until you were the right age… and now I have you here right where you belong.”

My sister got killed because of him … because he let his son out of the cage … and he’s glad?

I shudder when he takes his fingers off me and starts pulling the straps loose.

“Let’s get you back to your cell,” he mutters. “Before the drugs wear off.”

But I’m not listening anymore.

All I see is black and red dots in front of me.

Rage, like a fiery volcano … boiling inside me.

And the moment he’s unleashed the straps around my body, I reach between my thighs and take out the scissors.

Without thinking twice, I ram them into his neck.

I can feel the sharp blade entering his flesh. It cuts through like butter.

He gulps as I pull it out.

Blood gushes everywhere.

Delicate skin ruptures so easily … I’ll never forget how it feels.

And I want to feel it again.

I stab him once more until the scissors become stuck inside his throat.

I watch him suffer. Every second of the way, I watch the pain seep into his bulging red eyes. I watch … because I want to feel every ounce of pain he’s experiencing right now. Because it’s the same pain I’ve had to endure all these weeks. Because I want him to know he caused his own end.

Blood spurts out of his neck, dripping down his shirt, and he stumbles back. He tries to grasp anything to hold, but fails miserably. Tools and supplies tumble to the floor, after which he falls too.

I slide off the metal board and watch him struggle on the floor.

He’s scrambling for air, reaching for the scissors and desperately trying to pull them out.

All the while he’s keeping eye contact as if he can’t believe I did this to him. Or he’s pleading for me to help him.

How ironic.

With a slow, steady stride, I walk past him, leaving his bloody body on the floor behind me.

I don’t care if he dies from suffocation or if he bleeds to death.

I just want it to last an eternity.

But before I walk out, I grasp every photograph he has on this desk and take them with me. One of them is of Syrena. The moment I saw it, I knew I had to take it. I have to find her and make sure she’s all right. All these pictures will serve as evidence, as a testament to what Graham’s done. I’m not going to let him get away with this.

At the sight of his squirming body on the floor, I turn and make a run for it. I can still hear his gurgles.

The more steps I take, the more my body begins to shake. My fingers too, and I can barely hold the pictures. Every time I blink, I see his face in front of me … and the scissors I rammed into his neck.

I try to shake it off, but the farther I get away from him, the harder it becomes. I’m painfully aware of the blood splatter on my hands, and I get the sudden urge to scrape it off with a knife.

I don’t know why I have these violent thoughts, so I quickly make my way to a faucet and rinse it off as best as I can. The blood stinks so badly that bile rises up, and I puke. When my body has cleansed itself of its demons, I wash my face too and wipe everything off.

The blood still stains my skin, even if it’s less than before. I can still smell his scent on me. I can still hear the gurgling sounds in my head, and I want them to stop.

I wish everything would stop, but my head just keeps spinning, and my heart is beating out of control.

You’re not alone.

Cage.

Cage is still locked up in his prison. All by himself.

I have to let him know I’m okay. I have to find him and take him home.

I rush through the building, through the unknown corridors of which I have a vague memory of from the last time, and through the open doors. No one’s in the dark room with the red lights this time … it’s completely empty as if that girl was never there.

So I run up the stairs and through the doors and hallways until I get to the familiar elevator room again. The same room with that door … behind which Cage is being kept.

I sprint toward it and bang the doors. “Cage?”

“Ella!” Hearing his voice makes my heart skip a beat.

“I’m here!” I yell.

“You’re safe.”

“Yes,” I reply. “Are you okay?”

“No, but I manage.”

I swallow. “Hold on; I’ll get you out of there.”

I jerk the door with everything I got, putting all my strength into it, but it won’t budge.

“I can’t open it,” I shout.

“The code,” he says.

Right. There’s a box right next to the door, and when I open the lid, there are nine numbers I can press. But which ones and how many? I never got the code from Graham. I couldn’t open my eyes when he was wheeling me out because then he’d know I was awake.

And now he’s dying, if not already dead.

What if, by killing Graham, I sealed his fate to be stuck in this prison forever?

A horrifying shiver runs up and down my spine, but I ignore it and focus on my ability to think.

“Cage, did Graham have any special dates?”

“Dates?”

I push my ears against the door, trying to hear him better while shouting back. “Birthdays, deaths, marriage.”

“No … Marriage?”

I sigh. Of course, he doesn’t know what that is. “Never mind that. Did he ever mention any specific date?”

“No,” he says again.

“Anything that involves numbers? Did he ever mention anything?”

“No …”

The more he says no, the harder it becomes to swallow.

Tears fill my eyes, but I blink them away because I just remembered something. “I’ll go check his office and see if I can find the code there. Okay?”

“Go,” he says, and I immediately rush off.

Back to the small office. I can hardly remember where it is, but when I find it, I immediately start searching.

I literally open all the drawers, pull out all the notes, and throw everything off that’s not what I’m looking for. In one of the drawers, I find more pictures of the girls he once took, so I grasp them and find a bag to tuck them into. A blue duffel bag will do, so I chuck out all the contents and throw the pictures inside. I add a flashlight I found along with a bunch of keys. I don’t know what they open, but any keys will do if I want to get out of here.

But no matter how hard I search, I can’t find a code anywhere. Nothing that looks like a lock combination. Nothing.

The longer I comb through his stuff, the more I come to realize that I won’t find anything, no matter how hard I try. My pulse begins to race, and my breathing becomes ragged as I make my way back to the room where Cage is.

I bang on the door. “I can’t find the code, Cage!”

It’s silent for a while, and I worry something might’ve happened to him while I was gone.

“Go,” he suddenly says.

I suck in a breath as I hear the word over and over in my head.

“No!” I shout, my eyes filling with tears. “I am not leaving you here.”

“Escape, remember?” he yells back.

Of course, he’d say that. Tempt me with my memories and my desire to be back home.

But I don’t want to go back without him.

I don’t want to be home knowing he’s still stuck in this hellhole.

How could I?

“No, I can’t!” I scream, trying to rip open the door, smashing any numbers on the keypad, but nothing I do works. “Please … no.”

“Ella.” His stern voice breaks my panic. Breaks my heart into pieces.

“Go!” he barks. “Be free!”

I shake my head and yell back, “No!”

“LEAVE!”

His voice is so loud, it makes me jump back a little.

As a tear rolls down my cheek, I lean my head against the door and place a hand against it, wishing I could touch him one last time. Wishing I could change the course of our lives. Wishing …

But not every wish comes true.

I know that now.

With my eyes facing the thick door, I run through every scenario, every room once more, and come to a grim conclusion.

I don’t know where I am. I can’t call for help to tell them where we are. I already checked every inch of the office, even the computer, and there doesn’t seem to be any internet, so I can’t find my location either.

I have only one option … Run.

It’s the only way to make it back to civilization and find help.

But it requires leaving Cage here. Alone. All by himself. In a prison without food. Where no one can reach him.

He’ll lose his mind.

Tears stream down my face as I stare at the door, knowing I have no other choice.

Even if I don’t want him to be, he’s right.

I have to leave him.

Abandon him.

My heart shrivels up and sinks into my shoes as I face the impossible choice.

“I’ll come back for you,” I say. “I promise. Tell me you can hear me. Please.”

“I hear you,” he replies, his voice as calm as the night sky before a storm.

“Good. Don’t you die in there, you hear me?” I shout. “Promise me you’ll live.”

“I promise,” he says.

This choice is eating away at me … The one he’s already made for me.

Because that’s just who he is.

Even when he knows he’ll be alone, without food, stuck in a prison for who knows how long … Waiting until I come back … if I ever come back …

And he still wants me to go.

I’ll be safe even when he isn’t.

I could never make this decision by myself, so now he’s taking it away from me by commanding me to leave. To save me. To save our baby.

At the cost of his own sanity.

“Thank you,” I say, the words barely forming on my lips as I struggle to breathe.

When the last teardrop falls to the floor, I turn around and run.