She woke to complete darkness. Reaching up, she gently felt her fluttering eyelids to make sure she was really opening her eyes. Little by little, sensation came back to her: a heavy pounding in the back of her head, the cold feel of concrete beneath her bottom, a smell like rotted wood and mildew. Her back rested against something soft. She turned slightly and pushed against it with one hand. Something hard clamped down on her forearm and she shrieked, writhing away and kicking with all her might. It took several seconds for her to register Ray’s voice beneath her screams.

“Jo, it’s me. It’s me.”

“Ray?” she called into the blackness.

Her hands searched all around her but all she felt was concrete. She heard a whistling sound and, too late, realized she was hyperventilating. She hated dark closed-in spaces. Her heartbeat thundered over the sound of her wheezing breath, her body flailed around in the darkness even though she willed it not to move—to be still, to calm down, to catch a breath. Then Ray’s arms were around her, his breath hot on the nape of her neck. “It’s okay,” he told her. “You’re safe. I’m here with you.”

She wanted to scream at him to let go of her, but she couldn’t find the words, just a sound like an animal trapped in a bear trap. A terrible keening that hurt her own ears. Her body still recoiled against his touch, familiar as it was. She knew it should be comforting, but it wasn’t.

As if reading her mind, Ray said, “I know you don’t want me to touch you, but you need to calm down, Jo. Pretend I’m Luke or whoever. Please, calm down.”

The keening continued. Her mind screamed commands at her in rapid-fire fashion, none of which her body was able to obey. Breathe. Stop struggling. Be quiet. Calm the fuck down.

Ray loosened his grip on her but still held her against his chest. He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Shhh,” he cooed. “Jo, everything is okay. Listen to my voice. You can still listen to my voice, right?”

He was right. The night that had ended their marriage—even before Misty came into the picture—had not ruined that for her. She calmed to a whimper, her breath slowing fractionally.

“I won’t hurt you,” he told her. “I promise you that. You know me, Jo. I would never hurt you.”

Lies, all lies, but she listened anyway because she had to. Because his voice had once been home to her. She followed the sound of it back up from the rabbit hole of hysteria, clinging to it as though her life depended on it.

“I’m here with you,” he continued. “I’m not going to leave you.”

Her heaving chest slowed. The wheezing stopped. She could almost speak.

“You’re not a kid anymore. You’re not alone. The darkness can’t hurt you, remember? It’s only darkness.”

He was right. The darkness couldn’t hurt her. Neither could a small space. Or her mother. But there was a new monster outside the door, and he had already tried to hurt them. They were in the black box now.

Her voice was small. “Did he hurt you?”

“I’m okay,” Ray said, although by the small catch in his voice, she suspected he was keeping something from her. Her hands began searching his body for injuries, but he caught them and held them fast in both of his. “I’m fine,” he assured her. “Really.”

She wished she could see him. She leaned back into him, and they sank to the floor together. “He took our phones,” Ray said. “Not that there’s any service up here. I tried kicking my way out, but it was a no go.”

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Gosnell’s… bunker.”

“Bunker?”

“Well, whatever you want to call it. He built this place out in the woods behind his house. Like one of those earth houses or whatever.”

A structure in the earth. A hole in the ground.

“Have you been here before?”

“No. Yes. I mean, I’ve been to his house before, on the property, but I didn’t—I never made it inside here.”

She laid the side of her head against his jacket. The smell of blood and sweat mingled with the earthy smells of the tiny room. “Are you bleeding?”

“No,” he said, too quickly. “I mean, yeah. I think he put a pretty bad gash in my leg, but I’m alright, Jo.”

“What is this place? What does he use it for?”

Ray didn’t speak for several seconds. The only proof she had that he was still alive was the rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek. She wondered if he’d fallen asleep. “Ray?”

“He uses it for… I mean, I think he uses it to keep… you know, women.”

Her tone was more strident this time. “‘Keep women?’”

His voice remained calm but sad. “Jo, when you came out here, what did you think you were going to find?”

“Is Isabelle Coleman here?”

“No,” he said with absolute conviction.

“How do you know?”

“Because I know.”

“We’re going to die here,” Josie said.

“No. I won’t let that happen.”

“Because you’re such good friends? You can just ask him to let us go and he’ll do it?”

He gave an exasperated sigh. “Josie.”

“I want the truth, Ray. All of it. How much you know and when you knew it. I need you to keep talking to me, or I’m going to lose it in here.”