Does It Hurt? (105)

“What did you do?” I choke out.

Sylvester’s hand rises to his beard and strokes it with mocking contemplation.

“What do you mean?” he questions. “I am simply sitting on my couch, in my home, and drinking a nice cold beer.”

Said beer is sitting on the end table, though the cap is firmly on.

“Where is Enzo?” I push, ignoring his condescension.

Sylvester sighs, as if this whole situation is a huge miscommunication and an inconvenience. As if he didn't attempt to keep me locked away here and grew angry and unhinged when I said no.

As if he didn't lie to us from the very beginning and purposely kept us trapped here.

“I’ve already contacted someone,” I warn. “They know we're here and are being held hostage.”

Far from the truth, but it's better than him believing we're completely vulnerable.

Sylvester drops his wooden leg from the coffee table, the thump loud and causing me to flinch. With a grunt, he stands, and instinctively, I take a step back.

A soft breeze of air whispers across the nape of my neck, causing the hairs to stand on end like a petrified cat.

I freeze, and Sylvester grins, a devilish glint in his eyes. He lifts his hand and points behind me.

“She's excited to keep you.”

My muscles are stiff with horror, and I refuse to unlock them and turn around.

“I told her you would stay here with her. She's very excited to have a new friend.”

I work to swallow, but it feels no easier than swallowing dry sticks.

“Then why did she lead us to the beacon? Why would she help us find a way out?”

His eyes flit over my shoulder, a flash of pure rage in his eyes before it extinguishes. In that tiny increment of time, I see every bit of insanity residing in that empty tomb where his soul is supposed to be.

“Kacey gets lonely sometimes. Doesn't always like being here. She comes around eventually but acts out every now and then.”

“Is that why you sewed her mouth shut?” I spit, disgusted with what he did to his own daughter. It sickens me to think what else he might've done to her.

I feel a finger slide across my nape, and I bristle, a slimy feeling trickling through my bloodstream. Her touch moves south, and then begins to swirl in a pattern I can’t distinguish. She’s drawing something on my back, but I’ve no idea what. It feels like letters, but I can’t be sure in the midst of my panic. I think I feel her trace L-A-R, but my mind is racing too fast to interpret it.

“We all suffer consequences, my dear,” he says, walking around the table and coming to stand in front of me. I’m trapped between the two, and I’ve no idea how the fuck I’m supposed to find Enzo and get us the fuck out of here.

“Was getting a supply drop-off when she started screaming. I had already cut out her tongue the previous time when she tried to call for help, but that doesn’t stop someone from making noises of distress, even if it’s incoherent. She forced my hand.”

Nausea churns in my stomach, the acidity burning a path up my throat.

“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?