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His brows raised slightly. “Jesus.”

“Were you…like me?” he asked after a moment. “Chained up?”

I didn’t know how to answer. The answer wasn’t simple. It never was.

“For the first year,” I said finally. “Then he…changed things.”

“Changed things how?”

I looked away. I didn’t want to talk about upstairs. About the rules. About what it meant when I stopped being just something kept in a room. But the words came anyway, quiet and unwilling.

“He…makes me do stuff.”

Christopher nodded slowly, like he understood. But he didn’t—not really. He saw me standing behind Wayne when Liam was murdered, but he had no idea what it was like to watch someone slowly erode over time. To see the life dull in someone's eyes. To smell their blood and know what they look like underneath their skin.

“My parents own the butcher on regent drive,” he said. “When I was younger, he used to come in every Monday and drop off the pork cuts. But then time went on—I’d gone to university for a few years and didn’t see him as often. Anyway, a few weeks ago my car broke down on the way home from work. Imagine my surprise when Wayne pulled over with his spark plugs ready.” He chuckled without humour.

“I’d been so grateful at the time, joking around with him while he pretended to fix it. Got me in the back of the neck when I closed the bonnet.”

I remembered when Wayne brought him home. He dragged his limp body down the hall, laughing when his head hit the skirting. Christopher had screamed all night, keeping me up with his pleas for help. “I have a son,” he added when the silence stretched on. “He turned three the day before I was taken,” he said with a watery smile. “At least I got to be there for that, huh?”

Silence.

“What about you?”

What about me?

How I grew up around Wayne, thinking he was a trustworthy man, and that I would be safe in his car, but I wasn't, and he wasn’t, and now I’m stuck here forever?

“Please talk to me. I promise I won’t tell him.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and my resolve weakened. “On my eighteenth birthday…” I shakily started, voice no louder than a whisper.

“Yeah?”

“I hitched a ride with him, thinking he’d take me straight to…m-my boyfriend.” My heart broke all over again, recalling the events. “But he didn’t, and I’ve been here ever since.” I clenched my eyes, tears spilling over, sliding down my cheeks as self-hatred filled my veins.

How could I have been so stupid that night?

I knew better than to leave on my own, especially without informing Peter. That was probably the worst thing I could’ve done to him. I couldn’t even imagine how he must’ve felt in the aftermath.

“Fuck. It’s not fair,” he said suddenly, voice breaking at the edges. “What gives him the right? What makes him decide who gets to go home and who doesn’t?” I opened my eyes and glanced towards him, mindful of his anger. “I’ve done nothing to him,” he spat. “Nothing.” He looked away, shoulders shaking as he tried to swallow it down.

I watched him, and I understood it too well.

Because those questions: why me, why us, why this?

They never got answered here.

I pressed my lips together, forcing them not to tremble. I wouldn’t speak more than I had to. Not because I wasn’t allowed to, but because if I started…I didn’t know if I’d be able to stop. Because the pain in my skull was nothing compared to the ache in my chest.

Being apart from the two most important people in my life was the worst kind of pain Wayne could ever inflict onto me. Peter and Jackson were my rocks, the anchors keeping me weighted down when the waves got too rough. Losing them was like losing a limb; half of my heart was missing without them. It was hard to fathom how much time it had been since I last saw them, how many years had passed since we’d been in the same room together. Being apart from my brother was hard enough, but losing Jackson? The boy I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with? That was a different type of pain, a deep searing grief that I struggled with everyday.

“I love you, Evie.”

Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I still heard those words, still pictured the way his lips moved when he said them. The way the porch light settled against his face, his cologne filling my lungs, the look in his eyes before he told me he loved me.

I closed my eyes then, seeing that image vividly. And that was all I’d ever have. Just these memories. I knew if I got older, I’d forget what his voice sounded like and struggle to recall his face. I’d smell his warm sandalwood scent on another one of Wayne’s victims, and forget it was ever his—forget I used to inhale it until it seeped into my marrow.