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“Sorry. Marigold.”

“Lex,” Oliver tried to interrupt, but I shot him a glare and turned back to Peter.

“Who?” I practically begged.

“It’s Detective Ransom’s property,” Oliver explained.

“Do-Gooder Darren,” Peter answered at the same time. “It’s why he stayed. He could keep it a secret.”

Goldie

“Was the gag really necessary?” I complained again. I should have been taking this more seriously, been terrified, shaking in my boots. But I was pissed. So fucking angry that I was kidnapped again by a fucking lunatic and dropped into the hellhole I had fought so hard to escape from.

“He made me,” Silas explained again as he paced back and forth. I couldn’t fault the boy for listening to the man who took us, but a part of me also wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. But that wouldn’t be fair. Silas had spent the majority of his life in this hole, and was only just beginning to understand the world around him.

I sighed and outstretched my legs in front of me. Our hellhole had been emptied since we left. We were sitting in what used to be the room section, but the cots were cleared, leaving only the dirt floor to sit on. “Why did you do it?”

“He made me,” Silas insisted like a broken record, as if that were enough explanation. But it wasn’t. I wanted to know why Silas had broken through the glass, tears and sorrow in his eyes as he stared at me. A whispered “I’m sorry” had passed his lips before he stepped into the room.

“How did he make you?” I asked, and patted the spot on the ground next to me.

Silas moved to sit next to me, his legs longer than mine as they stretched out next to mine. We had been squished into a small trunk on the way here and were both happy to stretch our sore muscles.

“He threatened my brothers.” His voice was quiet again, apprehensive, though we were alone, our captor gone. I had heard the man leave and close the door behind him. I was hoping he would show back up soon; I had questions, and it was about time I got some answers.

“When did he do that? Have you been in communication with him this whole time?” I asked.

Silas shook his head. “When we first got out, in the hospital. He came to talk to us. I didn’t know who he was at first, until he spoke. The voice… it was impossible to forget.”

“This whole time, you’ve been scared for your brothers?” I asked quietly. Silas nodded his head. “Is that why you refused to go live with them?”

“I thought that maybe… maybe if I stayed away, he wouldn’t be able to get to them. That they would be safe.” He glanced at me, his eyes still bleeding with remorse. “I’m sorry he got us again.”

“It’s not your fault,” I promised. I really believed it, too. He was a terrified kid in a world of unknowns, surrounded by strangers. He didn’t know who to trust; it was possible he didn’t even know how to trust. No one could blame him for acting out of fear. “How did he get you out of the house?”

“He called,” Silas explained. “Jackie thought he just had questions about the case. He told me he already had you… he lied.”

“Did he threaten me if you didn’t listen?” I clarified.

Silas nodded. “I wouldn’t have come otherwise. Does that make me a bad person? That I would have let my brothers be hurt so I could be safe, so I didn’t have to come back here?”

“Absolutely not,” I insisted. “I have a feeling your brothers would have wanted you to do just that: to ignore his threats and keep yourself safe.”

“Did you know?” Silas asked, raising a brow in confusion. “That it was him, this whole time?”

I shook my head. “I had no idea.” I didn’t even suspect him, trusting him fully. The number of times I’d thought to myself that he was a good man handed a bad set of cards was laughable now. “I thought he was trying to help, trying to stop it all.”

Darren Ransom hadn’t been trying to help at all, and I had fallen for his lies, hook, line, and sinker. His insistence that he was doing everything he could to help, his explanation of limited funds for the investigation, his sorrow at the deaths… every lie, I believed. Every half-truth to cover his tracks was now obvious. He hadn’t been caught because he was covering his own tracks. No one questioned when the lead detective’s prints showed up at a crime scene. No one wondered how he knew so much about the victims; he was supposed to know the most. The town was so desperate for answers and help that they believed him fully when he said he wanted to stop the deaths. He was their only option, and he took exceptional advantage of it.

What I couldn’t figure out was why—why he did this, why he killed and hurt so many. Why Silas and I were different, why we were alive when so many others weren’t. We were obviously important enough that he had come back for us. Though, this time he wasn’t masked. He wasn’t hiding from us, and I didn’t know what that meant for my future, or if he had something else planned that I wouldn’t survive. Because now I knew his face, now I knew his name, and I would do everything in my power to get out of this hellhole again.

The first thing I had checked when Silas and I were left alone was our previous escape route, but the chimney hole was filled.

“Are we going to die down here?” Silas whispered.

“No.” My answer was immediate, it was resolute, and by whatever gods were above, I would do everything to make it the truth. “We need a plan for when he comes back.”

“We don’t know when that will be,” Silas complained.