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He hummed in acknowledgment, but kept his eyes closed and his body relaxed.

“Do you know why I was taken?”

That caught his attention, his entire body tensing and his eyes finally opening, allowing me to see the deep emerald green.

“We have ideas, but we don’t know for sure. Do you want to know?”

I nodded tentatively.

“How much do you know?”

“Not a lot,” I explained. I had picked up pieces here and there, but could admit I was avoiding the topic when I was first found. “I know it was a serial killer who had taken children, including Silas. I know he killed their parents, and usually the child. But that’s about it.”

He swallowed hard before speaking. “That’s all correct. You and I were investigating the case for an article for work. We think that’s how you got the attention of the Watcher, the man responsible–”

“But I wasn’t a kid,” I interrupted.

“Yeah, but you were the first time he tried to take you,” Lexington continued, and I held my breath as he spoke. “I don’t know the details, but I know your parents were killed when you were just a kid. They were his first that we know of—the Watcher, I mean. I think he wanted to take you, but you managed to hide from him. I think in some ways, you were the one who got away, and when he saw that you were back, he took the chance and took you again.”

I swallowed hard as I digested it all. “I always wondered, why me? You know? There wasn’t much else to do but think down there, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I had done something to land me there. But it sounds like this sicko picked me decades ago.” I was talking more to myself than Lexington, but he kept his rapt attention on me. “I never heard him speak; he never explained why. Silas didn’t know why, either. I don’t understand it–”

“I don’t think you could,” Lexington interrupted. It seemed he and I had a bad habit of cutting each other off. “Whoever is doing this is twisted. I have a feeling his intentions will only make sense to him.”

I hummed, because I knew he was right, but it didn’t take away my desire to know why—to understand why. “Have they made any headway on finding him? Or the place we were held?”

Lexington’s gaze grew remorseful, and he shook his head. “They haven’t given up. I won’t let them, but no. They have no idea who it is, or where.”

I felt the ball of dread in my stomach grow heavier. “What if he comes back for me?”

Lexington sat up, shaking his head furiously. He turned under my legs, his entire focus on me. “I won’t let him take you again, Goldie. I promise you.”

I smiled gratefully, but I didn’t think Lexington could stop this man when it came down to it.

Lexington

Her screams pierced through the thin walls again, raw and desperate. I glanced beside me at River, holding my breath until I saw the steady rise and fall of his chest; he was still sound asleep, curled against my side in my bed where he’d crawled in hours ago. Moving with agonizing slowness, I slipped out from under the covers, cringing at every tiny creak of the mattress. I reached for a shirt on the back of the chair and held it mid-air, waiting in bated breath for another cry.

She had quieted down. I waited, hoping she wouldn’t yell again. It broke my heart to hear those earsplitting cries, knowing all she had survived to cause them.

It was quiet—blissfully quiet. The silence hung heavy in the air, waiting to be broken, when she let out the loudest scream I had heard so far. I dropped the shirt, forgotten in my haste to get to her. I ran the distance between my room and hers. It was only a dozen feet, but she felt a lifetime away. I rounded the corner into her room, throwing the door open. I was shocked to see that every light in her room was off. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew she hated the dark now, refused to exist in it. I squinted to see the lamp on the nightstand lying on the floor, the bulb shattered, the plug pulled loose from the wall.

Goldie lay in the center of the bed. Once again, the sheets were kicked off, and a layer of sweat coated her body. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and her hair, which now hit her jawline, was in disarray around her face. She moaned, every muscle tensed. I didn’t think; I simply closed the distance, needing her pain to stop.

I would take every ounce of pain, of anguish, from her and experience it myself if it meant she got to exist in peace again.

“Goldie,” I muttered, resting one hand on her shoulder. She didn’t wake, trapped in the chaos of her own mind.

I watched the guttural scream work its way from her diaphragm, exploding in a cacophony of dissonance that would haunt me forever.

I climbed onto the bed next to her, staring down at her eyes, which were shut with such force I wouldn’t have been shocked if she were trapped in that position in perpetuity. I cupped her face gently, my hands shaking slightly as I spoke.

“Wake up, please. Goldie,” I exclaimed. “Come back to me, okay? Come back to me.”

She screamed again.

“Marigold!” I yelled, and it seemed that name broke through the fog just enough to bring her back to the land of the conscious.

Her dark eyes blinked open, staring up at me. But I knew she didn’t see me yet; she was still trying to make sense of her reality. Her hands grasped my forearms in a grip so tight I knew it would leave behind marks.