Page 92 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

“What are you going to do with that?” Lou asks in a thin voice.

“I’ll sedate you so I don’t have to use force to get you back. For your sake.”

She flinches as if I hit her. For a moment, I think she’s about to cry, but then she straddles the trunk.

“I’d rather jump before you force that stuff down my throat again!” she yells and pushes herself inch by inch on the trunk over the abyss. Her movements are clumsy and shaky. Every second, I’m more afraid she might lose her balance and fall into the gorge.

“Lou, get off it now!” It’s supposed to sound like an order, but I fail. It sounds pathetic.

She slides further out. “Go away!” A tear rolls down her cheek, infinitely slowly, almost in slow motion.

A strange, unfamiliar feeling rises in my throat. It burns my throat. “Lou…” I want to hug her and comfort her, tell her everything will be fine. But I can’t do that. “I’m not making you suffer on purpose. I know how much you miss your brothers. If I had known how bad this was going to be for you, then…”

“Then you would have kidnapped another girl?” she snaps. “We already talked about that!”

I step toward her, clutching the small bottle in my hand like a crutch. “I’ve always wanted you and you know why. That’s why I don’t think you’re going to jump. You love life far too much.” I don’t know if I believe my own words.

More and more tears stream down Lou’s pale cheeks. “You took my life away from me,” she sobs. “You stole it.”

Just like the monster stole mine. An immeasurable feeling of misery encircles my chest like an iron ring. For a reason I don’t understand, I pocket the emergency drops and hold out a hand to Lou.

“Don’t do it, Lou. Please…” If she hurts herself, it’s my fault. Then she’ll no longer have the opportunity to live her life, no matter with whom.

She glances down. There’s nothing there but rock and water.

Lou, come back! I beg silently, but she slides out even further.

The sight of her sitting there on the narrow log over the ravine makes me nauseous.

I make the decision that, until now, was only in my subconscious. The bottle, which she got me to put away, has now surfaced in my mind.

“Lou,” I say loudly enough for her to hear. “I know you don’t want any of this. You are desperate. And you want me to see it. You’ll go so far as to put yourself in danger to prove it to me. But guess what: I get it.” Slowly, so as not to startle her, I back away from her and hurry along the edge of the cliff. When I’m far enough away from her, my arm reaches back and I throw the chain into the ravine.

“See?” I shout at her against the wind, laughing even though it feels wrong.

She stares at me for a moment. Confused, like I’ve ripped a mask off my face, like she’s actually seeing me for the first time. That gaze sets my chest on fire. Everything in me is falling apart. I will lose her if I drink the concoction myself. I don’t know for sure, but it’s likely. With powerless desperation, I pull the bottle out of my pocket. I have no choice. I have to drink the stuff, or she’ll never get off the log and back on the cliff because she doesn’t trust me. But she has to get back on solid ground before she gets thrown off by the storm. If she doesn’t jump.

You’ll lose her! She will leave you!

It happens quickly. I feel myself falling to my knees while, at the same time, falling into an abyss. Dark wind whirls around me. I end up in the dark room, the dark part of my soul.

You’re breaking, whispers the boy inside me.

For seconds, I lie in the dark and stare upward. It’s too narrow, too black, too lonely. The new feeling from earlier flows into every cell, weighing them down.

So dark, so dark…underground…why did you leave? Don’t stop breathing. Don’t stop breathing. Keep your hands still. Do not cry. Don’t stop breathing…

Is that my voice? It is inside me and outside me.

I hear someone calling. Clear and blue as the sky. “Bren? Bren…”

Lou!

In the darkness, I search for her face, but I can’t find it. I’ll lose her! I will lose her forever! I shatter into a million pieces that splinter around me like the shards of a mirror. Images flash before me stroboscopic-like. The face of a smiling young woman. Blonde hair frames her face. She peers down at me with bright eyes, her lips forming a word. Indistinctly, as if through fog, I hear it. Bren-dan. Bren-dan.

Mom?

She runs after me, arms outstretched to catch me. I squeal in delight and run clumsily away from her, but she grabs me, throws me lovingly onto the sofa cushions and thoroughly tickles me. Her long hair brushes my face and I grab it in my fists. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” I laugh. “Mommy, stop!”

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