Page 72 of Hold Him Like Gravity

It dinged, and I ran around to get inside. I was about to hit the button for the basement before I realized how stupid I was being.

I rushed back out of the elevator car and ran around toward the mailboxes, taking slow, deep breaths, trying to keep myself calm.

I needed to use the stairs, not the elevator that would announce my arrival. Then open to reveal me to whoever might be down in the basement.

The stairs would allow me to go slow, to carefully peek out once I got down there. To play it safe and not get caught.

I hoped.

I moved into the stairwell, trying to ignore the flip-flopping of my stomach at being alone in a secluded place at night. With only a flickering overhead light to brighten my descent.

I forced myself to take slow, deep breaths as I went down, taking careful steps to stay as quiet as possible.

It took forever, yet was far too quick, to get to the door at the bottom.

I took a moment there, closing my eyes, trying to stop the way my whole body felt like it was trembling from the inside out. It was no use, though. I wasn’t going to stop panicking until I saw what I needed to see, then got the hell out of there.

I could go somewhere safe and call. Wait for the police there. Let them do their job. Take Kyle away. For good.

Then Jake and I could pick up the shambles of our lives.

With one more deep breath, I carefully put pressure on the bar of the door, wincing as it made that little clicking noise.

I paused, half certain someone was going to come rushing toward me with a gun, was going to strap me to a chair beside my brother and beat me. Or worse.

But a moment passed, two.

No one came.

I tiptoed forward, carefully closing the door behind me so it didn’t slam.

The basement reeked of dust and damp. There was a distinct shrieking sound I knew to be rats fighting.

Great.

Bad guys and rats to contend with.

It was pitch black in the basement, so I took small, shuffling steps toward the wall, pressing my hand against the cinderblocks to orient myself as I made myself keep moving forward, my eyes adjusting little by little to the low light.

A random stack of boxes surprised me, making me almost plow right into them, sending them crashing to the floor.

As it was, I sucked in a breath, but managed to keep myself from making any other sound as I moved around the boxes and kept moving around the cavernous space.

It felt like hours passed. But it was likely less than ten minutes to move around the whole perimeter.

My belly bottomed out, though, as I realized that aside from the rats that were either fighting or fucking, given the soundsthey were making, and likely a million spiders whose webs were probably covering me, this basement was unoccupied.

There was no chair with my brother strapped to it.

No bad guys waiting to grab me.

Just… nothing.

A little whimper escaped me as I made my way back to the door.

I was so hopeful that this was it, that it was all going to end tonight. I hadn’t really prepared myself for the other possibility. That Kyle lived here, but stashed my brother somewhere else.

The more I thought about it as I moved into the stairwell and dropped down on one of the steps, cradling my head in my hands, the more that made sense.

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