Page 1 of High Stakes

One

Fallon

The soft, eerie lilt of my voice reciting the rhyme reverberates through the cramped, shadow-filled room, barely above a whisper. My father used to sing this to me as a child when I caught fireflies.

“In the dark where shadows creep,

Little Firefly takes her leap,

Wings aglow, she dances light,

Unaware of the Spider’s sight.”

Little did he know those words held a different meaning for me back then. Now, I no longer have fireflies to whisper to in the dark—only silence and the growing weight of the darkness, which seems to deepen every day.Each syllable is a fragile thread connecting me to my past. Back then, fireflies weren’t just bugs in a jar. They were my only light in the pitch-black—a tiny, flickering hope in a world filled with fear. Even as a little girl, I learned darkness was more than the absence of light. It was alive, moving, breathing. Feeding on my terror.

Dad called me "Firefly." The memory tugs at something deep inside me, the way I used to chase those tiny sparks through thewarm summer dark. If only he knew what they truly meant to me. How I used to comfort my baby sister, whispering stories of tiny lights fighting spiders while we were trapped in that windowless room where sunlight was a myth, and silence came from my only friend, a baby too sick even to cry.

The memory stings. Suddenly, I’m back in that place—or maybe I never really left. Maybe I’m still that scared little girl, hiding from shadows and soundless monsters. Years of therapy convinced me I had moved on. But Leone has forced me back into the dark, and now I know the truth: I never escaped. Trauma doesn’t disappear; it waits. It waits for someone like Leone to drag it back to the surface. He showed me that even the trauma I tuck away can resurface and how even a grown woman can still be scared of the boogie man. Leone is proof that monsters are real. They don’t hide under the bed or lurk in closets. They wear human faces. Only it's not the figment of my imagination that scares me now, it's knowing the boogie man does exist, and he wears the face of a man now, one I gave my hand to.

I've learned monsters know your name, hold your hand, and pretend to love you.

The room around me is as suffocating as Grandma’s old walk-in closet. The air is heavy and stale, filled with the bitter tang of despair. My hands are cuffed to the steel chair. The cold metal bites into my wrists, leaving raw, bloody welts. My fingers have gone numb.

I’m still in the same room where everything changed. A week has passed, or so I think. My only sense of time comes from counting Leone’s visits, each one dragging me further into this nightmare.

The dim light filtering beneath the door is the only light here, but even that feels cruel. It casts flickering shadows on the floor, teasing me with movement in the stillness. My eyes flutterclosed, but I can’t block out the memory of that night. It plays on repeat, vivid and merciless.

I still hear the gunshot. See the flash of light. Feel the way the air shattered, along with my resolve.

Leone’s voice, sharp and cold, has carved itself into my mind:

“You gambled with lives; now watch me take them. Maybe now you’ll understand—the house always wins.”

The bang that followed still echoes in my ears. It wasn’t Sienna or my father who fell. It was Marcel. Relief tangled with guilt in my chest—relief that it wasn’t them, horror that it was someone.

Sienna’s sobs filled the room, her horror raw and guttural. The same cries I heard later when Leone threw her to his men. What he made me watch that night still has my hands trembling. My father’s face, twisted in rage as they dragged him away, is forever etched into my memory.

And now, I wait. For what? I don’t know. Rescue feels impossible, escape even more so. The only thing I can do is sit here, remember, and try to survive.

As I sit tied to a chair in this dark room where nightmares aren’t just made but lived, I realize the game is far from over, and I’m holding a losing hand. Leone’s steps approach—a slow, menacing cadence signaling his daily visit. The door creaks open, light slicing through the darkness, casting long shadows which reach for me like the fingers of a ghost.

He never says anything which is sometimes more maddening because I miss sound. My head drops as his footsteps come closer, the sound of a drumbeat to my rising panic. I brace myself, each breath a shard of glass in my lungs as past and present horrors collide. He is the nightmare in both, only now he’ll also star in my future ones, too.

He stops in front of me, holding a plate. No words are spoken; the silence is deliberate, a method to keep mesubmerged in the psychological aftermath of that horrifying night.

A chair scrapes across the concrete floor, the harsh sound making me wince. Leone sits before me, spearing something with a fork. After a week, with the stench of Marcel’s decomposing body lingering in the air, my senses are nearly obliterated. Leone’s breathing never changes, proving how unaffected he is by death and its stench. The metallic scent of Marcel’s blood still clings to my skin, thick and sticky. My skin itches and burns from the waste dried on me; it’s all I can smell and feel, burning like acid.

Leone brings the fork to my lips, and I press them tightly shut. I refuse to eat, not from lack of hunger, but because it’s the only shred of control I can cling to. Taking food from him feels like submission. More practically, I dread adding to the humiliation of soiling myself. The dried urine on my skin burns intolerably. The fabric of my dress, stiff and crusty against my skin, scrapes painfully with every slight movement, the sequins cutting into my flesh.

Leone hasn’t allowed me to bathe or use the bathroom since I’ve been chained here—a cruel method to strip me of dignity along with freedom.

Wetting myself was humiliating enough; eating and risking more filth is something I can’t face. My refusal only fuels Leone’s frustration. He grips my face, fingers digging into my hollow cheeks, forcing the fork between my teeth. I muster what little energy I have and spit the food back at him.

He remains silent, his expression unreadable. He wipes his face and angrily throws the plate, making me flinch. It shatters against the wall beside me, sending sharp echoes around the room. I whimper. The glass of water teeters on the table’s edge, always just out of reach, but there to tease me. Leone catches it just in time. My lips, dried and cracked, ache for a taste of water—the only thing I’ve accepted, knowing I need it to live. I can last longer without food.

Leone holds the glass to my lips. For a moment, I think he might relent. Then, with a cruel smirk, he tips the contents into my lap. The cold water soaks through my clothes, adding to my misery. I wince as it stings my chafed thighs.

“You don’t want to eat? Then you don’t drink, either,” Leone snaps, his voice breaking the silence for the first time since that night. He turns and leaves, the light from the hallway briefly illuminating the space before he slams the door, plunging me back into darkness.

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