Page 71 of The Dark Rising
She talks excessively as they walk off, and we wait until they are out of sight. I blow out a warm breath through my mask and into Darius’s palm. Darius’s eyes hold mine, and I nod at the unspoken question in his eyes. I’m ready.
He releases me and we move quickly from our hiding spot, heading for the back door of the home that I grew up in. Darius stays in front of me until we reach the back entrance, mindful of the creaks as we step on the wooden porch. He puts his hand on the doorknob and looks over at me. My hands shake, but I hold my breath until we hear it click. My insides feel like they want to spill all over the floor, but I swallow it down.
Darius peeks inside, scanning for anyone present, and then we shuffle into a small mudroom that I know too well. Shoes and boots litter the floor with cloaks hanging up on hooks. Darius puts his ear to another door that leads into the kitchen whilst Leo closes the back door behind us. When Darius hears nothing on the other side, he opens it and we pass through and stop. I listen for any movement in the house, but there is none, we’re alone here.
I look around the kitchen, the wood surfaces and hanging pans looking exactly the same as before I left. No family pictures hang around the room though, it’s just bare, lifeless and stale. The dining room table that my mother and father lovingly made so many years ago is still the same, dominating the large, open space and I move forward without thought. Coming to a stop at one of the table’s legs, I crouch down and run my shaky fingers over the marks and grooves in the wood, sadness washing over me as I trace them with my fingertips.
“What is it?” Darius whispers, bending down beside me. He looks at the markings and grinds his teeth. “Is this where Kade was chained to?” I nod silently, feeling tears well in the back of my eyes. I stand, unable to look at them any longer. Darius looks at them one last time before he makes a move toward the stairs.
I grab his arm in my trembling hand to halt him. He looks back at me and I shake my head. “She won’t be up there.”
His brows furrow. “Then where would she be?”
I take in a lungful of air. “If she is here, she will be down there.” I point to a door to the left of the kitchen, looking at the dark wood for the first time since I’ve been in the room. “The basement.”
Darius watches me for a moment, something like concern flashing in his eyes before he turns and heads for the door. I follow on unsteady legs, not sure if I’m ready to face my past.
“I can’t hear anything,” Darius mutters as he presses his ear to the door.
“You won’t, it’s spelled.” I rub my arms, fighting off the chill that I’m sure only I can feel. My eyes move to Josh, his eyes are full of pain and fear, most likely remembering how he found me down there and the possibility of Sarah now being in the same place.
Darius looks at the door, a tick in his jaw noticeable before he reaches up and releases the bolt at the top. He pulls the door open, the wood creaking as he peers down into the darkness. He won’t find any light. Not until he reaches the other door at the bottom. His eyes go to the back of the door, noticing the scratch marks there and his eyes swing to mine. I lower my head, feeling a chill down to my bones.
I remember getting away from the hands that grabbed me once, only to come to this very door and it wouldn’t open. I scratched until my nails broke and bled, until I had splinters in my fingers whilst they laughed down the stairs at my feeble attempts to escape.
Darius’s body tenses, the air thickening before he starts going down the steps, the many, many steps that will take us deep beneath the house and to the nightmare I had survived through. I follow, Josh behind me and then Leo at the rear.
Leo closes the door, and we are encased in darkness, unable to see anything. I put one hand on the crumbling stone wall to steady myself as we make our way down, my breathing becoming choppy and small. Oh Gods, I don’t know if I can do this.
A hand grabs mine, gently but firm. It strokes over my knuckles before it’s placed on his back, urging me to grip his cloak. I don’t care who he is right now, my enemy, my torturer, my downfall. I just need to hold on to something, anything to keep my legs from surrendering beneath me.
We continue down. Down, down, down until I bump into Darius’s back as he comes to a stop. We’ve reached the door that leads into the basement room. My old prison. A place where Sarah could be.
Darius slowly opens the door, a line of light peeking through the crack and expanding as he pushes it wider. I blink, the sudden light blinding me for a moment until my vision clears. We head into the room, and then we stop in our tracks, taking in the sight before us.
“What the fuck?” Leo whisper barks.
“Sarah.” Josh’s voice is full of panic as he rushes forward toward the back of the room. Toward where Sarah is.
She lies limply on the cage floor, blood covering her sheer nightdress. Josh reaches through the cage bars, his hands trembling as he touches her cheek and then her neck for a pulse. He looks around the room, eyes full of murder before getting up and searching nearby on a table.
“She’s still breathing, help me find the key!” Josh rushes out. Leo springs into action, looking in the drawers and tables that line the length of the wall to my left, while my feet refuse to move. Papers, books and what looks like alchemy sets litter the surfaces, while a large desk at the back of the room adorns more papers and pens, sketches pinned on the wall above it.
And I can’t move. My heart beats painfully in my chest, the air around me tightening.
I hesitantly look over to the right of the room, to a wall I know too well. Weapons, instruments, poisons, and other objects are all in their rightful places on the hooks attached to the stone. I walk over in a trance, my feet heavy, ‘Darius’s eyes on me. Stopping in front of the wall, my eyes roam over the knives, sheers, pokers, clamps, ropes, chains and other contraptions. I lift my hand, it shakes violently as I move it toward the poker on the wall. As soon as my finger touches it, I clench my eyes shut.
“Want another one?” Patrick sneers down at me as he hovers above, his knees on either side of my waist as his naked body shines with sweat and blood. My blood. How many times has my body bled in all my seventeen years of life?
He has me strapped down on a table, my arms tied above my head while my ankles are chained. I can’t move, can’t get away from what he’s doing to me. I shake my head up at him, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Do be gentle, Patrick,” Charles laughs in that grating voice of his, stroking the tops of my feet. “We can’t have her passing out again so soon.”
“That’s true.” Patrick lifts the poker he has in his hand, running it from the base of my throat and down between my bare breasts. My body twitches, unable to keep still, always on edge that at any moment pain will come. He reaches below my belly button and my body locks up, fear paralyzing me. “But I think she wants another one.” He smirks down at me as Charles’s hand is now running up my leg. The poker breaks through my skin right above the most intimate part of me, and I scream, my hands clawing at each other as he licks his lips, watching what he’s doing to me. He keeps going, keeps pushing until I feel it split everything within me and pierce the wood beneath me. “So pretty when you’re covered in red and screaming for me.”
I gasp through my sobs, choking on air. “S-stop, p-please.”
Patrick groans. “Oh Lasandrhea, you know what your begging does to me.” He grabs his hard dick in his hand, stroking himself and moaning my name as his eyes trail over my body.
