Page 119 of Behind the Shadows
The girl inside the cage was maybe thirteen. Red hair tangled around her face. Her lip was split. She clutched the bars.
And outside the cage, barely visible in the corner of the frame, standing by the door?—
A boy.
Slumped. Drugged. Head down. Hands covered in blood.
Me.
My knees buckled.
“I—I was there,” I whispered. “I didn’t dream it.”
“No,” Holland said softly. “Your brain buried it. But your heart never let it go.”
“I wasn’t hurting her,” I muttered, panicked. “I didn’t—God, I didn’t hurt you?—”
“You didn’t,” she said. “You saw me. You came in. I remember now. You told them to stop.”
I stared at the photo. My younger self looked lost, distant, barely conscious.
“They punished me after,” I said. “Stripped me down. Injected me. Told me I killed you. Made me forget.”
“But you didn’t forget.”
And I hadn’t. That was the worst part. It had always been there. Locked behind chains. Drowned in heroin and scripture. But now?—
Now the lock had rusted through.
I dropped the photo and let it fall.
The scream ripped from my throat—raw, guttural. Years of silence, agony, and rot clawing their way free. I curled into myself, rocking and trembling. Holland’s arms wrapped around me as I fell apart.
“I was never the monster,” I whispered.
“No,” Holland said, wrapping her arms around me. “You were the boy they broke.”
But there was more. God, there was always more.
My voice came out wrecked. “There’s something I never told anyone. Not Death. Not Dope. Not even myself.”
She didn’t speak. Just held me. Let me unravel.
“They used to leave me down here,” I said. “Days at a time. No food. No light. Locked in the chains.”
She was silent. Still. Letting the weight of it fall.
“I was fourteen. It was winter. The pipes froze, and the cold started getting in my bones. I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die. But then I heard something. Singing.”
Her forehead pinched. “What song?”
My throat clenched. “Come, little children, I’ll take thee away …”
A shiver racked through her.
“I thought I imagined it,” I said. “But it wasn’t in my head. It was him. The Pied Piper. Upstairs. Singing like it was a lullaby. My mother … she was humming along.”
I swallowed hard, hands clenched.
