Page 23 of The Darkest Half

I hate to say it, but Niklas is right. In the back of my mind, I knew this myself, but I tried to ignore it. I don’t want to believe that Victor knows where we are and that he has no intention of rescuing us.

Day Four

My head is pounding. My tongue feels swollen behind my teeth. I need water soon, or this definitely won’t end well.

Niklas has been lying on the floor, facing the wall, for several hours. I thought he might be sleeping and didn’t want to wake him, so I’d left him alone for a little while. But after another hour or so with no movement, I go over to check.

His eyes are wide open.

“Conserve your energy, Izzy,” he tells me.

I shake his shoulder. “We need water—I can’t stress this enough. Technically, we aren’t supposed to survive longer than three days without it, but here we are, four days later, and—”

“It’s been five for me,” he says but still doesn’t move. “So, if you’d be so kind as to get away from MY FUCKING EAR! I have a goddamn migraine from hell, all right?”

His reaction, and his voice, startle me. Five days? This can’t be happening. Who even does this?! Lets the abductees die when they’re the bargaining chip?

“You haven’t had anything to drink in five days?” I ask quietly but with urgency.

“I had a few beers five days ago,” he says, “but that was it.”

I sigh with a slight sense of relief. “You do know beer is mostly water, right?”

“Yeah…I knew that,” he says. “Now, please, just stop talking.”

Yeah, I don’t think he knew that.

I leave him alone, passing up this awesome opportunity to fuck with him.

I pace the room back and forth, left to right, corner to corner, even diagonally. I run my hands along every inch of the wall that I can reach in search of a hidden camera but find nothing. Gazing upward at the ceiling, which is too high to reach even if I stood on Niklas’ shoulders, I believe that’s where the cameras must be, way out of our reach.

Gesturing my hands above me as if I’ve found the damn camera, I do the only thing I have left.

“Can you at least give us some water?” I shout. “What good are we if we’re dead?!”

A few minutes later, I try again.

An hour later, I try again and again.

It must’ve been five hours ago when I first stood in the center of the room talking to myself, and still, there’s no sign of anyone coming to bring us water.

This is worse than any scenario I ever could’ve imagined. The silence, the feeling of absolute helplessness—the fucking silence. Maybe I’ve been too preoccupied with the dehydration to have realized sooner, but early yesterday morning and this morning, there were no footsteps in the hall. There hasn’t been a sound or sign of anyone in this building in two days!

Now I feel even more trapped like I’m pinned underneath the rubble of a construction collapse. It’s dark and stuffy, and I can barely breathe, and no one can hear me to find my location—no one even knows the construction site collapsed! Except for Victor Faust, who I’m starting to despise in my own sick, woman-scorned way. How can he do this!? How can that bastard let this happen?!

“Victor, do you hear me?” I shout at the hidden camera, wherever it is. “I’ll never forgive you if you leave us in here to rot! I fucking mean it—I’ll never forgive you! I’ll hunt you down!” What, as a vengeful spirit? A poltergeist doomed to haunt this building in the afterlife, where VICTOR WILL NEVER SHOW UP?!

“Izzy! Calm down, all right?” Niklas says.

Calm down? But I wasn’t even saying anything out loud. I look down at my hands when I feel a trickle of warm liquid seeping from my palm, and I notice my fingernails have found their way into my flesh. My chest visibly heaves with anxiety-filled, rapid breaths.

I collapse onto the floor, sitting upright with my knees bent behind me awkwardly, and I lower my head toward the floor, bracing it on my arms for support. And I breathe.

I am not locked inside this tiny room. I just think I am, I try to tell myself. I’m going to get out of here soon. Just breathe, Izabel—breathe.

“If it means anything,” I hear Niklas’ voice, “I’m not doing so well myself.”

“Anxiety?” I ask, still with my forehead almost touching the floor. “Or is it the dehydration?”

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