“I don’t want to go,” she hisses finally. “I like it here.”
“No you don’t. That’s just what he told you.” I know, because he tried to tell me too. The man called Alan, and the boy called Cliff. Both of them tried to tell me, but I know different. I’m not happy here. “That’s what they want you to think.”
“It is what I think,” she says defiantly. “I don’t want to go.”
I hesitate at the door, looking back at her. Pleading is useless. She’s turned away from me, like she doesn’t even want to watch me go. Even as a little girl, I know that the world is fucked up. I know too much. I know that I have seconds to get out of here, and I shouldn’t have wasted any of them on her.
We may have grown up in the bunker together, but there’s no sisterhood between us, no friendship. She loves the monster, and I hate him. As long as I live, she’ll be my enemy.
Won’t she?
A flicker of hurt blossoms inside of my chest, but I push it down. There isn’t time for that. There’s only time for escape.
I reach the spot where the little hole sits high on the wall. It’s covered by a grate, but I’ve managed to loosen the screws over several days of effort, working on it whenever I get the chance.
Dragging over two large crates, I grimace with effort as I stack one on top of the other. The man doesn’t always keep crates down here, and I’ve been terrified that he would take these away before I got a chance to get out.
But they’re still here. And when I’m standing on top of them, I’m just tall enough to reach up and pull the grate away from the opening. My little arms burn as I pull myself up toward the hole in the wall, and my heart races in my chest as I slither awkwardly into the vent.
I don’t know where this little duct leads, but it doesn’t matter. It has to go somewhere better than this. It has to lead away from this awful place.
And the second I get out, I’ll run.
I’ll leave it all behind.
I wake up with my heart pounding, my skin slick with sweat that quickly turns to a chill on my exposed flesh. I want to run, run away from it all, but what is there left to run from? I’ve escaped, I’m not there anymore.
I’m here.
Elias shifts beside me, pressing his warm body flush up against my cold one, and as I come to, I have to repeat it over and over again to myself.
I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.
“Shit. Your heart is racing,” he murmurs against my neck, his lips finding my skin in the darkness. “What is it?”
I open my mouth to say something, to explain what I saw, what I remembered, but I don’t seem to have words. His grasp tightens around me reassuringly as he pulls away enough to meet my gaze in the dark room. His light brown eyes are shadowy in the dim light, and the warmth I find in them is enough to soothe the goose bumps prickling over every inch of me.
“Reagan was there too,” I say quietly, my jaw clenching as memories churn through my mind. “In the bunker. I always suspected she knew me when I was a kid, that she must’ve been in that bunker too, but it was all jumbled up. If the memory in my dream is accurate, though, she was definitely there.”
He lets out a small huff of air. “It makes sense. It explains her involvement in all of this.”
I swallow. “But that’s not all. The day I escaped, I wanted her to come. And she wouldn’t. She wanted to stay.”
Elias grimaces. “Jesus. She was held captive just like you were, and she didn’t want to leave?”
My chest tightens as I nod. “Yeah. I begged her to come with me. I could see how that place was killing both of us, and I wanted to get her out too, but she refused. Fuck. I thought she fell in love with Alan after his wife died, but now I think…” I swallow, bile rising in my throat. “I think she’s been in love with him a lot longer than that.”
I barely sleep for the rest of the night, despite Elias’s comforting presence in the bed beside me. His arms wrap around me like he could shield me from the trauma of my past, and the warmth of his skin against mine keeps the chill from creeping over me.
But memories of the dream keep flashing through my mind, and I can’t stop picturing Reagan’s face. So young and innocent, her mind twisted by things that couldn’t possibly be true. She believed she was happy down there. That she was better off in the bunker than she would be outside.
A str
ange feeling of guilt wraps around my heart as I remember pleading with her to come with me. I knew I had to act fast, so when she told me she wanted to stay, I gave up before too long. I didn’t physically try to pull her along with me, but maybe I should have. Could I have done more to get her out? And if I had, would she still be as fucked up as she is today?
Logically, I know I shouldn’t feel too guilty. Reagan has tried to kill me more than once, after all. And ultimately, the one who’s responsible for all of this is Alan. He’s the one who held us captive. Reagan and I were both his victims, even if she doesn’t see it that way.
Chewing on my lip, I stare up at the dark ceiling.