Page 37 of Jayson
“Time to go to sleep, I think,” I say, voice hoarse.
She arches a brow. “A little early, don’t you think?”
“No,” I say, reaching for the door. “You’ve overstayed your welcome in the main house.”
What I don’t say—what Ican’tsay—is that I’m not sure what I’ll do if we stay in this room much longer. Not with the way she’s looking at me. Not with the way Ifeelher, even when she’s not touching me.
She gets up slowly, favoring her bad leg, and starts toward the hallway. I follow. Close. Too close.
Halfway through the doorframe, she glances back over her shoulder, a spark flickering in her eyes—something amused, something dangerous. “I could always leave the house altogether,” she says, grinning.
I pause. “Somehow, I don’t think you’re in any rush to leave.”
She stops walking, leans in just enough that I feel her breath at my collar. “It’s that obvious?”
I tilt my head, barely suppressing the smirk tugging at my mouth. “Painfully.”
A beat of silence falls—but it’s not empty. It’sdense. Charged.
The kind that tightens the air, makes the space between us feel too small, too hot.
I glance at her lips. Quick. Unthinking. A mistake.
She notices.
Her lips part—just slightly. Just enough.
And I look away, jaw tight, pulse slamming against bone. If I touch her now, I won’t stop. And if she touches me, I’ll let her. And we’re not ready for that kind of ruin.
The house issilent as we move through it—each floorboard groaning beneath our steps like it’s ready to surrender its secrets to anyone who dares listen. The warmth of the upstairs fadeswith each step down, swallowed by the chill of stone and solitude.
When we reach the basement, I unlock the door and open it, motioning for her to go ahead. She pauses only once—right at the threshold—before slipping inside without a word.
I follow her in. The air down here is colder. Less forgiving. Like it remembers things I’d rather forget.
She moves to the bench without being told and perches on the edge. Her hair falls over her shoulder, hiding her face as she looks down at her hands folded in her lap.
I hate the way this room eats her up.
How the shadows seem to cling to her like they’ve claimed her. As though they’ve decided she belongs down here with the dust and the cold and the silence. And I hate it even more that she’s growing used to it.
She moves through this basement like it’s a familiar space now - folding herself into the cage I built for her.
There’s no resistance to be here, and that unsettles me more than anything. It makes something twist in my gut—dark, heavy, and sharp. Because if this is what she’s surrendering to… what the hell is out there that she’s so unwilling to return to?
What’s waiting for her beyond these walls that makes this—a basement, a cage,me—feel safer?
And if I’m being honest with myself, that question’s been clawing at the edges of my mind since the first night I pointed a gun at her and she didn’t so much as twitch.
What kind of girl meets death with steady hands and tired eyes? What kind of life teaches her that monsters can be predictable—and that cages can be comfort?
I glance at her now—her profile softened by the dim light, arms wrapped around her middle like she’s trying to hold herself together. She doesn’t look at me. But I know she feels me watching.
Without a word, I step back toward the door, hand brushing the frame. I should turn the key. I should lock her in and walk away.
But something snags in my throat—a sharp, invisible thing I don’t know how to name. It could be guilt or grief. Perhaps it’s both, twisted together so tightly I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. All I know is there’s a shadow curled deep in my chest, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to scrape it out.
I can’t move. Then just as I’m about to force myself to, her voice cuts through the silence—quiet, but sharp enough to stop me cold.
