Page 66 of Dangerous Silence
“Axe?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
The hole was wide enough that I could lay down and spread my arms, but not big enough for someone like Axe. A clump of dirt hit my cheek, rolling down my shoulder. I stared at it. Had it fallen from the walls? The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I looked up again, trying to see over the edge. I didn’t hear or see anything.
“Are you still there?” I asked. “Axe?”
Then the dirt rained down. A few specks got in my eyes and I shielded my face. Then another assault of the dirt. Spraying me with the earth. Axe leaned over the edge, then took another shovel full. I hid my face again, covering my eyes, but the dirt didn’t stop coming.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled.
The dirt hit my cheeks. He moved around the hole, then sent another shovel full, this time hitting me directly on the back.
“Damn it, Axe. Why are you doing this?” I shouted. “Let me out of here.”
“You said you would rather die than go back to that life,” he said. Another shovel full, this time hitting my chest so hard that I stepped back to catch myself. My skin was covered in streaks of brown earth. “I’m giving you that option.”
“This is not what I meant,” I said.
He went back to shoveling. My feet were almost covered, so I had to get on top of the new layer of earth.
“Don’t do this, Axe,” I said. Still, he didn’t stop. I covered my eyes, letting the dirt hit my shoulders and chest, then I went to the opposite edge of him, grabbing onto the walls, trying to climb out.
“If you try to climb out,” he said, “or move on top of the dirt, I will knock you unconscious.”
And I knew he would keep his word. The grooves on the sides of my tongue were still there, might be there forever. I took a step away from the wall. He went to the side and let the dirt fall on top of my head.
“This isn’t fair, Axe,” I muttered.
All of those times that I had thought that he wanted to protect me, that we had an actual connection, it was nothing more than waiting for this. He wanted to get rid of me. Losing me wouldn’t hurt Axe. He would never love me.
“Why?” I yelled. “Why, Axe?”
“It was always going to end like this,” he muttered, “We both knew it.”
Tears formed in my eyes. As hard as I tried to blink them away, once I felt another shovel full of dirt hit my stomach and arms, they slipped down, streaking muddy paths down my cheeks.
I shivered. “You’ve got to stop this,” I said.
Another shovel full, each clump of dirt like white noise filling my brain. This time, when I saw Axe, he had removed his shirt, his shoulders and arms bulging with veins, sweat covering his body, that hatchet tattoo streaked with dirt.
Another shovel full. And then another.
“You don’t want to kill me,” I whispered, but I didn’t know if it was true. I thought about my words:I would rather die than go back to that life. I had said those words in anger, in frustration. Because I knew that life didn’t exist anymore. I would never be the same Demi who wanted to bring justice to the world. Everything felt wrong. Like I couldn’t tell what I wanted, because I didn’t see the world like I once did. And still, I believed that even Axe, the enforcer for the mafia, a man whose only job was to kill for his family, had a heart in there, somewhere.
But maybe that was wrong too.
“Fuck you!” I cried. “Fuck everything, you monster. Why don’t you kill me already?”
Still, that same pattern. The swift movements of his arms, the quick step forward. More dirt. He had done this before.
How many people had he buried alive?
I must have looked like a monster too, covered in dirt and muck, tears going down my face. Only little spots of my skin stood out. And still, another shovel full of dirt. It was past my ankles now.
“Don’t do this, Axe,” I screamed, my voice going hoarse. For the next shovel, he stared at me for a moment, then went back to what he was doing. Another. Then another. The beads of dirt hitting my skin like the darts of water from a pressure hose. It was up to my shins, and still, he threw another shovel. Another. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be the way I died.
“I want to live,” I whispered. Then I looked up at the edges of the hole. Louder, this time: “I want to live.”
He paused, his shovel suspended in the air, then he tossed down the dirt.
