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“Open your mouth,” he barks. The scraping chains that have become as common as the air I now breathe fills my ears as Stone does as he’s told. Lowell comes back moments later, sits down in a huff, and damn near slams the plate back onto my lap.

“He’s had ‘some’. Now eat your fucking food before I throw it away,” he mumbles angrily.

Lowell stayed with me until I finished eating. He didn’t say anything, so I know it wasn’t for the conversation, but to make sure that I wouldn’t give Stone anymore than he had already given him.

Half of the plate is what was brought back to me and there’s no way that Stone was able to chew half of a baked chicken breast as quickly as Lowell returned from feeding him. It left me worrying about him, but I know that until Lowell left us alone, I wouldn’t be able to check on him.

When the door finally closes again and we’re left to ourselves, I get to my feet and quickly move straight toward the wall. I’m not sure how Lowell is able to navigate this abyss as easily as he does, but I still have yet to find my way around it without stumbling and landing on the wrong side of Stone.

“Are you okay?” I whisper urgently into the dark.

“Yeah.”

I missed him again, but just barely, so maybe I am getting used to the darkness. I lean over slightly to the left and when my hand finds the top of his head, I move toward Stone’s bent body and begin to rub his marred back.

“Really?” I inquire, trying to soothe him. His breaths are ragged and sharp, which is a sure fire sign that he’s lying.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine in a minute,” he replies, clearing his throat.

I continue to rub his back when he leans into me as much as he can, allowing me to put my arms around him and hold him close.

I do my best to steady him while trying to keep my heart hardened toward him, remembering that he’s fed me as many lies and fairy tales as Lowell has. Stone is much more dangerous than Lowell in that aspect; he’s tried to draw me into a world where we could have been normal people—lovers worthy of not being looked down on by society and never having to lie rigidly on our backs for anyone other than each other.

And I can’t trust him because of it. While it’s true for him that we only have each other, I have to stay a lone wolf if I want to survive this. I’ll be kind to him and I’ll make sure he’s okay, but I will not turn back for him if we get the chance to escape. I won’t leave him behind completely though; I’ll give him a fair chance too and I’ll make sure that he’ll be able to at least get up the stairs, but after that the rest will be up to him.

“Cessi?”

Stone’s voice breaks into my thoughts and I jump. Even though I’m still holding him, I had almost forgotten that he was here. It’s a good sign for me—it tells me that I’m already starting to disconnect from caring too deeply about him.

“There’s some shit I have to tell you,” he says seriously, pulling away from my arms. “And whether you choose to believe me is up to you.”

Oh God, now what?

“Okay,” I reply nervously as I move away from his side. I decide it’s best to sit in front of him, because even though I can’t see him clearly, I feel that it’s more respectful to be face to face with someone who wants to confess. “I’m ready.”

“Okay,” Stone says taking a deep breath. “Did you ever wonder why Lowell picked you? I’m sure there were a bunch of other ladies to choose from, but I bet he watched you for a while, didn’t he?”

I nod.

“I’ll assume you agreed. Anyway, he doesn’t really have a thing for hookers or escorts—he’s a good looking guy. He doesn’t need to pay for this; I’m sure we both have thought the same thing at some point. But the difference between Lowell and every other John you’ve had—every call that I’ve responded to—is that he was directed to pick us.”

“What?”

A wave of confusion rushes over me as I furrow my brow and tilt my head. None of what Stone has said so far makes sense, with the exception that he’s right about one thing. There was a time, when I first met Lowell, that I wondered why he chose me. I appreciated how handsome he is in his own way and I fell for his spurious kindness.

“Remember how I told you about the screams that I’ve heard? How they would keep me up at night, and how hard it is for me to sleep sometimes? Those were just practice for him—street workers that he was allowed to take to prepare for when he finally got the two of us trapped down here,” Stone says in a rushed voice.

I immediately begin to try to remember every person I’ve come in contact with in my life and desperately wonder who I’ve done so wrong that they’ve handed me over to this fate.

“Who did this to us?” I ask him quietly, still racking my memories. The last few years of my life have been nothing more than a blur of sex and money, with little time to communicate normally with someone who wasn’t willing to pay for the pleasure of my company.

“I’ve only seen her one time. He brought her down here the day after he shackled me to the wall. Beautiful bitch, that one. Long legs, wavy black hair, golden brown eyes. I could see the hatred in her eyes when she leaned down to get a better look at me and then they left. Lowell turned the light off and I’ve been in the darkness ever since—except for the couple of times the rag has been moved from the window, but that’s never happened until you got down here.”

My mouth is dry. I feel like I could cough and nothing but old, fallen leaves would spring from my throat coating us both in the frail pieces of the sign of dying nature.

There’s only one person that I know of that looks like that but I thought she cared about me and now I know the truth. The world that I live in is full of nothing but liars and deceitful monsters who hide so easily behind smiles and sugary sweet words.

“Okay,” I say quietly. “Try to get some rest while I figure out how to get these fucking chains off of you. We’re getting out of here tomorrow.”