Page 174 of Cain

He never lets anyone get near me, not without consequence.

He wouldn’t leave me here. He wouldn’t let them take me. He promised.

He promised …

He said I was his. He said he’d butcher the whole fucking world if anyone touched me.

So why isn’t anything bleeding?

I’m here. Alone. The cops arrested me for something I didn’t do, and they didn’t even bother listening to me. They kept asking me stupid questions. They even brought him up. They asked how I knew him and if we were a couple. I didn’t talk. I know that if I even flinched, they’d put him in a cell.

I’d rather rot than say his name out loud to them.

Because I’d still protect him.

Because he’s all I have.

Because he’s in my bones now, and I don’t know how to pull him out.

Because even if he let this happen, even if he planned it, even if he never comes back …

Even then, I’d still be his.

I keep thinking maybe he’s preparing something. Perhaps this is part of something bigger.

But the silence doesn’t sound like planning. It sounds like absence.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

I don’t know what to do with this stillness, this hole in my heart.

I feel I have nothing left. Nothing left to fight for.

Nothing left to live for.

Just these four walls and this fucking silence and the way my throat keeps tightening like I’m not allowed to breathe unless it’s for him.

I lean back against the cold cement wall, staring at the barred window high above.

“Hey, you! The Czech girl.” I hear from the cell next to mine. Fucking bitch. “Still playing the silent act? You think your brooding makes you scary or something?”

“Leave her alone, Mandy. She’s probably writing love letters in her head. Ain’t that right, Barbie girl?” the woman from another cell shouts. Let’s call her Candy, because I have no idea what her name is. I think no one does.

They just don’t shut the hell up. They’re the only thing I hear in this shithole. Them and the cops trying to shut them up.

“What’re you in for, anyway? Murder? You don’t look like a killer,” Mandy says.

“Probably got framed. That’s how it works, right? The innocent ones always end up in here,” Candy replies, thinking she already knows everything. What an ass. Both of them, actually.

Suddenly, the siren goes off, breaking the silence I was trying to bring back in my mind. My head snaps up.

“What’s going on? That’s … that’s not a fire drill,” Candy says, her voice shaky.

I walk up to the bars and grab them, trying to see what’s happening.

“Shit, that sounds serious. You think it’s a breakout? Or a raid?” Mandy speaks now.

The cops are talking to each other in the hallway as they pass in front of my cell.