Page 11 of Fear No Hell

Calliope

My breath is coming faster now; adrenaline floods through my veins. My new claws extend in defense, biting into the soft flesh of my palms where my hands are fisted at my sides.

I can’t breathe.

I need to get out of here.

The only thought in my mind of escape, I pivot, only to slam into a solid, warm wall before I can go anywhere.

“Lila.” Sam’s voice cuts through the fog surrounding me.

Sometime during my freak out, he came upstairs without me noticing, and I ran straight into his chest in my attempt to flee from the walls closing in around me.

“Lila, I need you to breathe with me.” His chest expands as he models a breath for me.

“C’mon, in for one, two, three, four. Hold for one, two, three, four. ”

I can’t force air in like he’s telling me to; I’m choking on nothing. My fingers grapple at his shirt as I stand there, drowning in memories and starving for air.

He must notice me not following his orders because his voice goes stern. “C’mon, sweetness, I need you to breathe with me, or you’re going to pass out.”

I glance frantically upwards, not seeing anything until I get to his eyes. Those caramel-colored eyes flecked with metallic glints of emerald, gold, and copper. They’re the only thing filling my vision. They’re warm. Caring. And they don’t move from mine.

The whirling around me slows until it stops completely; the rushing sound filling my ears vanishes. I can breathe again, finally see all of Sam before me in his rumpled clothes.

“There you go,” Sam rumbles, his hand rubbing along one of my arms, which somehow managed to find its way to his waist. The other is raised between us, my clawed hand resting on his chest. “Atta girl, you did it.”

“How did you know what to do?” I ask. “To get me to calm down.”

“I used to have panic attacks a lot after they amputated my leg.” His hand runs gently, almost thoughtlessly, down my arm as he answers.

I’m not sure he even realizes he’s doing it.

“And after I started telling them my dad had a woman locked up in his attic, they put me on anti-psychotics that triggered panic attacks. So I learned some breathing tricks.”

I flinch at the reminder that Sam—who can only be mid-twenties, at most—has suffered so much because of me. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

Anyone else might have thought I was apologizing for what he has been through. Not Sam.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. None of this is your fault. Not that day in the attic and definitely not anything that came after it.” I open my mouth to argue, but he shakes his head.

Not angrily, just firmly. “My father—and only my father—did this. Every ounce of blame lies with Arthur Francis.”

Intellectually, I know he’s right. Emotionally, it's difficult, if not impossible, for me to accept. Not when I remember how young he was. The way I begged him for help as his father raped me.

“You’re not responsible for Arthur’s actions,” Sam says firmly. “The same way I’m not responsible for what he did to me. It took a lot of therapy to come to terms with that.”

“If you excised him from your life, why were you at his house tonight?” I ask.

A cloud passes over his face and, for a moment, something unexpected, a small flicker of darkness, flares in his eyes. When I blink, it’s gone as if it was never there.

“Why?” I press.

“I came there for you.” The seething rage filling his answer is like nothing I’ve never heard exhibited on my behalf rather than being directed at me.

“Everyone told me I made you up, even though I knew you were real. All those years… ” He shoves a hand through his hair, a bitter laugh that makes me want to burn the world down to make him happy again rumbling in his chest. “Last night, I had a dream about you. It felt so real it couldn’t be anything other than a premonition.

” A snort escapes him, and he shakes his head.

“I know how that sounds, I promise you I do. But in my dream, I could see you. I could smell the scent of that awful floral shampoo he made my mother use for years, which I’m assuming he forced on you too.

Hear every single one of your breaths as you tried to hide the sound of your tears.

It was so real, I couldn't ignore it, and I couldn't deny that you were real anymore. Like actually real, not just something I made up. I had to come get you away from Arthur and out of that shithole.”

“You came back… for me?”

Sam’s jaw clenches as he nods.

I gape at him. Nobody comes back for me.

Tears gather in my eyes, press against my eyelids, and there’s a spark of light in my chest. Not quite hope…

Excitement, maybe? It has been so long since I’ve been truly happy that I can’t tell if that’s what it is.

With the feeling comes a pressing urge to place my faith in him. To trust him.

It’s too early for that, though. Right?

But I want to.

I take one last step towards him, my bare feet silent on the wood floor as I close the minuscule amount of space between us. “Sam—"

As if Arthur can tell what’s happening and can’t stand the moment we’re having, he screams.

“I chained him up in the basement, which is way more contained than up here.” Sam glances at the windows that make up the front wall, lips pursed as he considers it.

“There’s a window looking into the backyard near where Arthur’s set up and one at the front of the room that's covered by the bushes. It’s the only place in the house where I didn't think anyone would hear him,” he finishes apologetically.

“Can I walk behind you?” I ask. “I think I’ll be okay if I’m the last one down the stairs.”

“Whatever you need, Lila.”

My heart beats fast at the sound of my new nickname. I’ve never had one before, and it feels so right for this caring man to be the one to give me my first. “Okay. I’ll follow you.”

He turns and walks towards the back of the house until he stops in front of a narrow door tucked into an alcove situated between the kitchen and living room.

Panic floods through me as he reaches for the door handle, sending chills along the full length of my body.

Without thinking, I find myself reaching for the arm nearest me and clutching his forearm between my hands like he’ll protect me, not from the physical dangers surrounding me but from the intangible ones: the rage, the fear, the uncertainty. The grief.

The door yawns open in front of us to reveal…

a cheerily lit staircase, the surrounding walls of which are painted in a bold jewel tone mural illuminated by the colorful chandelier overhead.

The effect is lively and unusual, not like the dark tomb I expected to walk into and absolutely nothing like my well-appointed prison in Arthur’s house.

“My mom painted the staircase and a few other rooms when I moved in. Unfortunately, the rest of the basement is… yeah, there’s no good way to say this. It’s pretty fucking bleak.”

Despite what he’s saying about the basement, my grip loosens until my fingers only loosely circle Sam’s arms. I can’t bring myself to stop touching him, to convince myself to release his firmly muscled forearm.

Instead, my thumb, without any conscious instruction from my brain, starts rubbing circles against his skin.

Under my palm, his arm shifts. Above my head, I hear a slight whimper, so quiet I might think I had made it up if his chest weren’t rising and falling rapidly, his breathing uneven in the quiet intervals between Arthur’s screams.

I tilt my head back to find Sam’s eyes narrowed on mine.

For the second time tonight, I see that flash of something inexplicable in his gaze.

It’s not the evil I saw in Arthur’s eyes when he would come up to see me, but it’s not innocent either.

Although I can’t put my finger on what it is, I do know it’s more alluring than concerning.

We’re frozen at the top of the stairs, still staring at each other when Arthur screams again.

Sam jolts, his arm jerking under my touch, and he shakes his head. When he looks back at me, his eyes look the same as they have all night. “We should probably get down there or the entire neighborhood might guess we have a man chained up in my basement.”

I snicker. “Point taken.”

“I’ll go down first, and you can follow me when you’re ready.”

He’s turned and headed down the stairs by the time I realize I don’t want to make this walk alone. “Wait!”

One foot on the step below him, he glances over his shoulder. A stray strand of dark hair curls down over his forehead. “You good?”

“I’m… no.” I scurry down right as he turns to come back up the stairs to me. We meet in the middle. At 5’8” and with the added benefit of being a step up, I’m almost the same height as he is.

“What’s the matter, Lila?”

Blessed mother, I feel so stupid needing his reassurance like this. “Can we walk down together?”

“Of course.” There’s no hesitation or judgment as he turns to face the basement again. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

I'm shaking when I lift my hand to his shoulder.

My fingers stroke lightly along the soft fabric of his sweater until they connect with the bare skin where the hem meets his neck.

At my touch, goosebumps explode into existence and ripple along his flesh; the tips of my own fingers tingle at the contact.

I press them into his skin more firmly, feeling the rush of his blood to the point of the barely there pressure.

Sam’s a study in contrasts right now. On the inside, his body is going wild, seemingly at my touch. On the outside, cool, calm, and collected.

The unwavering constance of him is what gives me the courage to say, “I’m ready.’

If my legs are unsteady as I pad down the stairs behind him, I tell myself it’s only from anticipation that I’m finally taking back my life.

As we step onto the concrete floor of the basement, and I see Arthur hanging from bronze chains in the corner, tucked out of view of the windows on either side of the room, I realize it’s not anticipation or fear or shock causing me to shake like this.

It's rage.

Fury unlike anything I’ve ever known, white hot and burning through me, bringing with it an icy clarity. This puny man did not destroy me. How could he? I’m an immortal fucking goddess, the daughter of Zeus.

A laugh, low and snarling, escapes me. No.

He didn’t destroy me. But I’m going to annihilate him.

I will make this reprehensible specimen of a human regret ever taking me, ever stripping me of my freedom and stealing inspiration from me.

And then, once I have extracted the hefty debt of pain and fear that he owes me, only then am I going to salt the earth with his ashes.