Page 13

Chapter 13

AIRLIE

I used to think that the ocean held all our secrets. That, within its blue and silver depths, were creatures much like us, only they lived beneath the water. Rising to the surface to observe, never to harm, before returning to their kind with stories of the outside world.

Sometimes, if I look hard enough, I swear, I see them. Their pale shadows twirling within the waves, convincing me to join them. I know they’re not real. But I would always wonder if they’d take me away if they were.

My mother used to tell me stories about them before she died. Though, I think it was her way of distracting me from the nightmares of this place, shielding me with foolish tales to take my mind off the games Father played with her. Eventually, he started playing them with me, too, and I couldn’t pretend any longer.

My heart feels heavy in my chest at the memory of my mother. I don’t have many, and there are times that I forget.

That’s the part I hate the most.

Forgetting.

For my mind to erase the special moments I shared with her feels like the greatest betrayal.

The cruelest kind of sin.

So much time has slipped by since she died, and I’m mostly on my own, so I don’t know if these memories are actual memories or if I created them out of the emptiness I feel deep within my soul that she’s gone.

I trace my index finger along Flipper’s hairy little back and place Seba on the moonlit window rocks. They keep my secrets, too, and I know it’s because they trust me. I wish they didn't have to see me play Father’s games. I only hope they forget things too.

Father hasn’t visited in weeks. Not since handing me over to those men. He leaves me food and water at the gate before turning around and walking away for days at a time. As much as I’m thankful he hasn’t been around, I wish he would at least leave his candles behind so that I could collect tiny insects for my spiders to eat. I tried feeding them some of my food, but they didn’t seem to like it.

With Father not being around as much, I’ve had a lot more freedom to visit my stranger. I savor those quiet moments with him, hidden away in his cave. I can’t seem to stay away no matter how wrong I know keeping him here is.

Whenever he tells me to let him go, it feels like a knife is twisting inside my chest, knowing that he wants to leave me. I respond by walking away. And now, when I visit, I choose times when I know he'll be asleep to avoid any thoughts of him being gone altogether.

He doesn’t understand that releasing him is an awful idea. He says that he will help me escape too, yet he fails to remember that there are others here. Others, like Father, who would hurt my stranger if he was caught. Especially if Father learned that he means something to me.

All Father does is take from me. My mother. My body… everything. And I refuse to let him take my stranger too. Tying him up is for his own good.

A deep cry rips through the cave, a man’s cry, and my heart stops dead in my chest. The blood drains from my face as the deep, gravelly tone grows louder. It’s him. My stranger. I quickly descend the jagged rocks, my skin catching on them on the way down, but the sting is an afterthought.

My heart screams the words that my mouth can’t, and without a second thought, I plunge into the rock pool, my body moving on instinct, muscle memory guiding me through the darkness.

If they have him, Father, those men, we are both as good as dead. That much is true. I may have only recently discovered Father’s true colors, but I knew before then not to trust him when it came to my stranger. And with Father not giving a damned winter’s day in Hell about me anymore, and with my mother gone, the stranger and my spiders are all I have left in this world.

He is mine to keep, not theirs.

My pet.

And I will not let them hurt him.