CAGED (#3, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 67

Paranoia twisted my mind. I didn't hear any footsteps following me inside, but Graysen's youngest brother could be stealthily hunting me down here, his figure sheathed with midnight ink.

The staircase gouging the earth was so deep down, I'd obviously traveled well beneath the Keep and its dungeon. The flashlight shook in my sweat-damp hand. Yellow light skittered over the walls and steps frosted in dust. If the battery died I'd be engulfed in darkness. It would fall over me like a shroud.

I have more.

Other batteries.

A spare flashlight.

When I stepped onto the level ground, I didn't know how long it had taken to reach the very bottom of the stairs. Hours? Days? Time held no meaning in absolute darkness. I knew that better than anyone.

A passageway stretched before me, long and straight. As my flashlight swept over a gap carved within a wall, I realized why Jett had said there is 'an entrance' to the tunnel. I poked light into a second passageway that connected with the one I stood inside. Obviously, there was a second entrance to the escape tunnel somewhere inside the Keep. Where it was no longer mattered because I'd already found the path to freedom.

Before me lay the way off the estate.

But being down here was too much like being trapped in the tithe prison. Except in the prison, I had no flashlight, I'd been submerged within an ocean of darkness and jet-black waves of nothingness.

I stood there shaking and swaying on the verge of a panic attack, staring into the pitch-black landscape, as my past stalked me like an old foe.

My mother's fingernails dug crescents into my arm, and she ignored my wails, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to..." as my feet tripped along the bumpy, rambling stone path that cut through the gnarled trees. The tree's limbs were thrawn and skeletal, trunks misshapen and sickly looking as if the darkness contained in tithe prison had leached into the ground and corrupted their roots.

Momma's grip on my arm was fierce, but her other hand clutching the round, flat stone shook. She tugged me along, staring dead ahead, unmindful of my ashamed sobs, or Evvie racing behind us. I looked back over my shoulder, watching her dash toward us, crying out, "Momma! Momma!" Her pretty ballet shoes were filthy from running across the muddied lawn and the dirty flagstones as she chased after us. "Momma. Stop. Stop!"

Evvie whirled in front of us. The pink ribbon tying her hair into a ponytail flicked through the air like a pennant. "It's just a stupid Barbie doll. She didn't mean to hurt Lise!"

I'd wanted the doll, but Lise wouldn't give it to me.

Lise had held the Barbie high above her head, out of reach, laughing spitefully as she'd teased me. My anger surfaced. A plague of fury. I'd stamped a foot and unleashed an ear-shattering scream. I heard the crunch of bone and watched the Barbie doll fall from Lise's limp grip, and her scream joined mine. But hers was one of pain.