graceland. carl grimes

III

iii.

cicada static
"fate up against your will"

♱

him

The night is cold.

I stare at the ceiling, tracing the dim outlines of beams that run across the roof, trying to count back from one-hundred. Nothing helps. My thoughts pull me back to the basement, back to the cell, back to her.

Lydia.

The girl still trapped down there, alone and locked away, surrounded by the heavy walls and thick bars.

I'm lying here, in a bed with soft sheets in my stupidly austere room, while her words from earlier echo in my head, circling, refusing to fade into the night like everything else.

Her words about van Gogh and survival and... What if there's nothing after this?

The room suddenly feels too small, like it's closing in on me, choking me. And before I can stop myself, I'm pulling on my jeans and my coat and my boots and I'm moving. Silently slipping out of the door and down the halls of the Barrington house.

What am I doing?

I don't know.

Before I can convince myself to turn around, I'm already at the heavy wooden doors that lead down to the cells. My hand hovers over the handle, and for a brief moment, I consider going back to my bed. But then, the memory of her voice—small and raw and human—pushes me forward.

I tell myself this is about leverage. About information. I need her to trust me so she'll tell me more—about the masks, the herds, her people. That's all this is.

I've seen this game played before.

She's soft. The kind of girl who says please and flinches when you raise your voice. She'll open up if I press in the right places.

I descend into the dark basement, hesitate near the end of the stairwell, lingering in the alcove, momentarily unsure of what I'm doing here. What I'm really doing here.

Suddenly, her voice cuts through the silence. "Who's there?"

I freeze. My first instinct is to retreat, to vanish into the dark before she sees me—before she sees me.

Despite the fact she'd already seen me, in the tunnel earlier when I had her pinned to the wall and bleeding, I can't help it. I'm nervous.

I'm all too aware of this face I've been cursed with and the fear it strikes in those unprepared to be confronted with it. Even with the horrid gaping hole where my right eye should be covered, the subsequent scarring down my cheek gives ominous tidings that hint at how bad the rest is.

But then I hear it. A sniffle. A small, broken sound. She's crying. Or trying not to.

"Who's there?" She asks again, and this time, her voice wavers.

I step forward, rounding the corner as the pale moonlight trickling through the high window falls over her face.

And I see her now, for the first time.

No mask. Just girl.

She's sitting on the floor of the cell, her back against the wall, knees drawn to her chest. She's dirty, disheveled. Same filthy sweater riddled with blood. Those doe brown eyes rimmed pink, glisten wetly at me through the dark.