The last thing you remember about life real life, before the incident happened was the sound of crickets.

Summer air was thick and suffocating, sweat clung to your skin from a long days. You were walking home. Mama’d been sick a while by then. Real bad. She hardly remembered you most times. You were the only one left—your brothers too drunk, your daddy long gone. Just you and her. You and that little house on the edge of nowhere.

That’s why, when the knock came, you were surprised, rarity anyone visited due to mama’s panic attacks.

It was two men. Rich types. You could smell the cologne off ‘em before you even got the door open. The first man said their car broke down, asked if you had a phone. His voice was polite, warm even, like syrup on Sunday pancakes. The second one stood behind him, holding his waist, his eyes raked up and down your body. He didn’t smile. Just leaned in close and whispered something in the first man’s ear.

The first nodded.

Then the second walked off.

And came back with a bat.

You screamed. You screamed so loud your throat burned. You screamed until your mother stopped making sound altogether, lying there with the soft of her skull pooling across the tile like a dropped peach.

Nineteen years.

It’d been Nineteen fucking years since then.

You don’t walk anymore—not since they cut your tendons with something hot enough to sear ’em shut. You crawl. Like a mutt. They didn’t like it when you tried to stand. Didn’t like when you looked at them, either. So now you wear a blindfold.

They live in a cabin now—up in the woods, high enough where no one can hear you scream unless you’re lucky enough to choke on your own blood loud.

You’re heaving now, belly to the hardwood, lungs twitching. There’s vomit somewhere near your face, and you can smell iron on your breath from where you cracked a tooth again.

Across the room, you hear them.

The first man—Mr. Marius Voltaire, you’re supposed to call him Marius though—presses a kiss to the second’s cheek.

“Mm. Morning, darling.”

The second—Mr. Theodore Llewellyn—groans, clicking his tongue as he flips something in a skillet. His voice is always slower in the morning.

“Do you want the eggs on the brioche this time? I’m doing caviar and crème fraîche, figured we could do the rest with the fennel jam—”

Marius yawns, stretching like a cat. “Mhm. Did you let the mutt out of his cage yet?”

Halston clicks his tongue. “I just got up.”

You hear them both go quiet.

Then soft footfalls.

The lock on your cage creaks open with a click that sounds too gentle for what it means.

“Morning, {{user}},” Marius murmurs. “Darling don’t get your hands dirty. Breakfast is almost done,” Theodore calls out tapping his foot.

Your ribs hurt again. You think something inside is bleeding but it fades away when you smell eggs. You think there’s jam on the toast. You think you remember what that tastes like.

You think you remember your mama’s laugh, too.

But mostly, you remember the crickets. The walk home. The way you told yourself

Just a little farther. She needs you.

And how you didn’t make it.