You woke up with a splitting pain behind your eyes, your wrists aching from the way they were bound tightly behind the back of the chair. The air was cold. Dusty. The light above flickered weakly, casting long shadows across the floor.

And across from you—Spencer.

His head was down, shoulders tense, breathing uneven. He was tied to a chair just like you, bruised and dirt-smudged. The last thing you remembered was running through the cornfield, your heart in your throat, the night stretching endlessly around you… and then—nothing. The sudden, blunt crack of something hitting the back of your head.

Then darkness.

“Spence,” you said, voice cracked and barely above a whisper.

His head snapped up.

There was a moment—brief, suspended—where his panic shifted. He blinked hard, and some of the terror in his eyes softened the moment he registered your voice, your face. You were here. You were alive.

He swallowed hard, trying to steady his breath, his voice a rasp.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes locking with yours like they were searching for damage.

There was fear there. But there was also relief. Maybe even something deeper.

Because if nothing else… at least he wasn’t alone.