Letters From Cages

I hesitantly walked behind Jerry as he hopped straight onto the front porch of the old house with what seemed like a spring in his step. Like this situation, right at this moment, was exactly what he was always looking forward to. Once he reached the door, he turned to me and raised his eyebrows, as if asking me if I was sure I wanted to do this. I simply nodded and as the door slowly opened, a loud roar of music could be heard from the inside.

The music seemed to get louder as I walked into the house that was surprisingly nice inside. There was a small living room with a large screen television on a stand against the wall and a kitchen straight ahead with a sliding glass door. The house smelled of polish and the music was blasting from a large CD player that sat on a bookcase in the room. Jerry walked forward and turned it off, causing an eerie silence.

Suddenly, there was shuffling from the other room and then footsteps and soon enough we were greeted by Marco, the copper-haired boy who I had only spoken with once or twice. It seemed he was about to spew a few angry words to Jerry for turning off his music, but that was before he saw me. His mouth dropped a little but then shut immediately.

“What are you doing here?” Marco asked, trying to sound as neutral as possible, even though it was obvious he was just as surprised about me being here as I was.

“She’s here to-“ Jerry began, but I instantly cut him off.

“I’m here to speak to Nigel Crow, and all of you, about what really happened the night Daniel Cody died.” I interjected. The silence got even thicker.

Marco raised his eyebrows, a small smile formed on his thin lips. I fidgeted with my hands, feeling brave yet entirely uncomfortable and weak at the same time.

“Well, look who came by for a visit,” I heard a girl’s voice say from the hallway. Annabelle slowly emerged with Charlie at her side. She looked absolutely tiny next to him, but even so looked ten times as frightening as he did. A smirk was on her lips, like she was ready to laugh at me any second. She looked behind her in the hallway, as if checking to make sure no one else was coming. “Feeling brave, I see Gwenith?”

“I just want the truth,” I replied sternly. Annabelle frowned and walked towards me menacingly, making me back against the wall of the living room. My stomach felt as if it was doing flips.

“We’ve told you the truth, Gwenith, you have just chosen not to listen,” She sneered under her breath.

“Anna, just leave her alone for right now,” Jerry said. Annabelle backed from me and looked at Jerry incredulously, as if she was surprised he wasn’t ordering her to attack me that instant. Jerry shot her a look and she immediately backed away more until she was standing next to Charlie again.

I looked at the group, perplexed as to why they all were so close-knitted. They couldn’t have been any more different. Marco looked like an awkward, tall, skinny teenager with crooked teeth that still made him somewhat attractive in an odd way. Charlie was a middle-aged man who looked like he enjoyed fixing up and riding motorcycles. Annabelle looked like she belonged in a fashion magazine, with her chopped hair and blonde streaks. And Jerry looked… well, Jerry looked like he didn’t belong anywhere.

The silence that settled again was interrupted by the loud screech of the sliding glass door, causing my heart to feel as if it leaped into my throat. Nigel Crow opened it slowly, his clothes dirty and one of his hands holding a pair of knives. I slowly stepped backward until I was right back where I was, leaning against the wall. Nigel walked into the kitchen, placed the knives on the counter and took off the gloves he was wearing. He then looked up and saw all of us staring at him and raised his eyebrows.

“Now what did I say about parties?” He asked, and let out a chuckle. He made eye contact with me, but not for too long before taking off the dirty apron he was wearing over his head. “I go to plant in the garden and come back to see that you guys brought a friend."

“You asked me to come,” I managed to say quietly. My statement made the whole group snap there heads in unison towards Nigel’s direction, but he didn’t falter, instead he smiled and walked into the living room.

“I see you got my note,” He said.

“What note?” Marco asked. “Dad, what note?”

“Dad?” I asked, surprised.

“I told you we were going to Marco’s house,” Jerry said nonchalantly, as if I was stupid to put two and two together and realize that Nigel was Marco’s father.

“Listen, Gwenith, I wanted you to come here for a reason,” Nigel said and leaned his body against the divider between the kitchen and living room. “You have been following us around for what seems like quite a long time, and I think now it is about time for us to get you to stop.”



It was three in the morning when I heard loud banging against the front door of mine and Carter’s apartment. I hesitantly got out of our empty bed and slowly walked through the hallway and to the front door. The banging got louder and sounded urgent as I stood on my tiptoes to look through the peephole. I saw Carter’s face and exhaled before opening the door. Carter basically burst through the doorway and into our house. His hair was disheveled and he had a pure frightened look on his face. I closed the door to face him and he instantly grabbed me and pulled me close to him as if he was never going to see me again.

“I love you, I love you, I love you” He whispered into my ear. I leaned back and looked at him confusedly.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You didn’t leave a note tonight so I’ve been wondering where you’ve been. You haven’t been answering your phone.”

“Sorry, today and tonight… they’ve been… they’ve been terrible, I don’t even, I don’t know what to…” Carter rambled as he took off his shoes near the door.

“What happened?” I asked. Carter walked past me, his shoulders slumped over as he walked and I watched the boy I had once known to be one of the most popular and most respected boys at our high school, to someone I could barely even recognize. Someone that didn’t talk to me anymore. Someone that wasn’t even a someone anymore.

“I don’t want to talk about it, let’s just get to bed, okay?” Carter replied and began walked to our room.

“Are you serious?” I called out after him. “You’re going to come home at three in the morning a complete mess, almost frostbitten from not wearing proper clothes in February, muttering and mumbling, and you won’t tell me where you’ve been, or what you’ve been doing?”

“Gwen…”

“What?” I asked. “What, Carter?”

“I’m sorry, let's just go to bed,” He said and turned to walk into our bedroom. I furiously walked in after him, brushing past him in anger as I slid our closet door open and grabbed my suitcase and began throwing clothes inside. Just as Carter was realizing just what I was doing, I walked past him again and opened the dresser drawers to grab clothes from inside and threw them hastily into my suitcase.

“Gwen, what are you doing?”

“I’m done,” I replied, still stuffing the clothes in the suitcase.

“What?” Carter asked.

"I'm done" I replied. "But hey, I don’t really want to talk about it,” I snapped and began zipping the suitcase closed. The zipper snapped right as I was almost finished. “Shit,” I muttered and picked up the broken suitcase anyways to bring it out into the living room.

“Wait!” Carter yelled. “Gwen, wait!” I grabbed my keys from off the counter and opened the door only for Carter to slam it shut forcefully with his hand. “What the hell are you doing?!” He yelled directly in my face.

“You heard me,” I said, my jaw clenched and my hand clutched against the broken suitcase.

“Gwen, don’t leave,” Carter insisted and placed his hands on both sides of my face. I pulled away from him and he ran his fingers through his messy dark hair. His blue eyes pleaded to me.

“Give me an excuse not to go, Carter, because right now I can’t quite think of one. You’re gone more than you are here. You don’t even speak to me anymore. You used to tell me all about your life, your family, school, things that made you laugh. Now nothing makes you laugh. You’re stone, you’re a statue of who you used to be, except you’re nothing like who you used to be, Carter. You don’t make me feel loved or appreciated or even like a person to you anymore. I hate you, I hate you so much.”

Carter looked as if I had just slapped him in the face as I adjusted the suitcase in my arms and opened the door. This time Carter didn’t stop me as I stepped out of the apartment and walked out towards the parking lot and towards my car. The cold air nipped at my ears as I smoothed my dark blonde hair over them, rushing faster towards my car, my breath forming clouds in front of me. I was almost to it when I heard Carter shout my name, actually, moreso scream my name from across the lot. I stopped and turned to see Carter basically bolting, barefoot towards me over the light blanket of snow on the ground that was just forming.

“Don’t get in that car!” Carter yelled as he was running. When he finally reached me, and before I could even react, he grabbed me and pulled me close to him into a kiss, I could feel his warm tears against my cheek as he tried to convey what he was feeling through his lips to get me to stay. He pulled away from me and rested his forehead against mine and I closed my eyes, wondering why in the world I had to fall for a boy that made me feel like hating everything and loving everything at the same time. Why I had to fall for a boy that made everything so damn complicated.

“Gwenith,” Carter said quietly. “Don’t go, stay with me forever.”

I closed my eyes for a second, soaking up his words because I knew that I was still going to get into that car and leave. I was finished. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m sorry, Carter, but you still haven’t given me a reason to stay,” I said and turned towards the car. I stuck my car key in the keyhole, unlocked the door, and opened it.

“Marry me.”

I stopped. Right where I was. My back to Carter and my eyes widened. All that could be heard at that moment was the wind through the trees and Carter’s teeth chattering behind me.

“What?” I asked and turned around. Carter stepped closer to me, and leaned into me as I was leaning against my car.

“Marry me,” He whispered in my ear. He leaned his forehead against mine, his lips grazing my own but not quite touching. “Stay with me forever, Gwenith. Marry me.”



“Are you going to kill me?” I asked almost bluntly as I faced the group of people I was the most afraid of in my whole entire life. Annabelle leaned her head back and laughed at my question and Nigel even smiled, turning his head side to side.

“Is that really who you think we are?” Nigel asked and stepped closer to me. My back was straight against the wall and he grabbed some of my hair and twirled it with his fingers.

“Yes,” I admitted. Nigel let go of my hair and stepped backward.

“And is that who you think Carter is?” He asked.

“No,” I replied. Jerry scoffed at my statement and crossed his arms over his chest.

“You are absolutely blind, darling,” Jerry spat. “And absolutely indolent as well.”

“And you’re absolutely a rich little boy who hates the fact that his father doesn’t pay attention to him, so you take your pain out by framing others and making them suffer,” I directed right back to him. Jerry furiously stepped towards me but Charlie grabbed onto his arm.

“Not right now, Jerry,” Charlie said under his breath. Jerry yanked his arm from Charlie’s grasp and pointed his finger at me.

“You better watch what you fucking say,” He said angrily.

“Now now, there’s no need for any of this animosity,” Nigel said. “I invited Miss Hewlett here so she can get some answers. So she can know the truth.”

“Well, I’m ready for it,” I said. Nigel chuckled and pulled his dreadlocks into a ponytail right at the nape of his neck. He stepped into the kitchen and grabbed a pot of coffee and poured it into a cup. He looked over in Annabelle’s direction and then looked behind her in the hallway before gesturing the cup towards me and I immediately declined.

“Suit yourself,” He said with a smile on his face and then put the cup to his lips to drink. He took a small slip and then placed the cup on the table and then leaned against the doorframe again. “Now, where should we start, Miss Hewlett? First, let’s try to establish what you do and do not know about Carter Wright." There was a pause before Nigel spoke again. "Did you know that Carter was sent to a small institutionalized school at the age of thirteen before he went into high school for getting into an altercation with another boy that resulted in that boy getting a broken leg?”

“What?” I asked, my voice sounding childish and young. “That… that never happened.”

Jerry laughed.

“Maybe we should start with the small stuff, Nigel,” Jerry said and clasped his hands together. “Did you know that Carter’s favorite color is blue?”

“Go to hell,” I sneered and Charlie had to hold Jerry back again. There was silence before Nigel decided it was okay to speak again.

“Did you know that Carter had a girlfriend before you, Gwenith?” Nigel asked.

“Yes I did know that,” I said sharply.

“Did you know that that girlfriend was Piper Nguyen?” Annabelle chimed in. I turned my head towards her, my mouth dropped open slightly, causing Annabelle to let out a low laugh. “Oh wow he never told you that?” She added. “That’s hilarious. You want to know something even more hilarious? Piper Nguyen is my step-sister,”

"What? You’re lying.”

“Oh, I wish I was,” Annabelle stated. “You see, when Carter was a junior in high school, I had just graduated. Piper met Carter in one of her classes and basically fell in love with him. We couldn’t hear the end of it. And I couldn’t have cared less. My abusive father couldn't stand Piper, and beat the crap out of her, and then he went to jail for it and I moved out. I didn’t want anything to do with my father, her or her mother. But no matter how far away I got from that girl, she would always come back into my life. Asking how I was, for advice on what to do about Carter breaking up with her. He even gave her some stupid story about wanting to focus on school. She was heartbroken. She became obsessed with him and tried her hardest to make sure she’d win him back.”

Annabelle’s lips formed into a smile as her icy eyes made contact with mine.

“But that was until you came along,” Annabelle said chillingly. “When he became interested in you, Piper became even more obsessed. She found out everything about you, where you lived, where you worked, and she would follow you. She’d tell my step-mom all about how boring she thought you were and how she couldn’t understand why Carter was interested in you. When Carter went to prison for killing Daniel, well, she didn’t handle that so well. She also couldn’t handle the fact that you got all the attention for it. That no one bothered to interview her, Carter’s ex-girlfriend, to find out intimate details about such a terrible killer. She tried consuming herself in school but that wasn’t quite enough. So she decided to befriend you, try to figure out whatever you knew about the case. She actually believed Carter was innocent. It makes me laugh even to this day. She wanted to find out everything you knew, so that soon enough, she’d have enough ‘evidence’ to set Carter free, not you. So Carter would love her and thank her for proving his ‘innocence’, not you.”

I stood, completely and utterly staggered. My mouth felt like it was full of hot air and it was as if I didn’t know how to speak.

“Then why did she come to my house that afternoon completely beaten to a pulp. She said you guys did it.”

“Oh we did,” Annabelle said perkily. “I felt that it was time my little sister knew exactly what she was getting herself into. You should even thank me for that, Gwenith, because I got her out of your way.”

“I don’t believe any of this,” I said back.

“Are you really in that much denial?” Jerry asked. “You’re so naïve Gwenith, Carter was Daniel’s tutor. Carter wanted the money so he could get out of this town, this state. Away from his parents, away from you. His parents wouldn’t give him the money for it. Daniel caught him, Carter killed him by pure impulse and fright and now look where he is. We’re as innocent as you, darling.”

“You’re lying! I’m not naïve, I know you’re feeding me crap.”

Jerry laughed. “Oh, want to know another secret?” He said, his tone light and airy. “You know your best friend, Adam who has been helping you throughout this whole entire process? Finding information for you, getting into trouble for you?”

My stomach dropped. Was he dead? Had they hurt Adam? Is that why he hasn’t been speaking to me, because he wasn’t capable of doing so?

“What did you do to him?!” I yelled. There was a long pause that filled the air of the whole entire house. No one spoke, not a sound was made, until suddenly, I heard footsteps coming from the hallway behind Annabelle and the last person on earth I thought I would ever see appeared right in front of me. Causing me to almost collapse onto the floor.

Adam looked at me. His face was blank, pale and unexpressive as he stood next to Annabelle. A smirk was on her face and I suddenly felt nauseous, the whole room felt as if it was spinning, and I wanted to vomit.

“What seems to be more relevant, Gwenith,” Jerry explained. “Is what has Adam done to you?”

I suddenly felt someone push me down onto the floor onto my knees and put my arms behind my back. I struggled as Marco held my arms into place, not letting me move. I yelled and screamed, trying to get free and tears freely fell down my face before I noticed I was even crying. My heart felt as if it was weighing my body down as I looked up at Adam, who just stared back down at me. I wasn't able to speak, the world seemed to be closing around me into a large black hole.

Adam walked over to the coffee table and grabbed a large metal looking vase off of it. I looked up at him, words wanted to flow out of my mouth but I couldn't get them out.

“I’m sorry, Gwenith,” Adam said before swinging the vase, which made contact with my head, and I fell to the floor.