Letters From Cages

The world seemed to open itself before me as I slowly opened my eyes. Each blink at a time revealed more and more, and each revealing sight was the exact opposite of what I wanted to see. My arms were tied behind my back in a chair and only Jerry’s face was facing me in a dark room that what I assumed was a basement.

“You’re awake,” He said and I just sat and stared. He looked as if he was expecting me to scream, or cry or try to get free, but instead I sat, completely silent and the pang in my chest was the only feeling that I recognized, and that was heartbreak. The last person in the world I would believe to betray me did.

Adam.

Jerry reached forward and touched the spot on my head that Adam had hit me. I tried to pull my head away but Jerry’s hand retreated before I could.

“Sorry about the head. Apparently this whole tying you up thing was the only way Nigel could make you weren’t going to try to kill Adam after you found out,” He said with a smirk. “Are you surprised?”

I didn’t say anything again and I could tell it was starting to aggravate him. His mouth tightened and he took a step towards me but before he could say or do anything, we heard footsteps descending down the stairs and I looked to see the whole entire group making there way down. I had never looked at a group of people with so much disgust in my life. Nigel leaned against the doorway at the top of the stairs as everyone walked down and I looked to see where Adam was as they all made it down into the basement, but he wasn’t with them.

“Where is he?” I asked. Annabelle raised an eyebrow and then all of a sudden I heard a door open and there he was, walking down the stairs. His jaw was clenched and his eyes seemed to hold absolutely nothing.

My fists tightened against one another as he walked. The only person I had one hundred percent trust in throughout this whole entire process had betrayed me. He was with this group all along.

Why?

That was the only question that seemed to repeat itself over and over in my head.
Annabelle walked over to be and placed her lips next to my ear.

“Shocked?” She whispered and then backed up with the rest of the group with a smirk on her face.

Adam stared at me, and I didn’t say anything at all. Disappointment was obviously in my eyes as I stared at the blonde boy who I remembered from high school, who I remembered kissing just a few weeks ago.

“Can you just give us a second please,” Adam said flatly to the group, while looking straight at me. Annabelle looked over at him but his eyes didn’t falter from mine. The group understood and retreated back up the stairs and out of the basement. Nigel stayed at the top of the stairs and looked down at Adam.

“You have five minutes until we explain to her everything, so try not to leave anything out if you don’t want her to hear it from us,” Nigel prompted and then closed the basement door behind him.

After the click of the door was heard, silence filled the room between Adam and I as he stood in front of me.

“How could you?” I finally asked. The right side of my head started to throb from where Adam hit me and I closed my eyes in pain. Adam reached forward to touch my head and I tried to yank it away from him but it was no use. His fingers trailed over the spot where he had hit me slowly and he kneeled down in front of me to look me in the eyes. He rested his hand on my cheek.

“Gwenith,” He breathed. “You’ve got to understand.”

I squirmed in my seat.

“Get away from me,” I seethed, my hair falling into my face. Adam reached forward to push it away and I let out the loudest scream I have ever even managed in my whole entire life. “Get away from me!” I yelled. Adam stood up and took a step back, his demeanor was calm but his once blank eyes held something now, a flash of hurt. “I trusted you!” I screamed while still yanking violently in my seat. My wrists felt like they were on fire as the rope tied around them rubbed against my skin.

“Let me explain,” Adam urged.

My body was shaking as I finally stopped moving and my heavy breathing filled the air of the small basement. Adam stepped forward and leaned down again.

“First, you have to know that I’m in love with you, Gwenith,” Adam said. I closed my eyes as tears filled up underneath my eyelids. “And you have to know that my initial plan wasn’t for it to end up like this. When I first saw you in high school, when I first met you and talked to you, I had no idea who Jerry or Nigel or any of them were. I genuinely wanted to be in your life. But things started to change when I met them and I… I’m so sorry. You’ve got to believe me when I say that everything I had said to you about me always being there for you was true. Half of the things they’re going to say about me are false, okay? They’re liars, all of them. I was tricked into getting involved with them after they told me, no, convinced me, that it would let me finally be close to you. And that if I didn’t help you, they’d kill you, and they’d kill me.”

There were footsteps coming towards the door of the basement and a sense of urgency was evident through Adam.

“You’ve got to believe me when I say that everything we found out was true. I still don’t know myself whether or not Carter was involved, but I know for a fact that they were, Gwenith. I never wanted to do this to you. I always wanted to be here for you.”

The door suddenly swung open and Jerry along with Nigel walked down the stairs. Annabelle, Marco and Charlie were out of sight. Adam placed his lips against my ear.

“Happy Birthday, Gwenith,” He whispered and then stepped back from me to stand next to Jerry and Nigel.

“So, did you guys have a nice chat?” Jerry asked. I didn’t say anything and neither did Adam.

“Did you hear everything you needed to hear?” Nigel asked me. I shook my head ‘no’ and Adam took a sharp intake of breath. Nigel smiled.

“So, Adam didn’t tell you that the picture of you that you two found at the junkyard the first day you spent time with each other, was a picture that Adam took? A picture that, when you moved away with Carter Wright, he angrily burned at the edges and left there to be thrown away? Or the fact that every single time he was with you, he’d report back to us and tell us what you found out so we’d be one step ahead every second?”

I looked up at Adam whose eyes were directed towards the floor.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I finally spoke, my voice sounding weak and small. “There were things that we found out about you all that he had gotten the lead on and then told me. Why would he find things for us to investigate, break into his father’s office building with me, tell me about Jerry’s father… why would he do all of those things if what you all wanted was for me to figure out less about you?”

Nigel and Jerry turned towards Adam, who took a slight step back… and then things started to make sense.

The group threatened Adam that if he didn’t become personally involved with me in some way in order to find out what I knew and what I was planning on finding out, they would hurt him or me or someone else he loved. He agreed to do so because he had feelings for me, and stayed with me as my best friend through it all. He reported the things back to them, but didn’t necessarily tell them that he was the one investigating just as much as I was in the process. He probably told them that I was the one who found out about Jerry’s father, about the financial records and about the car being rented the day of Daniel’s death. He probably never told them that he was the one helping me find out these things. He was just as much involved as I was.

Adam and mine’s eyes connected and we both came to a mutual understanding.

As much as he betrayed me, and as much as I hated him, we both knew that we both hated this group of people so much more than we could ever hate each other.

“Would you like to explain something to us, Adam?” Nigel asked.

“I don’t even know what she’s talking about,” Adam said lamely.

“I know everything, so you might as well just go ahead and kill me,” I stated, trying to sound as brave as possible. “I may not know whether or not Carter was involved, but I know for a fact that you all were. All I hear from you all are threats about hurting people, about your ability to hurt those who try to find out information about you. And you expect me to believe that you guys are all innocent and you did absolutely nothing? That’s pure bullshit. You all either helped Carter kill Daniel, helped him dispose of Daniel’s body at Tier Forest- where I personally believe you have done other illegal things up in that forest as well- and that is why I followed Annabelle there that one day, or you framed Carter expertly and want to make sure that no one gets in the way of finding out the truth. Whether that be Piper, or Adam – or me.”

“You better choose your words wisely, darling,” Jerry said back coolly.

“I’ve always chosen my words wisely. I’ve never been the one to speak up about how I feel until it’s too late. It’s about damn time that I say what we all know. You killed Daniel Cody. I know it. I believe it. I feel it. You can kill me now, do the same exact thing you did to Daniel, but before you do, I want you to admit it. I want you to admit that Carter wasn’t the only one who was involved.”

“Gwenith, stop,” Adam urged.

“No! I’m not stopping. And if you keep me alive I’ll never stop.”

“It seems to me that you’re begging for death, Gwenith,” Nigel said as he took a few steps towards me.

“I don’t have anything else to live for anymore,” I spat.

Nigel sighed and clasped his hands together as Jerry scoffed next to him.

“You don’t want to live for Carter anymore?” Jerry asked. “What a shame. I thought you’d stand by that pathetic guy forever.”

“Carter is not pathetic, and you all know it. He is everything you always wanted to be but never could, Jerry, and that is why you made sure he’s behind bars.” I retorted. Jerry angrily clutched his fists but Nigel put a firm hand on his chest, holding him back. “You brought me here to tell me the real story, and here I am, tied to a chair, ready to hear it. It’s the least you can do before I end up dead at your hands.”

There was deafening silence. Nigel looked over at Jerry and anyone could tell that they were planning on finally telling me the truth, but didn’t want to. Nigel finally nodded at Jerry and a small smirk was evident on Jerry’s face as he turned to me.

“You know it wasn’t hard setting Carter Wright up,” He said.

My stomach dropped and at that moment, I felt a breath escape my lips. A breath that represented the weight of trying to find out what that one sentence just told me. The truth. Relief spread over my body as I waited for Jerry to continue.

“Our original plan with Carter was to get close enough to get money out of his parents and make them believe he was the one stealing it. But we ended up sort of liking the guy. He was just infatuated with us, with our lifestyle, because we told him and taught him things that he had never heard of. Hanging out with us was an experience he never got to do throughout his whole life, and even with you,” Jerry explained. “But then our plan changed when Carter stupidly told us about Daniel Cody’s parents, and how they were even richer than his family. He told us how Daniel talked about his parents’ safe. About how there was almost two million dollars worth of jewelry in that small little box. We knew just the person to call when it came to jewelry, and that was Marco’s father,”

“We conducted an almost brilliant plan. We broke into the Cody’s house when we thought they were all gone, or so we thought. The kid had come home early from an after school program. He caught us red handed, and come on, what were we going to do? Have the kid tell his parents about us and the police take us in for attempted burglary of millions of dollars worth of goods? No. So we did what any logical person would do in the situation, and got rid of the problem. Of course we felt bad killing an innocent kid who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we had no choice. I got a truck, stole a pair of Carter’s shoes and clothing and set up the whole thing. Carter was driving back from the town over picking up some car parts for us during this whole deal, so his alibi was actually true, but of course who would believe such an unreliable alibi?”

Jerry exhaled a loud breath, and put his hand to his chest. “Man, that made me feel a whole lot better getting all that out, didn’t it, everyone? I just feel so relieved to know that Carter’s stupid little girlfriend can finally die happy knowing that her boyfriend went to jail an innocent man. Now we can all go to sleep at night without anything changing.”

Tears fell down my cheek and I bit into my bottom lip and tasted blood. Jerry’s speech wasn’t exactly easy to hear, but it was enough for a sense of calmness to pull itself over me, because I finally knew the truth about everything. I knew that Carter didn’t do it. I knew he was innocent and that everything I had been fighting for was right.

But that still didn’t get me anywhere because I was still tied to a chair in front of three men, two of which were ready to kill me any second, and one that had just betrayed me.
“So, now that she knows, what should we do with her?” Jerry asked Nigel.

“We know what we need to do, Jerry,” Nigel replied in an annoyed tone. It seemed possible that Jerry’s enthusiasm about this didn’t match Nigel’s feelings towards the situation.

“Don’t kill her,” Adam said. The two men looked at him and he looked back at them both, pleading with his eyes. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Oh but we do,” Jerry replied. “She knows the truth now, about everything. We have no other choice.”

Suddenly, the door to the basement opened and Marco, Annabelle and Charlie walked down the stairs. Loud music had been turned on upstairs, which I knew was turned on for a reason. To cover up any noise. The bass of the music was making the floorboards of the basement shake.

“Just making sure no one will be able to hear her,” Annabelle said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small pistol and my mouth dropped open. My body was trembling and I knew that in the next ten minutes, I was going to be dead.

“You don’t have to do this!” Adam urged. Annabelle laughed and her gloved fingers wrapped around the handle of the gun.

“Adam, don’t try to start being the knight in shining armor now, you’re just as guilty as all of us,” Annabelle replied and stepped towards me.

“Just stop. Just stop and think of what else we can do. Nigel, we don’t have to do this,” Adam begged, his words rambling over each other. I closed my eyes tightly, not wanting to see what was in front of me. I’d rather die seeing black then die seeing these peoples’ faces.

“Get out of my way!” I heard Annabelle yell over the loud rock music. Suddenly, there was a huge ruffling of feet and I heard someone yell again. I kept my eyes shut, silently crying, with my hands behind my back, sitting on the chair. I heard footsteps pounding towards me, and felt cold metal press against my left temple. My shoulders shook as I silently sobbed and I mumbled a weak prayer to a God that I had never bothered praying to before, and then there was the loud, unmistakable sound of a gunshot.