Letters From Cages

At that precise moment, everything stopped. Silence overcame the underground basement and no one made a move. If anything were to be heard, it was my heavy breathing, in and out, as I still sat with my eyes closed. I slowly opened them but wanted to close my eyes the instant I saw what was in front of me.

Adam was lying on the ground, blood surrounding his body, his eyes were closed and his hands limp at his side. Annabelle was standing above him, her hands shaking. The whole group stood in silence.

“He was stupid. I told him to get out of my way and he didn’t," Annabelle rationalized. "It was his fault.”

“You killed him!” I yelled. Annabelle snapped her head in my direction, her eyebrows furrowed straight at me.

“He was in my way,” She said through gritted teeth. “You should be lucky you’re still alive right now.”

“Shut up, all of you,” Nigel said calmly. “Doing what we just did was unexpected, but it still shouldn’t interfere with what we were planning to do.”

Nigel looked over at me and I suddenly felt as if the air was pressing weight onto my body. I was overwhelmed and at that point, I just wanted them to kill me already. Adam was dead because of me. Because he was trying to protect me. Carter is in prison because he was trying to protect me. Every single person in my life has been in danger all because of me. I’d rather be dead in order for them to finally be free from this.

“Do it,” I insisted. “Just do it.”

Nigel hastily grabbed the gun from Annabelle’s clutched hands and stepped towards me slowly. This time I didn’t close my eyes, and this time there was no sense of panic or alarm, instead I tried to stay calm as Nigel’s footsteps as descended toward me with small thuds. I was ready for this to finally be over. I didn’t want anyone else to be ruined from my hands.

Nigel grasped the gun and placed it against my temple, it’s cold metal pressing against my skin. I continued to stare in front of me, and my eyes met Jerry's. His eyes quickly moved away from mine and down to the floor.

“Sorry it had to end this way, Gwenith,” Nigel said. His finger gradually pressed the trigger and what was probably only five seconds felt like my whole lifetime compressed.

But, right at the moment he was about to pull the trigger, the loudest crash I had ever heard came from upstairs. Nigel pulled the gun off of my cheek and my shoulders sunk, almost feeling like they were going to crash into my body. The group stayed completely still, waiting to hear the noise again.

The crash happened again, and this time we all heard footsteps stomping around the house.

People were here.

And apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was surprised that they were.

“Police!” We heard a deep voice yell from upstairs. "Police, show where you are!" Everyone in the basement faltered, their eye’s wide.

“Shit, shit shit shit,” Jerry muttered.

“We need to leave,” Nigel prompted. “Right now.”

“But what about the girl?” Charlie asked, looking over at me.

Nigel stopped and looked at me, “Take her with us, if we leave her here they’ll find her and she’ll tell them everything. Go to the basement window, right now. Take Adam's body."

The group stayed where they were.

“Now!” Nigel yelled.

Everyone complied as Jerry leaned down and picked up Adam’s body off of the floor, and then stopped to take a look at me as Marco leaned down and untied the ropes around my wrists and feet. I stayed where I was as the group made their way to the window. Once they realized I wasn’t with them, Nigel angrily clutched the gun and walked straight towards me. He pressed the gun against the small of my back and moved his head next to mine, keeping his voice low.

“You will move right now, or Adam won’t be the only one in your life who will end up dead.”

“Threats won’t work with me anymore,” I said coldly, my voice monotone and straight. My throat felt empty and my eyes felt even emptier. I turned around to face Nigel, and looking at him straight in the eye, I prepared myself for what I was about to do, and then I screamed the loudest scream I could possibly manage.

“Help!" I yelled. "Help me! I’m in here! They’re going to kill me!”

“You fucking idiot, shut up, shut up!” Nigel hissed at me. I screamed even louder as Nigel angrily pushed me to the ground. He placed the gun near me again as I yelled and flailed around. He landed on top of me, holding me to the floor and placing his sweaty hand against my mouth. And then that was when it happened. Out of pure impulse and struggle, Nigel fired the gun. The bullet went into my stomach and I felt a roaring pain on my side. I yelled out one final time and reached down to clutch my side, where blood filled my hands. Nigel immediately abandoned me and ran out of the basement window where the group was long gone.

My breathing seemed to get heavier and shallower and soon enough it was hard for me to breathe at all. My skin felt cold and I began to shake, and everything began to get hazy as I heard a loud bang of the door flying open and then hurried steps down the stairs. I felt someone pick me up, causing my side to hurt even more. A man’s voice yelled what I thought was my name, but it sounded as if he was yelling through water. My world seemed to shut around me, and as they carried me up the stairs, everything finally went black.



“Gwenith? Open your eyes, dear.”

Everything was bright as my eyes slowly fluttered open to reveal a white room. I was lying in a white bed, staring at white walls, and my grandmother was in front of me wearing a white dress. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I was in heaven. But the pain in my right side told me otherwise.

“Am I alive?” I asked. My grandmother smiled, for what seemed like the first time I had ever seen in the whole span of knowing her. She reached for my hand and rubbed her thumb over the top of it.

“Yes,” She replied.

“What happened?” I asked.

Suddenly, my father walked into the room with none other than Walter Kreankali, the police officer I had sworn to detest all my life, at his side. Walter took off a hat that adorned his large head.

“Gwenith,” My dad breathed and glided towards me to kiss the top of my head. My eyes still stayed on Kreankali as he stayed standing near the door.

“What happened?” I repeated, looking right at him. He fumbled his fingers over his hat and finally looked up at me.

“I’m sorry I never believed you,” Kreankali finally spoke. “The ring… and the information you told me added up about thirty minutes after you left the police station. I tried to gather enough evidence and details I could about Nigel Crow and convinced a few of my men to head over to Filmot Glen to pay him a visit. We saw your car, heard loud music and looked in the window to see blood on the living room floor, so we went in. We almost left until we heard you screaming from the basement.”

“Did you catch them?” I ask. “The whole group. Did you catch them?”

“Three of them we found at first,” Kreankali replied. “We cornered the young Annabelle girl, Marco Crow and Charlie Scranten at a gas station almost a hundred miles away. Marco told us everything about Carter and Daniel Cody, and also about your friend Adam Powell. The group disposed of his body near a graveyard almost at the border of Idaho.”

I felt my stomach churn and tears burned in the back of my eyes. Adam was dead. Adam had risked his life and died defending me, but he had also died betraying me. I couldn't even wrap my head around how I should feel about Adam, but before I could think of him anymore else, Kreankali continued.

“We caught Jerry and Nigel two days after we caught the first three,” He finished.

Two days?

“Wait, what? How long have I been in the hospital?” I asked.

“Almost a week,” My father replied. “They rushed you here for intensive surgery, luckily the gunshot didn’t get near any vital organs and they were able to keep you stable. You’d drift in and out of consciousness, but most of the time when you were awake you never were conscious enough to say much.”

I stayed silent for a few seconds; trying to register everything I was just told. My grandmother kept ahold of my hand and then leaned forward to whisper in my ear.

“You were so brave, my Gwenith,” She whispered. “You are a fighter just like your mother.”

I paused and looked up at her. Her bright green eyes creased, crows-feet outlining them. “Thank you, Lyba,” I said softly.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and the room got quiet. My father looked over at Lyba, and she stood up and backed away from me. I glanced over at the door, waiting for it to open and wondering who else it could be. The door slowly opened, and the person behind it made my breath stick in my throat.

Carter stood in the doorway and looked at me, and I couldn’t take it any more as tears streamed down my face at the mere sight of him. He stood in regular clothing, his hair cut and his eyes glistening towards me. My grandmother, father and Kreankali smiled and left the room. They closed the door behind them and I stared at the one person I loved more than anything else in the whole entire world. My eyes went in and out of focus as my body shook with soft sobs.

I ripped out whatever cords were stuck to me and anything else that confined me to the bed and before Carter could even say anything, I leaped out of the bed and ran towards him. I nearly fell into his arms, my legs collapsed because I was so weak, and I sobbed into his shoulder. He grabbed onto me as tight as he could, kissing me wherever he could. He placed his lips on my own and held onto me tight as I was still crying against him.

“I was released yesterday,” Carter said. “It seems to be that my fiancé didn’t give up on finding the truth, and the truth she found was enough to make the police department lose their reputation."

I cried into his shoulder again and he let out a small laugh and then a growl as he picked me up, his lips pressing against my neck. I kept my head on his shoulder, breathing in his scent as until pulled away from me to look me in the eye.

“You are beautiful, you are wonderful, you are everything and anything I could ever ask for. I couldn’t thank you enough.”

Carter then leaned down and picked me up and walked forward to place me back on my bed. He pushed some hair out of my face and traced his hand along my cheek.

“I love you,” I said meekly.

“You know I love you,” He replied.

I sighed contently and closed my eyes for a second as he rested his hand on my neck. With his other hand, Carter reached into his pocket and grabbed a ring, the same ring his grandparents had given him to give to me when he proposed. He slipped it on my left ring finger and smiled.

“I will always protect you,” He whispered.

At that moment, we stayed still. We did not speak about the group of people that put him in prison or tried to kill me because I knew the truth. We did not speak about Adam. We did not speak about what was going to happen after this. All we knew was that this small and rare moment of just me and him, without any bars, rope, handcuffs or restraints, didn’t seem like it could or would ever happen again. But here we were, just two people surrounded and involved in a web of lies, but still managed to hold onto one another through it all.

There we were, once stuck in cages, but now free.