This seemed rather deep into the dungeon to qualify as a holding area, but I didn’t ask because of the curling staircase beyond us. If he pushed me down that, I’d break something for sure, especially with my hands clamped behind my back.
Goose bumps danced along my arms the longer we walked, my neck prickling with awareness.
Something wasn’t right.
He shouldn’t be taking me so far underground.
When we finally turned off the staircase, it was into a dark corridor with only one light at the very end. He flicked on a flashlight, leading us through the murky tunnel of rocks and mold and unspeakable scents.
I swallowed. “This is holding?”
“It is for you,” he replied, pushing me forward. “Now don’t get funny. There’s no one here to see you accidentally fall.”
I shivered, his threat not lost on me, especially as nudged me sharply from behind, nearly causing me to lose my footing.
I didn’t know this guard.
Didn’t understand why he would treat me this way.
Maybe Yakariah was a friend?
At the end of the hall, he unlocked the heavy door, unlatched my cuffs, and shoved me inside onto a raggedy mattress.
“Enjoy your stay, princess,” he said, slamming the iron bars behind me before lighting a few candles outside my cell. It left me in the shadows, with only a few feet of vision in front of the bars.
I jumped to my feet, clutching the poles. “Please don’t leave me down here.”
He chuckled, turned, and started whistling as he strolled away from my new cage.
“You can’t leave me here!” I shouted after him. “I’m innocent! I didn’t do this!”
He ignored me, the sound of his whistling echoing in the distance the farther he went, leaving me to my fate.
I shook the bars, screaming at the injustice of being left down here. Alone. Wet. Cold. Surrounded by darkness with only a sliver of light coming from the candles beside my door. The wax dripped ominously onto the stone floor, denoting what little time I had left.
“Grigory!” I shouted, aware it was futile, that he couldn’t hear me way down here.
Why had I let that guard drag me here?
This wasn’t holding.
This was the depths of the prison.
“Somebody help me!” I should have fought back. I’d been frozen in my fear, complicit due to my confusion, and it’d landed me in this iron cell plagued by a cold draft through the cracks in the concrete walls.
What had I been thinking?
What the hell happened?
“I didn’t do this,” I said for the thousandth time to myself. “I… I don’t know how…” I swallowed, another treacherous tear tracking down my cheek.
Be strong, I told myself. You’ll be fine.
“Grigory will come for me.” He had to. Just holding. He’d review the evidence and… and… and see that I did it. That I ripped Yakariah’s heart out.
But I had no memory of it. I woke up with the blood coating my hands. Yet I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.
“I saw the attack on camera,” one of them had said.