I did not send a message immediately.
That sounds irrational until you understand what Marcus had taught me about mistakes.
One mistake around him could cost days.
A wrong tone could cost food. Looking at him too long could provoke an argument. Looking away could provoke a different one. Asking a question might be called disrespect; remaining silent might be called contempt.
So I had learned patience.
The phone showed a weak Wi-Fi signal.
One bar.
Enough, perhaps.
But if I tried sending something large and the connection failed, the battery might die before anything escaped the basement.
I needed something simple.
Something Lena would understand.
I opened our old message thread.
The last conversation displayed on the screen was from months earlier.
Lena: Call me when you’re alone.
Me: I’m fine.
Lena: That wasn’t what I asked.
I stared at those words until they blurred.
I had been so determined to protect the appearance of my marriage that I had helped Marcus isolate me.
Another contraction began.
I lowered the phone and breathed through it.
When the pain eased, I typed with shaking fingers.
Lena. Marcus locked me in basement. Pregnant. Hurt. Call police.
I pressed send.
A spinning symbol appeared.
Sending.
I watched it.
Still sending.
“No.”
I lifted the phone closer to the bars.
The signal vanished.
My chest tightened.
I moved toward another corner.
One bar returned.
The message continued spinning.
“Come on.”
Nothing.
Then footsteps crossed the kitchen above me.
I switched off the screen.
The basement door opened.
Light spilled down the stairs.
Marcus descended carrying a wineglass.
He had changed clothes since welding the cage. Dark trousers. White shirt. Sleeves folded neatly to his forearms.
He looked like the man I had married.
That was another kind of cruelty.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
I pushed the phone beneath my thigh.
“What do you want?”
“Checking on you.”
I almost laughed.
Marcus crouched outside the bars.
His gaze traveled over my face, then downward.
“Still moving?”
“The baby?”
“What else?”
“Yes.”
He sipped his wine.
“Good.”
I watched him.
There were times when hatred felt hot.
This was not one of them.
Mine had become cold.
Precise.
Useful.
“Who’s upstairs?”
“People from work.”
“Do they know?”
He smiled.
“Know what?”
“That I’m here.”
“Of course not.”
“Why invite them?”
His expression sharpened slightly.
I had asked the question deliberately.
The phone beneath my leg was recording.
I had learned that Marcus became most revealing when he believed he was demonstrating power.
“Because life continues,” he said.
“For you.”
“Yes.”
“What happens to me?”
He rolled the wineglass between his palms.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you finally understand that you caused this.”
There it was.
I kept my face still.
“I caused you to put me in a cage?”
“You humiliated me.”
“How?”
“You questioned me. You went through things that didn’t concern you. You kept talking to Lena after I told you she was poisoning you against me.”
My pulse quickened.
He had mentioned Lena.
Good.
I needed him talking.
“So you locked me down here.”
“You needed consequences.”
“And the baby?”
Something flickered across his face.
“Stop using the baby.”
“I’m asking what happens if I go into labor.”
He took another drink.
“That sounds like your problem.”
My stomach tightened, and this time not from a contraction.
“What if something happens to her?”
Marcus leaned closer.
“Then something happens.”
I had known what he was capable of.
Hearing him say it still hollowed something inside me.
Upstairs, someone called his name.
Marcus looked toward the ceiling.
Then back at me.
“See?”
He stood.
“They need me.”
I forced out another question.
“What are you telling them?”
“That you went to stay with family.”
“And when I don’t come back?”
His eyes settled on mine.
He was silent long enough that I knew I had reached the edge of something important.
“You worry too much about the future.”
Then he walked upstairs.
I waited until the basement door closed.
My hands shook as I pulled out the phone.
The recording had captured everything.
Battery: 3%.
The message to Lena had failed.
I swallowed a sob.
Crying consumed energy I could no longer spare.
Think.
The Wi-Fi signal was strongest near the bars beneath the stairwell.
Getting there meant crawling across the cage.
I moved slowly.
My knees screamed against the steel.
Halfway across, another contraction struck.
I stopped, forehead against the bars.
This one was different.
Deeper.
Pressure followed it.
When it ended, I looked down.
There was moisture beneath me.
For several seconds, I simply stared.
Then another warm trickle ran along my thigh.
“No.”
My water might have broken.
I had read enough during pregnancy to know labor could still take hours.
Or it could move quickly.
My body had been starved and injured for weeks. Nothing about this pregnancy was normal anymore.
I reached the stair-side corner.
Two Wi-Fi bars.
I tried again.
This time I sent only three words.
Lena. Help. Basement.
The symbol spun.
Then changed.
Delivered.
My mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Delivered.
Three words had escaped.
I pressed the phone against my forehead.
“Please see it.”
Battery: 2%.
A message appeared almost immediately.
Who is this?
Of course.
The number had no service.
Lena might think it was spam.
I typed:
It’s me. Marcus.
Before I could send it, the basement door opened.
I shoved the phone beneath my body.
Evelyn came down.
She carried a small plate.
On it sat an apple.
Even from several feet away I could see the bruising.
“You’re late,” I said.
She stopped.
Her gaze went to the floor beneath me.
“You’re wet.”
“My water broke.”
Her face changed.
For one second, maternal alarm overcame everything else.
Then she looked at the welded latch.
“What did he do?”
“You know what he did.”
“He wasn’t supposed to weld it.”
I stared at her.
The sentence told me more than she intended.
“You knew about the cage.”
She looked away.
“But not the welding?”
No answer.
“You were supposed to keep the key.”
Her hand rose to the gold chain.
I almost smiled.
“You thought you were in control.”
“Stop.”
“Marcus took your control too.”
Her jaw tightened.
“I said stop.”
“Open it.”
“I can’t.”
“Then go upstairs and tell those people.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You mean you won’t.”
Her eyes hardened.
“You have always made everything difficult.”
I felt the phone beneath my hip.
Recording.
“What did I make difficult?”
“Marcus had plans.”
“What plans?”
She went still.
That hesitation mattered.
“What plans, Evelyn?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“That’s why he put me here?”
She set the apple down outside the bars.
“You should eat.”
“I’m in labor.”
“Then you need strength.”
“One rotten apple?”
Her eyes moved toward my stomach.
I lowered my voice.
“If my baby dies, you helped him.”
Evelyn flinched.
Good.
“You came here every morning. You had the key. You saw me.”
“I never touched you.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“That was Marcus.”
“You brought the water.”
Her face drained.
“You kept me alive just enough for him to continue.”
“Stop recording me in your head like some prosecutor.”
My heart lurched.
For one terrifying instant, I thought she knew.
But she continued.
“You twist everything people say.”
I forced myself to breathe.
“Then tell me the truth.”
“The truth is my son was under pressure.”
“From what?”
“Business.”
“What business?”
Her eyes narrowed.
I had gone too far.
“Eat the apple.”
She turned toward the stairs.
“Evelyn.”
She stopped.
“My contractions are getting closer.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
“If you walk upstairs now and leave me here, remember that you made that choice.”
She did not turn around.
After several seconds, she climbed the stairs.
I waited for the door.
Closed.
I grabbed the phone.
Battery: 1%.
The recording was still running.
I stopped it.
One percent.
I had perhaps one chance.
I sent the unfinished message.
It’s me. Marcus.
Delivered.
Then I attached my location.
The progress circle appeared.
I watched it crawl.
Ten percent.
Twenty.
The Wi-Fi weakened.
I lifted the phone.
Thirty-four.
Another contraction began.
I nearly dropped it.
Forty-eight.
“Please.”
Sixty-one.
The basement door opened.
I heard Marcus.
I killed the screen.
He descended faster this time.
“What did you say to my mother?”
“Nothing she didn’t already know.”
He came to the cage.
His pleasant dinner-host expression had vanished.
“You upset her.”
“She helped you imprison me.”
His hand closed around a bar.
“You don’t get to judge my family.”
“Your guests might.”
Something shifted in his face.
I knew immediately I had made a mistake.
He stepped closer.
“What did you say?”
I remained silent.
Marcus looked around the basement.
Then at me.
His suspicion sharpened.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
He unlocked his phone and checked something.
Perhaps the router.
Perhaps cameras.
I had never known how closely he monitored the house.
He looked toward the cage floor.
I moved my knee over the loose panel.
Marcus smiled.
Slowly.
“Give it to me.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re hiding.”
I said nothing.
He crouched.
“Give it to me.”
Above us, the dinner guests laughed again.
And beneath my knee, with one percent battery remaining, the phone was still trying to send my location to Lena.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: Marcus Began Searching the Cage, So I Used the Only Weapon He Had Never Believed I Still Possessed
While His Dinner Guests Laughed Above Me, I Realized the Cage Was Never Meant to Open Again
Part 2 of 35
